“I want to have healthy relationships, but I keep attracting the same type of person and I end up getting hurt”
You know you have a lot to give and deserve love, but it feels like you keep attracting the wrong person. Even with your best attempts to avoid it, you feel trapped in the same cycle.
On the one hand you know you’re a good person, but on the other you wonder if there is something wrong with you and why this keeps happening.
"I have a hard time concentrating and staying focused and often miss out on what’s going on around me”
Sometimes you find your mind wandering or disconnecting from what you are doing and it feels difficult to stay present. While you are aware it may be happening, you feel like it’s automatic and you are on auto-pilot sometimes.
“I go from 0 to 100 in a second, from calm to panicked”
It could be a smell, an image, or even someone who looks like someone from your past; all of a sudden you are in a state of panic. You notice there’s a switch that goes off when you are triggered and it’s intense and overpowering. You feel like you lose control of your emotions and have difficulty bringing yourself back to baseline.
“I feel stuck in the past, haunted by the memories I try to move on from”
Whether it was abuse, assault, an accident, or the loss of a relationship you feel like the past is very much in the present. You will be having a good day and then suddenly an image, memory, or troublesome thought appears. You notice you go out of your way to avoid people, conversations, and places that remind you of the past. You worry about going to sleep because the nightmares feel so real. The trauma from the past keeps showing up in the present.
EMDR therapy can help.
EMDR is different from talk therapy.
You do not have to talk in detail about distressing memories for EMDR to be effective. EMDR helps reprocess traumatic memories in the brain and allows the normal healing process to occur. While the memory itself will not be forgotten, the distressing response and symptoms will be resolved.
EMDR therapy helps you work through unprocessed memories by having you recall an event while introducing bilateral stimulation through eye movements, tapping, or audio. This dual awareness allows different parts of your brain to communicate and desensitize the triggers and distress surrounding the memory. EMDR will help you reprocess those memories, reduce symptoms and responses, and help free you from feeling stuck in the past.
Online EMDR Therapy can be done from the comfort of your home
Assuming that EMDR is the right type of therapy and that online therapy is appropriate and safe for you to engage in, there are many ways EMDR can be adapted online and accessed from the comfort of your home.
One way I do this is by using a bilateral stimulation website or portal that I share with you. You may be shown an image, for example a ball, and the ball travels from one side of the web page to the other in a straight line. I am able to control the speed of the ball and will adjust it as needed throughout the session.
A second alternative includes sound. Some EMDR platforms also have sound and if you prefer audio stimulation, you can listen to the sound alternating side to side via your headphones.
A third way to engage in bilateral stimulation is through tapping. When visual and audio stimulation is not preferred or there is an issue with the technology, you are able to tap from side to side on your shoulders, desk, or lap. Using a video platform so we can see each other, I will instruct you or have you mirror my speed and movements.
Feel in control and free from the past
Q: What is EMDR therapy?
Frequently Asked Questions about Trauma Counseling
A: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based intervention commonly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is also effective in treating other mental health concerns including but not limited to anxiety, depression, trauma and other stress-related disorders.
In EMDR, the clinician asks the client to focus on a memory while attending to bilateral stimulation. The dual attention of focusing on the memory and the bilateral stimulation reduces the level of distress associated with the memory, increases adaptive beliefs, and allows the brain and body to heal.
A: EMDR therapy can treat many challenges including but not limited to: anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, chronic illness, depression and mood disorders, dissociative disorders, grief and loss, pain, performance anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sexual assault, sleep disturbance, trauma, and abuse.
A: For many clients, EMDR can be completed in fewer sessions than other psychotherapies. The exact number of sessions can not be estimated because counseling is a very personalized process and looks different for everyone. The amount of time depends on a person’s history and goals they are looking to work on in counseling. As your counselor, I value transparency and will collaborate with you to develop and update goals so you feel empowered with the decision to continue the work.