Understanding EMDR and Its Benefits for Anxiety
Are you looking for alternative ways to manage your anxiety?
Do you suspect that your trauma may be underlying your anxious worries?
Has traditional therapy only been a bandaid for your inner struggles?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) may be the solution. This therapy is designed to help people who have experienced a traumatic event, and are struggling with the aftermath. In this blog post, we’ll explore what EMDR is and how it can help with anxiety.
What Is EMDR?
EMDR is a form of psychotherapy that helps people process difficult experiences. During an EMDR session, the therapist will ask the patient to recall their trauma while focusing on specific eye movements or other forms of stimulation. The idea behind this technique is that by allowing the mind to process these memories in a safe environment, they can be released from the psyche. The patient then has the opportunity to reframe these experiences in a healthier way and move forward with more clarity.
The Benefits of EMDR for Anxiety
Using EMDR therapy can significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety. It helps people gain control over their thoughts and emotions so they no longer feel overwhelmed or scared by them. Additionally, it teaches clients how to identify triggers and create healthy coping strategies for dealing with stressful situations in the future. Research suggests that this type of therapy is especially effective at treating conditions like PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), phobias, panic attacks, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and other types of anxiety disorders.
How Does It Work?
During an EMDR session, the therapist will ask questions about the experiences surrounding your trauma so they can better understand what happened and how it has impacted you emotionally. Then they will guide you through different aspects of the memory while providing certain forms of stimulation—usually eye movements—so that your brain can start processing these memories in a more healthy way. The goal is to help you gain insight into why you are feeling anxious or scared in response to certain triggers so you can learn how to identify them and take steps toward managing them better in the future.
EMDR is an effective tool for reducing symptoms of anxiety caused by past traumatic events or experiences.
It works by helping clients process difficult memories in order to gain insight into why they might be feeling anxious or scared in certain situations and teaching them how to develop healthier coping strategies for managing those feelings going forward. While not all anxiety is trauma-based, our traumatic responses can interfere with other forms of anxiety treatment such as Exposure Response Prevention. We cannot ethically expose to an anxiety trigger our client will have an overwhelming trauma response.
If you’re struggling with anxiety due to a past experience, consider seeking out an EMDR therapist who can help guide you through this therapeutic process so that you can find relief from your symptoms and reclaim control over your life once again. Contact us at Kairos Wellness Collective today to hear more about our offerings.
