What is the EMDR therapy?
If you've read my previous post you know that in 2019 I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks. Throughout 2020 I submitted myself to various therapies and applied different healing techniques in order to recover and be able to live normally again (although 2020 was nothing but normal). I began my EMDR therapy in January 2020 and continued for 10 months. EMDR means Eye Movement Desensitization And Reprocessing and is a form of psychotherapy developed by an American psychologist, Francine Shapiro in 1988. Initially it was designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories and heal PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). If a patient went through a traumatic event, they are asked to recall it and let the emotions related to it flow through their body. This is when the therapist, who usually uses a hand raised to the level of patient's eyes, starts moving the hand left and right and the patient follows it, which causes a lateral eye movement (watch this video for a more visual explanation). Alternatively hand-tapping or audio stimulation can be used. There are no meds involved and it is not a typical cognitive 'talking' therapy.
What is a trauma "footprint"?
What attracted my attention to EMDR was a chapter I read in David Servan-Schreiber book "Healing without Freud or Prozac: Natural Approaches to Curing Stress, Anxiety and depression". He describes that a traumatic event can leave a "footprint" in our brains that can cause PTSD symptoms to appear even years after the initial trauma. So even after years of traditional psychotherapy a patient, whose memories of the event are being triggered, shows activation in the amygdalae (the reptilian fear center of our brain). The patient rationally admits that there is nothing to be scared of in the present moment - nevertheless the fear is as strong as if the traumatic event was happening right now. This is because the emotional healing can be a lot, lot slower than the mental healing. It's almost as if the emotions got trapped in time in patient's brain, leaving an invisible "footprint".
How does the EMDR therapy work?
EMDR helps to unlock the emotions and process them in, very often, surprisingly short time. The patient can go through all stages of grief related to the trauma even within one session. From the initial shock and denial through anger and deep sadness toward release and acceptance. Studies show that EMDR patients tend to forgive and feel mercy toward people or situations that caused their trauma quite quickly and even find a deeper meaning in their experiences. In his book Servan-Schreiber claims that this mechanism works not only in big-T traumas (like death of a closest relative or being a victim of war, assault, violence or rape), but it appears also in small-t traumas that all humans go through (like being humiliated by a teacher, bullied by peers, unexpectedly fired or having experienced a parental divorce).
What are the "little" traumas?
This last part was especially interesting to me. I've never considered myself as a person who went through a big trauma. However I started having (undiagnosed) anxiety in my early teens. Undiagnosed for almost two decades. I only realised that I suffered from it when I began to practice yoga, conscious breathing and meditation regularly and it suddenly disappeared. So when it came back (and stronger than ever) in 2019 I dug into everything related to anxiety treatment that didn't include medication. From posts and videos by dr. Nicole Lepera, know as the Holistic Psychologist, I learned that in our childhood we can experience all sorts of little traumas. For instance when we're not heard, validated, recognised. When we're not allowed to feel strong emotions (like anger, fear, sadness) or when we're told that we shouldn't be feeling what we're feeling by a parent or a caregiver (for example when parents argue and then one of them tells us, still upset, that there is nothing to worry about). It's not really the event itself that has to be traumatic, but the way we as children perceive it is what makes it a trauma. So even if the parent or a caregiver did its best, we might still suffer from PTSD and unresolved emotions in our adulthood.
What's the EMDR experience during first sessions?
During my first two session of EMDR I told the therapist a brief story of my life, important events and the reason why I wanted to undergo the therapy. I also specified that there are no particular traumatic childhood events that I'm aware of. She assured me that during our time together my own memory can lead me to moments that did impact me strongly, even though I rationally evaluate them as not that important. I admitted that apart from the anxiety, the underlying feeling that accompanied me throughout most of my life was not being enough. As if there was something wrong with me that so often left me feeling unworthy and unlovable - no external event or inner work I had done so far could erase those underlying concepts. Hence we started our third session from the thought "there is something wrong with me'. She asked me to recall the first time I experienced that thought. The earliest related memory was from when I was 7 or 8 and I had an argument with my best friend at school. I couldn't remember what happened exactly, but I was able to remember how it felt. I was angry, even furious because she didn't want to talk to me. I wanted to grab her and "make" her be my friend again. In my adult body I started feeling pulsation in my upper abdomen, just below my chest. It felt hot, almost burning. I knew that feeling. Fury, frustration and impotence. The therapist asked me to concentrate not on the memory anymore, but on that sensation in my abdomen. And then she told me to concentrate my sight on her raised hand while still focusing on the body sensations. She said that thoughts and emotions might come to me and that I should just let it happen. She began to move her arm energetically from side to side for 15, maybe 20 seconds and then she stopped. She asked me what I felt (the burning sensation continued) and if I saw any images in my head. I told her that I did - they were still related to the same memory. A couple of minutes of conversation later she repeated the instructions and repeated the process.
