Getting Unstuck
Unlocking Your Healing Potential with EMDR
One of the most inspiring and simultaneously maddening parts of being a therapist that I’ve noticed is that people I meet tend to have the solutions to their problems.
Despite this, it seems that we could sit forever looping on the same problems, identifying the same solutions that are sometimes followed up on… sometimes not. I’m guilty of this too! There are certainly patterns I’ve been sick of and logically known how to end, but kept repeating unnecessarily. Relatable?
This past weekend I participated in an intensive Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) training that offered a compelling explanation for what that “stuckness” is all about. EMDR is perhaps explained most often and most effectively using the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model of learning. This theory suggests that all of our brains have a system for processing our experiences and learning from them. We keep the good, we release the waste. I think of it as the brain’s digestive system! It’s also compared to the way that the body heals from a physical wound; there’s a clotting process, a scab appears, and eventually fully heals.
Issues arise when something happens that prevents the system’s processing, which is often the case in disturbing events (obviously traumatic ones and otherwise). We don’t always have the tools to respond to our environment either because we’re unequipped, or the situation is heightened. Then our nervous system does what we know our nervous system does: Fight. Fight. Freeze. These responses are like splinters in nervous system. Information is therefore not “digested” fully or is processed in an unhelpful way.
These undigested memories show up in the form of negative cognitions about ourselves and the world, overwhelming (or lack of) emotions, images, and disturbing sensations in the body. While this is unideal, in and of itself, it starts to truly cause us issues in the present day when we are triggered by our environment. Hence, the acting in ways that are incongruent for our otherwise highly capable selves. Sometimes that leads us to re-experience the disturbing events, or develop maladaptive behavior to manage our negative experiences. This is what is meant when trauma experts say, “The past is present.” We are responding to our environment not based on what’s actually happening, but rather based on what it feels is happening, according to the maladaptive memory network.
Annoying, right?! But good news:
Knowing this is powerful, and can help us shift to a state of curiosity rather than reactivity and self-judgement.
There are solutions to help!
There are plenty of evidence-based psychotherapies that understand this, and work to help us to rewire what we’ve got going on. CBT and all of its derivatives as well as narrative therapy are great examples of “Top-Down” approaches that deal with life issues or lingering effects of trauma by helping us consciously understand our thoughts and essentially pick new ons.
EMDR is a type of somatic, or “Bottom-Up” therapy that has a similar end-game, a new story, but resources the wealth of information in our nervous system to navigate through the body, our emotions, and then the conscious mind.
EMDR works through Dual Attention Stimulation (aka Bilateral Stimulation) that is classically achieved by asking the participant to engage in rapid eye movement side-side while systematically targeting a memory. The bulk of the research has been conducted with eye movement, but dual attention stimulation can also be achieved with taps, sounds, etc. left-right. (Note - many people seem to think of tapping practiced in Emotional Freedom Technique when I mention taps. That’s another cool resource, but not what we’re discussing here!
It’s through Dual Attention Stimulation that we enter the memory network and start to clean out the gunk. You are kept juuust enough in the present, that you’re able to go deeper into the memory network that you probably would just sitting on your couch. Fun brain fact - activity in the amygdala (where our emotions live) appears to quiet down through the eye movements, taps, etc.¹ So imagine, the “freak out function” is not muted, but quieter. It’s going to make it a little easier to get in there and do the heavy lifting we need to do.
Disclaimer - that does not mean EMDR will not be an emotional journey. The whole point is to get our brain to connect the dots. That sucks sometimes, especially when our unconscious has been working hard to keep those dots unconnected. Grief, despair, pain - all the things we didn’t let ourselves feel before - may come to the surface. Not a walk in the park… But (IMO) better than taking walks in the park for the rest of your life with bundles of disturbed memory networks in your brain.
My experience of the people I’ve been lucky enough to work with, and honestly most people I know, is not that they are not willing to do the work. Most of us can buy into a bit of discomfort for a greater reward. A lot of times we just don’t know what’s possible. We think, “This is as good as it’s going to get.” Or sometimes we don’t know where to start. Or we keep getting stuck (though now you understand a little bit more about why - so no being mean to yourself).
Stuckness is discouraging. Tiring. You may start thinking you’re defective. It might lead you to settle or accept things you don’t really need to accept.
I’ll invite you to consider that you don’t know what you don’t know! As someone who received buckets of therapy starting at a young age, I got to work on myself a lot. But there was also a sense of “I’m always kind of going to have to deal with this.” When I was in grad school and started feeling overwhelmed by issues I thought I had dealt with, I sought out an EMDR therapist. Granted, this was paired with a lot of other tools. But looking back four years, I can see how EMDR gave me the opportunity to not change the past, but really absorb the lessons I needed from it… And ditch the rest. It continues to be a tool I turn to and gives me the confidence that I can deal with hard things - because you know, life be like that sometimes.
How excited am I to have this extra layer of knowledge in my practice? Over the moon! I’m so thankful for the brave souls I work with who are curious about what else is possible. Who are brave enough to wonder, “What if there really is nothing wrong with me?”
So I will leave you all with that little tidbit of curiosity to ponder for yourselves. But don’t ponder too hard. I would bet on it. There’s nothing wrong with you. You have all the answers you need inside of you.
Peace, love, and freedom <3