SOMATIC EXPERIENCING & EMDR
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING & EMDR
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Trauma is experienced in the body, not just the brain. Our body knows what is happening before the brain does and responds before the brain.
Beginning in the 1970’s, Peter Levine's exploration into how animals deal with threat in the wild led to the development of the Somatic Experiencing method, a method that is highly effective in dealing with the effects of overwhelm on our nervous system. It is a clinical methodology based upon an appreciation of why animals in the wild are not traumatized by routine threats to their lives, while humans, on the other hand, are readily overwhelmed and often subject to long-lasting traumatic symptoms of hyperarousal, shutdown, and dysregulation.
Everything we experience in the brain, we experience in the body, including emotion and memory. Somatic Experiencing uses the inner wisdom you hold to allow healing to unfolds as it needs to, at the pace you are ready for. In this modality, we recognize the body’s natural resilience and capabilities for healing. We follow sensations, images, behaviors, affect, and meaning related to past distressing events to move through the ways they are showing up in the present.
When we learn to follow the body’s natural impulses, we can more easily allow distress to move through us, rather than become stuck within.
Do upsetting memories have a stranglehold on your life?
Have you ever thought of something upsetting and suddenly feel like you’re reliving it all over again? You replay events or conversations over and over until you’re spiraling and freaking out.
When you experience something upsetting, it can get locked in your brain with the original images, thoughts, sounds, feelings, and body sensations. Because your brain can’t properly process and integrate that information, you continue to re-experience it as though it’s still happening now.
EMDR therapy releases stuck memories to reduce the volume of your symptoms so you can understand, heal, and move on. It’s a powerful approach that relieves your intense symptoms so you can heal the past and move on.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a gentle, neuro-biological form of therapy that directly addresses and significantly reduces or eliminates the "fight or flight response" in the brain caused by stress and trauma.
EMDR stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing:
Eye-movement: bilateral stimulation (BLS) means moving your eyes back and forth to engage your left and right brain hemispheres
Desensitization: the eye movements decrease the intensity of your memory and releases that information from your nervous system
Reprocessing: we install healthier, more adaptive self-beliefs to create a template for responding to similar situations in the future
You’ll be desensitized to your memory, which changes the way you experience it in the present. Without those symptoms dominating your experience, your brain can find new insight and information.