EMDR for Complex Trauma: Unraveling Layers
Experience the benefits of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy) for Complex Trauma with Williamson & Associates. Discover how EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy) can help ease layers of discomfort. Begin your healing journey today.
Complex trauma results from prolonged exposure to distressing events, affecting countless individuals and impacting their mental and emotional well-being. Your feelings about a traumatic event may range from grief and anger to hopelessness and shame. Complex trauma can leave you feeling overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted. You might feel constant unease, as if you're always on high alert, even in safe situations. Trusting others can be incredibly challenging, and forming close relationships might feel almost impossible. You may experience intense emotions that come out of nowhere, making it hard to feel in control. Or you may numb your feelings and disconnect from the world around you. Your mind could be stuck in a loop, replaying painful memories, making it hard to focus on the present or you might have no memories at all. Your feelings make sense and healing is possible.
Dr. Gabor Maté views complex trauma as a deep disconnection from oneself caused by chronic negative experiences, especially in early life.
He emphasizes that trauma is defined by the internal disconnection it causes rather than the external event. This internal disconnection manifests as a negative self-view, causing you to feel unworthy, ashamed, or self-critical. It can lead to emotional challenges like anxiety, depression, and difficulty forming healthy relationships. Physically, it might result in chronic stress-related conditions as the body and mind struggle to cope with unresolved trauma. Dr. Maté believes that healing requires developing compassion for oneself and receiving compassionate support from others to reconnect with oneself and overcome the impacts of trauma.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) offers a specialized approach to working through complex trauma. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) at Williamson & Associates helps facilitate healing and recovery for those who experience complex trauma.
Understanding Complex Trauma
Complex trauma profoundly impacts a person’s physiological and neurobiological systems, particularly the central nervous system, disrupting the brain’s ability to process and respond to stress. This can lead to prolonged dysregulation and persistent hyperarousal or hypoarousal states. Trauma can be stored in your body, which can show up as chronic muscle tension, somatic pain, and heightened stress responses. It can trigger the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses in generally safe situations. Because of changes in how the brain processes and responds to stress signals, your body can react to memories of past trauma with the same high level of stress as if the threat were real. You might feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you, hypervigilant, or emotionally numb and have trouble controlling your emotions. This might hinder your capacity to go about your daily life and connect with others.
The Impact of Complex Trauma
The impact of complex trauma may take many forms.
Impact on body and brain: Complex trauma affects your body and brain, leading to chronic stress, physical health conditions, and changes in brain function.
Attachment and relationships: Complex trauma can disrupt your ability to form secure attachments, so trusting others can be incredibly challenging, and forming close relationships might feel almost impossible.
Emotional regulation, responses, and affect: You might experience intense and unpredictable emotions. This can cause you to struggle with emotional regulation, experiencing mood swings and heightened anxiety.
Behaviours: You might develop behaviours like avoidance or substance use to manage overwhelming emotional pain and stress.
Cognition and learning: Trauma may affect your executive skills, memory, and attention, making it harder to focus, pick up new knowledge, and make judgments. This might affect performance at school or at work.
Self-concept: People who have experienced complex trauma may feel worthless, ashamed, and guilty. You may struggle with a persistent negative self-image and have difficulty feeling hopeful about the future.
Dissociation: Dissociation is a common response to trauma. You might detach yourself from your thoughts, feelings, or sense of identity to cope with the overwhelming stress.
EMDR Therapy for Complex Trauma
Treating complex trauma involves addressing the internal distress and disconnection caused by traumatic experiences. That's where eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) can help. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) is an approach to psychotherapy that uses two-sided stimulation to put both sides of the brain at work and help both the conscious and subconscious minds process the trauma. EMDR helps people perceive traumatic experiences as less upsetting and heal from the emotional trauma and mental health issues brought on by past experiences.
How EMDR Works?
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) for trauma follows an eight-phase structure:
History: In your initial sessions, your EMDR therapist will review your personal history to identify traumatic memories you might consider addressing together.
Preparation: Your therapist will help you develop coping methods if traumatic memories become too overwhelming.
Assessment: Together, you'll identify the painful memories, emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations and how upsetting it feels to experience them.
Desensitization: Using bilateral stimulation (such as moving your eyes side to side, or tapping), your therapist will guide you through recalling painful experiences to reduce their emotional impact.
Installation: During this phase, your therapist will help reinforce positive beliefs and perspectives identified during the assessment.
Body scan: You will scan your body from head to toe to identify any uncomfortable physical sensations, which will be addressed in therapy.
Closure: At the end of each session, you'll discuss insights and emotions.
Reevaluation: Before each new session, you and your therapist will discuss how effective the previous sessions have been and how you feel overall.
Benefits of EMDR
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) can help:
Reduce trauma-related physical and emotional symptoms
Help you deal with painful recollections in a more adaptable way.
Improve emotional regulation
Enhance your overall well-being
Reprocess and integrate traumatic memories, leading to lasting healing
EMDR's structured approach allows for a tailored treatment plan that addresses your specific needs, enhancing overall effectiveness.
EMDR and Trauma Therapy in Olds, Alberta
Complex trauma is not about the traumatic events themselves but about how these events cause you to disconnect from your true self. This deep disconnection can result from chronic stress and negative experiences, particularly in childhood, leading to lasting emotional and physical health issues.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) offers a promising and specialized approach to healing. At Williamson & Associates Counselling in Alberta, our EMDR therapists can help you process traumatic experiences, facilitating resilience and healing.
If you or someone you know is struggling with the lasting effects of trauma, contact us today. The compassionate team at Williamson & Associates is here to support you on your journey to recovery.