EMDR Treatment for Childhood

Trauma and PTSD

Will EMDR help me?

You have tried talk therapy thinking this would help you get past your past.  but despite years of trauma treatment, you continue to struggle with persistent fear and anxiety.  The smallest things trigger over the top expressions of emotions.  You apologize, and promise to get your feelings under control, but the cycle keeps happening.  And you haven’t truly slept well for decades.

You have tried all of the self-care suggestions

• Reading self-help books
• Getting exercise and trying to eat healthy
• journaling
• meditation and mindfulness
• yoga

But nothing seems to work, or at least not for very long.  They all seem to take so much energy, and you are simply exhausted going through the motions every day.

Sure, talk therapy helped you identify WHY you have trauma, but honestly talking about what happened just made you feel worse.  It was like re-living parts of it all over again.

You have heard about EMDR for PTSD and and EMDR for trauma

and wonder if it could help you too.

EMDR helps heal on both a psychological and physical level.  It gets to the root of the problem once and for all.   No more wasting time on talk therapy.

Unlike traditional therapy,  EMDR helps change things on a psychological level by changing those negative thoughts you have about yourself as a result of what you experienced.

After traumatic experiences,  we can start to define ourselves through a lens of negative beliefs like   “I am bad, it was my fault, or I don’t deserve good things”.  These thoughts can influence the decisions and choices we make, and the actions we take.

EMDR works on a physical level to develop new neural pathways in the brain that can change how you respond to distressing memories. The goal is reprocessing the traumatic event or events so they no longer control your life.

EMDR can’t change what happened to you.  But it can change the way you feel about yourself.  So what happened to you in the past gets left in the past without that intense emotional charge.  It simply becomes a memory.

EMDR is different  because it’s more than just helping you to understand why you have trauma.    It allows you to resolve the negative beliefs, the intense emotions, and body sensations you have as a result of your trauma.

You are tired of feeling like you have no control over how you think, feel or behave.  You dread going to bed knowing your head won’t stop replaying painful scenes from your past.  You want the heart palpitations and chills to stop whenever you get reminded of your trauma.  You want to stop driving miles out of your way just to avoid seeing places that bring back painful memories.

Friends comment that you are no longer fun to be with, which in some ways is fine.  It’s easier to just distance yourself from friends and family.  But it’s lonely too.  You used to enjoy so many activities, and now it’s more like, ‘I can’t be bothered.”

You are ready to try EMDR Therapy Rochester so you can

start living life again!

EMDR helps you access the memories and reprocess them without feeling like you are reliving them or right back in the middle of them.

It does mean getting in touch with trauma-related emotions and thoughts, but by teaching you some specific coping skills before we even start EMDR, it will  feel manageable.

EMDR is different from other forms of therapy in that it uses something called Bilateral Stimulation.  This helps process traumatic memories on both a physical and psychological level.

Have you experienced a traumatic event? Or are you suffering from lingering fear, anxiety, or panic due to a series of traumatic events?  Do you feel like you no longer have any control over how you think, feel, and behave?

Do you re-live traumatic situations or have flashbacks that intrude on your waking hours?  Do you have disturbing dreams or nightmares?  These reminders may also trigger physical symptoms, such as heart palpitations or chills, or emotional problems like anxiety, depression, and feelings of dread.

Do you avoid any reminders of the trauma,  or distance yourself from family and friends, or withdraw from everyday activities and things you used to enjoy?

If any of these symptoms resonate with you, you may have PTSD.

PTSD is characterized by intense fear, a sense of helplessness, or even horror. It can affect all areas of your life – your emotions, your mental wellbeing, and your physical health. And symptoms are generally worse in situations like rape or abuse, where the trauma was deliberately perpetrated against you.

Do you feel on guard all the time or suddenly feel angry or irritable over small things?  You may experience problems with sleeping or concentrating, and you may startle easily. Depression and disassociation can also develop.

PTSD may surface months or years after the trauma. Particularly in relation to abuse in childhood, symptoms of PTSD can pass, then reappear later in life. This can make it difficult to recognize PTSD as you may not even associate your current feelings and behaviors with past events.

Each time symptoms appear however, they provide an opportunity for healing.  I treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with a combination of psychotherapy and EMDR.

Sometimes people question if this is truly possible for them, especially after decades of struggling, but I can say after offering EMDR for more than a decade, I have seen it happen over and over again with my clients.

Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation for EMDR therapy Rochester. Let’s get you back on the road to healing.