Trauma | EMDR Therapy
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Big T and little t trauma are shorthand terms for different types of adverse life events. Big T trauma involves major, life-threatening events, little t trauma involves painful cumulative stressors, but both can overload the nervous system and make daily living difficult.
Adverse events and experiences can get stuck and stored in the brain in isolation, getting locked in the nervous system with the original mental representations (images, sounds, smells, sensations, thoughts) causing feelings like anxiety, panic, anger, or despair to be triggered in the present. Old distressing material just keeps being triggered repeatedly. This prevents learning and healing from taking place. In another part of the brain, we already have most of the information needed to resolve this problem, the two just can't connect.
EMDR is a therapy developed to help the brain process both big T and little t events. It can help with anxiety, depression, stress, phobias, sleep problems, grief, addictions, pain, self-esteem, and performance anxiety (both sexual and non-sexual). Once EMDR starts, a linking takes place. New information can come to mind and resolve old problems. This may be what happens spontaneously in R.E.M. or dream sleep when eye movements help to process unconscious material.
EMDR sessions use guided eye movements or similar stimulation while focusing on distressing memories, helping reduce their emotional intensity. EMDR is not suitable for everyone, but clients remain awake, in control, and able to stop at any time. EMDR is research-supported and recommended by the WHO and NICE for PTSD. Treatment can be brief or part of longer therapy.