Family Development Collective

If you sustained one or more traumatic injuries, you understand that the pain associated with the injuries goes well beyond physical pain. Dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic injury or injuries also can trigger emotional distress issues. This is especially true for victims that endured a traumatic event, such as sustaining injuries as the result of a car accident or as the victim of a violent crime. Law enforcement personnel and members of the military also are highly vulnerable to developing the negative emotional issues that define the medical health condition called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

PTSD represents a mental health condition that develops because a victim experienced a traumatic event. Symptoms can include flashbacks, nightmares, and acute anxiety. Many victims also have to deal with uncontrollable thoughts that consume their lives. For years, therapists tried to help victims of traumatic injuries talk about the event that caused the injuries to reduce the intense level of negative emotions. However, many therapists discovered that talking about a traumatic event that generated severe injuries only made the negative emotions worse. The result turned out to be the development of EMDR therapy, which can help patients accept the memories of a traumatic injury.

What is EMDR Therapy?Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy represents a mental health treatment strategy that involves encouraging a patient to move both eyes in certain ways while the patient processes traumatic memories, such as the traumatic memories triggered by sustaining one or more severe injuries. The goal of EMDR therapy is to help you heal emotionally from a traumatic life experience. With the sustaining of a traumatic injury, it might not be the injury itself that triggers negative emotions. Instead, you might experience PTSD symptoms because of the memories of the event that caused you harm.

EMDR therapy is a relatively new type of mental health therapy compared to more traditional mental health treatment regimens. The first clinical trial studying the impact of EMDR concluded in 1989, and despite the initial skepticism concerning the effectiveness of EMDR therapy, dozens of clinical trials conducted since 1989 have demonstrated the eye movement approach to healing emotional wounds can help patients recover much faster than undergoing other mental health treatment programs.

The Influence of Adaptive Information ProcessingEMDR therapy depends on a model called Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), which is a theory that describes how your brain stores and processes memories. The underlying scientific premise of AIP is your brain stores and processes normal memories differently than the way it stores and processes traumatic memories. Understanding how the AIP model influences the treatment of patients that suffer from PTSD symptoms has helped researchers improve the techniques used to implement EMDR therapy.

What Are the Steps of EMDR Therapy?EMDR therapy requires the completion of eight steps, starting with reviewing a patient’s healthcare history and then preparing a patient for additional steps by educating the patient about what to expect. The third step involves your therapist completing an assessment that identifies the specific memories that you need to reprocess. Desensitization and reprocessing comprise the fourth step of EMDR therapy followed by the installation of positive thoughts. Your therapist then gives you the opportunity for closure, which acts as a bridge for additional sessions in which you are reevaluated.

The eight steps for EMDR therapy represent a more comprehensive approach for treating PTSD symptoms than the approach used for individual adult therapy.

The Bottom LineEMDR therapy has emerged as one of, if not the most effective mental health approach to accepting the memories of a traumatic injury. The key is not to allow negative memories to fester by taking immediate action to reap the many benefits delivered by EMDR therapy.