Soul Purpose Counseling
Ashley Hinton, LPC
Nearly everyone will experience a range of reactions after trauma, yet most people recover from initial symptoms naturally. Those who continue to experience problems may be diagnosed with PTSD. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they are not in danger (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016).
It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can, in fact, heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, then the wound will fester and result in additional pain; once the block is removed, healing resumes.
EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental and emotional processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward health and healing. EMDR is not just for PTSD. EMDR treats both big “T” traumas, as well as small “t” life events, such as developmental trauma or environmental stressors.
EMDR involves attention to three time periods: the past, present, and future. The focus is given to past disturbing memories and related events. It is also given to current situations that cause distress. Similarly, attention is given to developing the skills and attitudes needed for positive future actions. With EMDR, these items are addressed using an eight-phase treatment protocol.
EMDR is an evidence-based therapy that enables the restructuring of traumatic memories and other emotional disturbances.
Our neurobiology is built to help us survive. When we are in a dangerous situation our survival system takes over. During this time our body is flooded with stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, which can overwhelm the hippocampus, our information processing center. We are then left with the emotional and physiological arousal “stuck” in our system without the experience ever having been adequately processed. The unprocessed information can influence our present-day reactions with self and others, often leading to overreactions and somatic complaints. The EMDR model, when done correctly with each of its eight phases, sets the conditions for this “stuck” experience to be processed and individual healing to take place.
Pagani says it best. According to the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory when a traumatic event occurs, information processing may be incomplete, probably due to the fact that strong negative feelings or neurobiological reactions interfere with it. This prevents the forging of associative connections of memory with other networks and memory is dysfunctionally stored. During an EMDR session, memory distressing components are linked to more adaptive information existing in the neural networks. Therefore, memory desensitization and reprocessing take place, thus contributing to symptom reduction and ultimately remission. Trauma often has symptoms instead of memories.
Ashley Hinton is trained in the Somatic and Attachment-Focused EMDR (SAFE) model, which accounts for early attachment experiences and their impact on built-in trauma responses. Early attachment injuries become patterns of trauma responses that can make it difficult for clients to stay in the window of tolerance. Complex trauma results in difficulty managing affect, emotional regulation, and having secure relationships. This is why a somatic and attachment approach is necessary. This approach takes into consideration early attachment experiences as well as the built-in trauma responses that have become patterns. These factors, somatic experience and attachment patterns, can become blocks to healing in the therapy process. Therefore, both will be given consideration during treatment planning in order to provide the safest and most effective treatment.
In this first phase, the therapist takes a thorough history of the client and develops a treatment plan.
The clinician will explain EMDR and what to expect during and after treatment. Additionally, the clinician will teach the client a variety of resources to use during processing.
The third phase is used to activate each target in a controlled and standardized way so it can be effectively processed.
The therapist leads the client in sets of eye movements while the different associations to the memory are followed. The clinician guides the client to a complete resolution of the target.
During this phase, the client's positive cognition will be strengthened and installed. How deeply the person believes that positive cognition is then measured using the Validity of Cognition [VOC] scale.
After installation, the client will be asked to bring up the original target to see if any residual tension is noticed in the body. If so, these physical sensations are then targeted for reprocessing.
[ends each treatment session] If the processing of the target event is not complete in a single session, the therapist will assist the person in order to regain a sense of equilibrium.
[opens each treatment session] The therapist checks that positive results have been maintained and will continue to reprocess the additional targets. This phase is vital in order to determine the success of the treatment over time.