Emma Redfern Psychotherapy Services Psychotherapy, EMDR & IFS Supervision in Honiton, Devon

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing

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EMDR is an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. It was validated by NICE in 2005 as a treatment of choice for PTSD. Its application is also much broader. EMDR can help you free yourself from:

limiting beliefs

phobias

the effects of childhood trauma

the effects of one-off traumas

bad habits and addictions

EMDR is a compassionate form of therapy which is ideal for:

helping you let go of the past so that it doesn't negatively impact on the present

enabling you to learn from the past, however painful

assisting your ability to choose your life

enhancing self-acceptance and self-esteem

helping you achieve your goals

losing self-defeating and self-destructive behaviours

How it works
Just as the body is designed and equipped to heal after physical trauma (a cut to your finger, a bruise to your leg, giving birth, having surgery, for example), so is the mind. The brain has what EMDR practitioners call an Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) system which enables a disturbing experience to be digested or processed and for appropriate learning to take place. Much of the digesting or processing takes place during REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep which is normal and part of everyday functioning). However, there are times when this digesting or processing system can be overwhelmed. The disturbing experience gets stuck, it remains frozen inside the brain and body. This has a negative impact on the person whose AIP system is overwhelmed, just as there would be a negative impact if that cut finger or surgical incision could not heal.
Once a person has been unable to process an event by themself (perhaps when they were a child with a child's limited resources, for example) then the use of bilateral stimulation (using eye movements, taps or sounds) can activate or jumpstart the reprocessing of the memory of that event to resolution. During resolution, the distress frozen in the memory and the symptoms the distress drives (flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, phobias, limiting self beliefs, for example) are resolved. Not only are the negative effects resolved, but a person's innate human resources are activated and learning takes place.

Working with me
As well as being a mental health professional with up-to-date trauma training, I have myself experienced developmental and one-off traumas and the healing of those traumas (using many forms of therapy including EMDR). I am well placed to recognise and understand the effects of trauma and to help you recognise, understand and reprocess your own trauma experiences. In reprocessing the past, it becomes just that, the past, a memory that no longer carries distress and a memory from which strength, learning and growth can be achieved.