Mental Health Awareness

Recently, mental health awareness has moved into the forefront of the journalistic and social media’s conversation, and for good reason. People are finally finding the strength and support to share their challenging life experiences and in effect allowing others to understand they are not alone in their suffering, that it is in fact okay to talk about things and seek help. It’s about time.

Mental health issues are highly treatable. Once you learn the name of what holds you back and its corresponding treatment there can be a sense of empowerment - one that helps you on the path to healing.

Finding a therapist to work with

It’s important to find a therapist who has the skills to work with the experiences you have. Even more important is how well you click with that therapist. Do they specialize in what you are struggling with? Do you feel you can trust them? Do you feel heard? Are they willing to collaborate with you in your treatment? Finding a therapist who works with the things you are experiencing and offers tools to help you move through your current situation, cope with future stressors and possibly even resolve beliefs, behaviors and emotions that are keeping you stuck in the past, is the key to getting the most out of your therapeutic work.

EMDR- Is it for you?

One of my favorite tools for working with past trauma, stuck beliefs and anxiety is EMDR. (A recent episode of Grays Anatomy featured a scene with EMDR being used.) More and more people have heard of it and are now seeking it out. EMDR is one of those therapies that is hard to explain. It is easier to say “you have to experience it to understand it” but I will try to describe it here.

When we live through an overwhelming, life threatening or disempowering experience it is common for our memory to record this event on several different levels or what I call channels (mind, body, spirit/emotion). Then when we move forward in life, those events can pop up when we aren’t expecting them. The memories can be fragmented and feel like a jumble of feelings that don’t make sense, body sensations that are uncomfortable and out of proportion to the situation we are facing right now. We feel stuck and fearful and unable to move what keeps us blocked. All of these factors can make us feel crazy and out of control.

EMDR is a therapy where faulty or ineffective beliefs are recognized and targeted. We call to mind past instances where that belief was present. An EMDR therapist then applies BiLateral Stimulation(BLS) to begin our processing. (Bilateral Stimulation comes in several forms, watching fingers move back and forth before our eyes, holding tappers that alternate with a buzz from hand to hand, headphones that alternate beeps, or tapping on knees or ankles with a wand or hand with client permission) BLS helps a person access the memory and begin to weave all channels (memory, thoughts, emotions, physical sensations) of the memory together.

• Sometimes we store memories as emotions

  • anger, fear, sadness

• Other times as body sensations

  • like tension, nausea, headaches, insomnia, IBS, pain

• Or as a fragmented memory, thoughts, story or narrative usually resulting in

  • a negative belief about ourselves and our lives, or negative internal chatter, the “shitty committee” in your head

As one processes a memory, all channels of information come together to create a unified understanding of the event, with a beginning, middle and end. Gaps of the story become filled. And the person processing the memory discovers adaptive beliefs about themself when remembering what happened to them. Lastly, empowered beliefs are applied to other situations that a person could experience in the future should a similar experience show up again - with adaptive skills and healthier beliefs about your ability to handle things.

Whether you know it or not, your organism, your whole person has the power to heal and has the resources to create a better narrative about your life! These adaptive beliefs are not given to you by the EMDR therapist, but you come up with these adaptive beliefs on your own. EMDR is not a thinking therapy. It is much more a mind/body therapy.

What “better” looks like

Clients typically report that something has shifted or changed since they have cleared a target - (jargon for successfully processed a memory). That change shows up in:

• lightened mood

• clearer thinking

• an ability to deal with previously overwhelming life experiences

• an ability to interrupt former thought or behavior patterns

• a more neutral or positive internal chatter

• relief of physical symptoms

• a sense that this experience happened to me, but it is over - the emotional charge is no longer present

  Curious about EMDR? Contact me and lets see if EMDR therapy is right for you.