Healing past into present

1. History Taking: I gather relevant information about your developmental and family history and the reason you are seeking treatment to create a treatment plan tailored to your needs.

2. Prearation: You learn techniques to manage distress and stress, ensuring you are better prepared to engage in the EMDR process effectively.

3. Assessment: You share the specific memories and events that hold the activated feeling states, as well as negative beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations associated with the experience. This material becomes the target of EMDR treatment.

4. Desensitization: This is the more well-known part of the EMDR process. In this process, we use bilateral stimulation to focus on traumatic memories and associated feelings. We tax working memory by engaging in memory recall while exercising eye movements or taps, which alternate which hemisphere of the brain you are thinking from. This helps to promote the reprocessing and desensitization of these memories.

5. Installation: When your distress associated with the target memory reduces, we use bilateral stimulation to reinforce positive beliefs and reset overwhelming activation related to the traumatic memory. You will remember that it happened but be less activated when that memory is tapped. 

6. Body Scan: In this phase, you scan for sensations of activation in the body to address any residual physical tension or discomfort related to the targeted memories.

7. Closure: The session is closed, and we will check to make sure you feel stable and calm before ending.

8. Re-evaluation: We have a re-evaluation session to evaluate progress and address any remaining distressing aspects to promote healing and resolution.

Each phase is crucial in the EMDR process, guiding individuals toward healing. Treatment is complete once all eight phases are concluded. After deactivating a target memory, we identify other targets that may need attention for complete resolution. This is more likely when a recent trauma links to an earlier event, known as a feeder memory. The less complex a person's trauma history, the more likely EMDR can be completed in a short course of treatment. A more complicated history may require multiple courses of treatment. Thorough history-taking helps determine treatment length.