How does EMDR therapy work?

These are the main mechanics of how EMDR therapy works.

Psychological disorders linked to trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder 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 are estimated to affect around 10% of the population.

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

What is EMDR therapy?

EMDR therapy is a type of therapeutic intervention developed by the psychologist Francine Shapiro at the end of the 1980s, whose main objective is to help people overcome problems related to trauma and anxiety management, intervening in the emotional memory.

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

Due to the characteristics of EMDR therapy, which relies heavily on experiential aspects and on the performance of specific exercises under the supervision and instructions of the therapist, this type of intervention is very useful for people of all ages. is very useful for people of all agesThis is also true for young children, since they do not need to understand very abstract reasoning to be able to work on the way they manage their memories and emotions.

How does this type of therapeutic intervention work?

In comparison to other forms of intervention used in the field of psychological therapy, EMDR therapy therapy stands out for focusing on the organic basis of the alterations related to thinking and the management of emotions..

That is, while 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 with each other.

The raison d'être of EMDR therapy has much to do with the idea that many psychological problems, including trauma, arise from dysfunctional internalization of certain experienceswhich are "archived" in our memory in a way that harms us. Therefore, it is necessary to "edit" the way in which the brain stores and processes these contents, so that they can 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 for it.

For this purpose, the bilateral stimulation serves to access these memories and make them no longer associated with great distress or other forms of emotional discomfort. These kinds 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, albeit at a much slower speed). Hence the name EMDR therapy: "eye movement desensitization and reprocessing", or "eye movement desensitization and reprocessing".

Through a series of sessions, the person reaches a state of desensitization to certain memories that previously could not evoke in a normal way without suffering emotional crises. 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 those memories without trying to block them and without them having a severely disruptive effect on their consciousness and behavior.

Do you want professional psychological help?

If in your day-to-day life 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 disturbances can be overcome if you have the right professional support in the field of mental health.

Therefore, we invite you to get in touch with us; at Psychological Center Cepsim we have more than 20 years of experience intervening in cases of sequelae 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, as well as through the modality of online therapy by video call.