Within that session my body sensations changed several times, it also brought various memories from my childhood, teenage years and adult times. I didn't have to do anything except of concentrating on my body signals and therapist's hand. She assured me that every thought, memory or feeling were valid and there were no right or wrong answers. She didn't comment too much on anything I said until the end of the session when she gave me a little summary of her ideas. She mentioned that I could experience headaches or vivid dreams, but that did not happen, at least in the first 3 months of our sessions.
Why is it so hard to have a healthy relationship with our parent(s)?
In the following sessions I recalled many memories of my parents. Many mixed feelings. Basically my rational mind was telling me that I should be grateful to them for everything they had done for me, and most of all, that I should love them. I did not feel either way though, which I was constantly blaming myself for. All that was causing an impossible relationship with my parents, especially with my mom. Our conversations and encounters would often start nicely, but if she made a comment on my life that I found judgemental or hurtful, I would shut off or get into a fight with her. I would feel even more guilty and would not want to speak soon, which would make me feel like a really bad and selfish person, hence even more guilty. True vicious circle. Throughout the therapy I accessed many memories related to my mother which were very hurtful to me. I often felt angry and upset and cried deeply. My therapist told me that it was because I was still looking at my mother from a perspective of a child. I still looked for her attention, acceptance, approval and love the same way I did, when I was little and I needed it to survive. So even as a grown-up woman, every time I wasn't receiving what I needed from her I felt terrified, confused, let down, but my rational mind would immediately repress all that and replace it with rational thinking that I simply shouldn't feel that way.
How to emancipate emotionally from a parent?
The therapist told me that to actually forgive someone we first need to allow ourselves to feel hurt, angry, betrayed, unsupported and then let go of these feelings. And so I did let myself feel everything that came my way. At some point I thought I unlocked the pandora box and I would never be able to forgive my mother - or myself. Nevertheless I continued the sessions and after four months reached the deepest wound related to her - the wound of rejection. The wound of rejection is the primary wound human beings experience with a parent or a caregiver of the same gender (I will write a separate post about it). Even though the emotional release related to my rejection wound did not happen during the EMDR session, I am pretty sure it was triggered by it largely (read about my whole experience in this post). More less at the same time I learned that you can never mature emotionally if you do not forgive your parents or caregivers and you don't recognise everything they did for, and to you as gifts. Without it you can never be truly free and independent from them. Besides in my classes on Family Constellations and the Law of Mirror, I found out, that who we need to forgive are the parent figures who were our caregivers in our childhood. With their flaws, mistakes, emotional blockages, ignorance. Forgiving parent figures doesn't necessarily mean having a good relationship with them in our adult life - it's about honouring the fact that they brought us to this world, releasing the past, and when that's done, deciding how we want to relate to your parents today - and whether we want to relate to them at all.
How did EMDR therapy help me personally?
Through unlocking my "little" traumas related to my mother and processing strong emotions connected to them, I was finally able to release the past. Today I am able to look at my mother as an adult, knowing that I do not need her approval, acceptance or even her love for survival. I look at my mother as I look at any other person. This takes a lot of pressure off our relationship. I am able to draw boundaries with her. Since I started allowing myself to feel upset or sad because of her (the same way I would with a stranger), it's so much easier to let go of these emotions quickly. And then I often feel more understanding, compassionate and loving toward her. Most importantly, however, the underlying feeling of being unworthy, not enough and unlovable has not come back ever since. Even in the most difficult moments they're not present anymore - which contributed enormously to a positive treatment of my anxiety - and my panic attacks stopped.
Which symptoms can EMDR therapy help with?
Apart from PTSD anxiety and panic attacks, EMDR is recognised to have helped patients with anger, feelings of despair, lack of motivation, fear of being alone, luck of trust in others, issues in interpersonal relationships.
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