A Transient Primer (From A Therapist)

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Final Up to date on October 20, 2023 by Randy Withers, LCMHC

Each few years, it looks as if a brand new “revolutionary” remedy turns into fashionable. Its inventor will cite research verifying its validity, claiming that that is the silver bullet that may finish human struggling.

Nearly inevitably, these therapies rapidly lose their following and are positioned on the bookshelf to gather mud.

Nevertheless, there have been just a few therapies which have stood the take a look at of time. One in all these is a sort of remedy known as EMDR.

EMDR stands for eye motion desensitization and reprocessing. It’s an eight-stage remedy used to deal with PTSD, anxiousness, phobias, and a bunch of different issues.

It’s rising quickly, with over 100,000 therapists educated in EMDR worldwide.

Nevertheless, regardless of its reputation, no one is certain how EMDR works, leaving it open to criticism. 

This text explores among the hottest theories about how EMDR works. To learn from this submit, it’s vital that you’ve some background details about EMDR. If you want to, take a look at this article to be taught extra about EMDR, then come again and skim this one.

Is EMDR Efficient? 

Earlier than we discuss how EMDR works, we have to reply the query of if it’s efficient. Though there are EMDR skeptics, analysis strongly means that it’s a good way to deal with PTSD.

For instance, a meta-analysis from 2014 discovered that EMDR can considerably cut back PTSD signs, together with melancholy and anxiousness. In her e-book “Getting Previous Your Previous,” Dr. Francine Shapiro, the inventor of EMDR, acknowledged that “greater than 20 scientifically managed research of EMDR have confirmed its effectiveness within the therapy of traumatic and different disturbing life experiences.” 

Moreover, the World Well being Group and the American Psychological Affiliation each suggest EMDR as an efficient therapy for PTSD.

Among the most fascinating analysis on EMDR exhibits that it will probably have an effect on how totally different components of the mind talk with one another. In 2019, researchers used an fMRI machine to look at the influence EMDR had on a bunch of trauma survivors. They discovered that totally different mind areas have been extra related following EMDR therapy, and that different mind areas have been much less related. These adjustments in connectivity probably confirmed that their brains have been therapeutic from trauma. EMDR can create such drastic adjustments on mind functioning that some researchers describe it as “a medical process.”

The AIP Mannequin 

We are able to confidently say that EMDR helps deal with PTSD. Now the query is – why?

In an effort to clarify the advantages of EMDR, Dr. Shapiro created the “Adaptive Info Processing” (AIP) mannequin.

With the AIP mannequin, Dr. Shapiro urged that the human mind is designed to course of and retailer the knowledge it gathers all through the day. 

Traumatic occasions can typically overwhelm the mind’s potential to course of data. When these reminiscences stay unprocessed, they will create signs of PTSD and different psychological well being issues.

Let me use an instance to assist clarify. If I requested you to recollect what you had for breakfast yesterday, how would you’re feeling? Chances are high you’ll really feel nice – breakfast is often an unremarkable a part of the day. As such, your mind processes consuming breakfast and shops it in your long-term reminiscence.

Now, what if I requested you to recollect probably the most traumatic occasion you’ve ever skilled? Until you’ve handled this trauma, you’ll probably expertise some misery. It is because there are components of the reminiscence your mind hasn’t been in a position to course of and retailer.

Over time, these reminiscences can create anxiousness, melancholy, and PTSD signs, making it vital to course of them. Utilizing the AIP mannequin, Dr. Shapiro urged that EMDR in some way prompts the mind’s pure potential to retailer reminiscences away.

So, the AIP mannequin does a fantastic job of explaining the outcomes we see from EMDR, but it surely doesn’t clarify the precise mechanism by which EMDR helps the mind heal.

How EMDR Works

Fortunately, it is a subject of curiosity amongst many researchers. As such, there are a number of believable theories about how EMDR works. Listed below are three of the preferred.

