EMDR | High Peak Therapy

EMDR Therapy Can Help You Feel Different Quickly

Are you feeling stuck? It's frustrating to be experiencing this internal chaos and you do not know how to calm it down.

Maybe you have tried talk therapy in the past and it didn't seem to help. And now you're not sure what to do.

But EMDR can be the answer. EMDR is one of the most proven methods for healing trauma, PTSD, anxiety & depression as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

The way you experience life can change for the better.

For EMDR with children and adolescents, please click here.

What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, or EMDR therapy, was developed after the chance discovery by an American psychologist, Francine Shapiro, who found that bilateral eye movements helped her process the disturbance of negative thoughts and memories.

A great deal of research has been done on EMDR therapy and its efficacy for the treatment of psychological trauma has been established beyond doubt. As a result, EMDR is now a recommended trauma treatment in many national and international guidelines, for example, those of the World Health Organisation, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the American Psychiatric Association, the UK Psychological Trauma Society and the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which inform and guide healthcare services provided through the NHS.

You can listen to a BBC Radio 4 interview with an EMDR client by clicking here.

EMDR might sound complicated, but let me break it down in simple terms:

Imagine your brain is like a big filing cabinet where all your memories and experiences are stored, including the ones that are disturbing or upsetting. Sometimes, when something really bad or traumatic happens, it's like the filing cabinet gets all messy and those memories can pop up unexpectedly and cause a lot of distress.

EMDR is a type of therapy designed to help clean up that messy filing cabinet in your brain. Here's how it works:

Recall Traumatic Memory: First, you talk about the distressing memory with your therapist. This could be a car accident, a scary event or anything that bothers you.
Eye Movements or Other Stimuli: While talking about the memory, the therapist will guide you to move your eyes back and forth (or sometimes use other forms of bilateral stimulation, like tapping your hands) in a rhythmic way.
Processing the Memory: As you do these eye movements, your brain starts to process the memory differently. It's like your brain is reorganising the messy files and putting them back in the cabinet in a neater, less distressing way.
Feeling Better: After some sessions of EMDR, people often find that the troubling memory doesn't bother them as much anymore. It's still there, but it's not as scary or painful. It's like the memory gets put away in the filing cabinet in a way that doesn't cause you as much distress.

So, in simple terms, EMDR helps your brain process and deal with upsetting memories, making them less overwhelming and allowing you to feel better.

Who is it for?

EMDR is for anyone who has unwanted thoughts, beliefs or memories. It can be helpful for a variety of individuals who have experienced distressing or traumatic events. It is commonly used to treat conditions such as:

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): EMDR is often used to help individuals who have PTSD due to experiences such as accidents, abuse, combat or natural disasters.
Trauma Survivors: People who have experienced any form of trauma, including but not limited to, physical or sexual assault, childhood trauma, accidents or witnessing a traumatic event, can benefit from EMDR.
Anxiety Disorders: EMDR can be effective in treating anxiety disorders, especially when the anxiety is linked to past traumatic experiences.
Panic Attacks: EMDR therapy can help individuals who experience panic attacks, especially if these attacks are triggered by specific traumatic memories.
Phobias: EMDR has been used to treat phobias and irrational fears that have a basis in traumatic experiences.
Grief and Loss: People struggling with grief and loss, particularly if it's complicated by traumatic circumstances, might find EMDR beneficial in processing their emotions.
Performance Anxiety: EMDR can be used to address performance anxiety, especially if the anxiety is related to past embarrassing or traumatic experiences.
Addictions: In some cases, EMDR therapy can be used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for individuals struggling with addiction, particularly when past traumas contribute to the addiction.
Pain: EMDR can help manage pain better, providing better coping skills and some individuals have reported experiencing a reduction in physical pain after undergoing EMDR therapy. Especially where pain is linked to trauma.

It's important to note that while EMDR therapy can be highly effective, it might not be suitable for everyone.

What happens in EMDR therapy?

Initial sessions cover the assessment process and agreeing with the client what they would like to work on. In subsequent sessions, the reprocess-ing is accomplished by working with images that relate to the trauma. These could be visual images but might also be sounds, smells, tactile memories or other things.

Bilateral stimulation facilitates the processing of an image, usually by following the therapist’s fingers with your eyes as they move their fingers to and fro in front of you for a short time. Other forms of bilateral stimulation may be used if more appropriate, such as tapping..

Maintaining distance

In EMDR therapy, it is not necessary to describe in detail to the therapist every step of what happened in the traumatic event being worked with. Nor is it necessary to relive the event over and over again as an essential part of the therapeutic process.

This is an important difference from some other forms of trauma-focused treatments.

For individual memories that you may find particularly difficult to talk about, it is possible not to tell the therapist anything about that memory at all, and still do an EMDR session on it. This would not perhaps be the best way to work with all the aspects of an entire traumatic event, but it is a possibility for individual memories. This can help to maintain a greater sense of privacy and distance from the trauma.

How long does it take?

It’s difficult to say how many sessions an individual might need. EMDR is usually a short-term therapy which could be something like six sessions or fewer, for example, for single event traumas. Where there is complex trauma it could take considerably longer. Sessions are usually at a frequency of once a week to allow time for processing between sessions. Individual sessions are normally 60 minutes long.

For clients who are already working with a counsellor who does not practise EMDR, it is possible to see an EMDR therapist on a short-term basis to address a particular issue, and then return to one’s regular counsellor. This would, of course, need to be agreed with the client and both therapists beforehand.

Big "T" Traumas and PTSD

EMDR is the Gold Standard therapy for overcoming disturbing memories. You have survived, now thrive!

C-PTSD

Complex PTSD can be effectively treated with EMDR therapy, usually with longer term engagement in therapy.

Single Incident Traumas

Reduce distress to triggers that developed after single incidents that threatened your safety.

Immigration Trauma

Assisting adults who immigrated to the UK and who developed PTSD as a result of the circumstances for leaving their homeland, their journey, and acclimating to a new culture.

Active Duty and Retired Military

EMDR therapy for members of the military, both active and retired.

First Responder Therapy

EMDR Therapy the for police, fire responders and community first responders, paramedics, lifeguards, emergency workers and medical professionals.

LGBTQI+ Clients

This practice is a safe space for clients who identify as LGBTQI+ looking for an EMDR Therapist.

Shift Negative Self Beliefs

EMDR targets the brain's power to desensitise and shift negative beliefs. The result, feel empowered and free!