How does EMDR therapy work?

Psychological alterations linked to trauma, such as post-traumatic stress or complex trauma, are among the psychopathologies with the greatest capacity to damage people's mental health.

Similarly, anxiety disorders are among the most common psychological disorders, and it is estimated that they affect around 10% of the population.

Both forms of discomfort can be addressed by a very useful type of therapeutic intervention, which helps to reprocess memories and negative emotions associated with them: EMDR therapy. In this article we will see, in a summarized way, what it is and how it works.

• Related article: "The 8 benefits of going to psychological therapy"

What is EMDR therapy?

EMDR therapy is a type of therapeutic intervention developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro at the end of the 80s, and whose main objective is to help people overcome problems related to trauma and anxiety management, intervening in emotional memory.

In this form of therapy, bilateral stimulation exercises play a fundamental role, in which seeks to activate one lobe of the brain at a time in a differentiated way over several sequences; The objective is to achieve a habituation and desensitization effect, a mechanism not far removed from other therapeutic resources such as clinical hypnosis or systematic desensitization.

Due to the characteristics of EMDR therapy, very supported in the experiential and in the realization specific exercises under the supervision and instructions of the therapist, this type of exercise intervention it is very useful in people of all ages, also in young children, since they do not need to understand very abstract reasoning to be able to work on their way of managing their memories and emotions.

• You may be interested in: "What is trauma and how does it influence our lives?"

How does this type of therapeutic intervention work?

Compared to other forms of intervention used in the field of psychological therapy, EMDR therapy stands out for focusing on the organic basis of disorders related to thinking and managing emotions.

In other words, although the typical techniques of the cognitive-behavioral modality aim to modify patterns of thought and specific behavior by questioning beliefs and internalizing instructions and ways of recognizing emotions and ideas, EMDR seeks to intervene in the way in which the networks of neurons involved in memory and emotions interact each.

The raison d'être of EMDR therapy has a lot to do with the idea that many psychological problems, including trauma, arise from a dysfunctional internalization of certain experiences, which are "filed" in our memory in a way that hurts us. For this reason, it is necessary to "edit" the way in which the brain saves and processes these contents, making it possible for them to be integrated into the emotional memory system in a normal way, like the rest of the contents that we can remember and evoke without suffering significantly from it.

With this objective, bilateral stimulation serves to access these memories and remove them from being associated with great distress or other forms of emotional distress. These types of interventions are completely painless and non-invasive, and usually consist of relatively simple exercises, such as performing certain eye movements alternately (emulating the way we move our eyes in REM sleep, although at a much lower velocity). Hence the name of EMDR therapy: "eye movement desensitization and reprocessing", or "desensitization and reprocessing by eye movements".

Through a series of sessions, the person is reaching a state of desensitization to certain memories that before could not evoke in a normal way without suffering emotional crises; In addition, the effects of the therapy are maintained over time, which allows the person to turn the page and accept the contents of these memories without trying to block them and without having a severely disruptive effect on your consciousness and your behaviour.

Do you want to have professional psychological help?

If in your day to day you experience emotional discomfort related to psychological trauma or anxiety, it is important that you start a psychotherapy process as soon as possible; these types of alterations can be overcome if adequate professional support is available in the field of mental health.

Therefore, we invite you to contact us; on Cepsim Psychological Center We have more than 20 years of experience intervening in cases of consequences of child abuse, domestic violence and other forms of traumatic experiences. You can count on us both in our centers located in the most central districts of Madrid, and through the modality of online therapy by video call.