1. EMDR Mimics Gradual Wave Sleep 

One of the frequent theories about how EMDR works is that it mimics sluggish wave sleep (SWS). Analysis means that SWS performs a key function in processing emotional reminiscences, transferring them from the “feeling” a part of the mind to the “considering” a part of the mind.

Quite a few researchers counsel that the attention actions present in EMDR create mind waves which can be like these present in SWS. As a result of SWS naturally helps the mind clear distressing reminiscences, recreating SWS mind exercise is believed to facilitate this pure therapeutic course of.

Notably, SWS happens as much as 5 occasions per evening; in a typical EMDR session, eye actions are carried out rather more incessantly. This might assist clarify why EMDR processes reminiscences so rapidly.

Take a look at this image that compares EMDR to SWS. The highest line exhibits a participant’s mind waves throughout eye actions, whereas the underside line exhibits mind waves throughout SWS. It’s unattainable to disclaim how related they appear, lending extra proof that the SWS principle could be right.

2. EMDR Taxes Working Reminiscence 

Everytime you accomplish a process, you have to use data you’ve realized all through your life to finish it.

For instance, if I requested you to tie your shoe, you would want to make the most of your data about easy methods to knot your laces collectively to maintain them from coming undone. 

The data you employ to perform duties known as “working reminiscence,” and a few researchers counsel that it performs a vital function in EMDR.

Throughout an EMDR session, the affected person is requested to recall their traumatic reminiscence with its accompanying psychological photographs, ideas, feelings, and physique sensations. As they achieve this, the therapist begins to offer bilateral stimulation (BLS).

This principle of why EMDR works means that recalling the traumatic reminiscence whereas noticing the BLS taxes the mind’s working reminiscence. Basically, our brains can solely attend to a lot data without delay. Whereas noticing the BLS, the affected person can’t absolutely attend to the traumatic reminiscence, resulting in a discount in misery.

This quote from researchers in Switzerland summarizes this principle properly:

“Our outcomes…counsel that recalling a traumatic reminiscence whereas performing a second process would shift the person’s consideration away from the retrieval course of and end in a discount in vividness and emotionality, additionally related to the discount of signs.”

3. Reminiscence Reconsolidation through EMDR 

A standard false impression about reminiscences is that, as soon as they’re saved, they will by no means be modified. Reminiscence reconsolidation is the speculation that, as soon as retrieved, there’s a quick window throughout which reminiscences may be modified. 

Scientists extensively settle for that reminiscence reconsolidation is an actual phenomenon, although the mechanisms by which it happens are debated. Researchers additionally counsel that reminiscences can play a key function within the formation of psychological well being issues.

Lately, psychologists have been utilizing reminiscence reconsolidation to clarify how and why sure varieties of therapies work.  These psychologists counsel that sicknesses like anxiousness, melancholy, and PTSD all have roots in “emotional studying,” or the feelings that correspond with particular reminiscences. These reminiscences are sometimes unconscious with the sufferer unaware of their influence. 

When somebody is made conscious of this emotional studying, they will substitute it with more healthy emotional studying. 

What does this all should do with EMDR? 

EMDR requires sufferers to recall distressing reminiscences. In response to reminiscence reconsolidation, they’re creating the chance for the reminiscence to be modified with new emotional studying. Some researchers even counsel that EMDR is “unintentionally primarily based in reminiscence reconsolidation.”

In the event you discuss to somebody who has benefited from EMDR, they’ll probably inform you how their traumatic reminiscences have modified. Some individuals describe the reminiscence as trying “smaller” or that they now see it as “black and white” of their thoughts’s eye. Though these feedback aren’t analysis, they do sound corresponding to the phenomenon of reminiscence reconsolidation.

Last Ideas

So, how does EMDR work? No one is aware of for positive, however there are a number of believable theories on the market. 

Maybe the principle takeaway from this text is that, no matter the way it works, EMDR can provide aid from PTSD. In the event you’re struggling due to trauma, think about reaching out to an EMDR therapist. They may help you’re taking profitable steps towards therapeutic.