Unstuck: How The Brain Heals Itself with EMDR Therapy
A traumatic memory is an event that was stored in the amygdala of the brain - your inborn alarm center.
The amygdala holds memories that fit into the category of “Very Bad Things That Can Happen”. It’s as if there is a folder that stores anything you want to stay clear of, because it was too frightening to process and your brain froze as your body activated for fight or flight. You can’t fight or flight while figuring out what just happened - that would create a delay and you might get hurt.
Once memories are stored in the amygdala, they tend to stay there.
Every memory that’s stored in the amygdala receives a tile, such as “Don’t talk to Mom/a woman when she is upset”, or “Avoid dogs because they bite”.
Every time a similar cue appears in your environment - a woman gets upset, you encounter a dog - your amygdala activates stress hormones to fuel the fight or flight response. It worked last time to keep you safe, right?
However, when the amygdala keeps activating the fight or flight response, we might not like it very much. Especially when it diligently alerts us of threats that aren’t as threatening after all. A Chihuahua may activate the amygdala as much as the neighbor’s raging Doberman when you were three years old.
This is what we call trauma.
With EMDR, memories are pulled from the folder in the amygdala and updated. We call this “reprocessing”.
The memory called “Avoid dogs because they bite” can be reprocessed and updated to “The neighbor’s dog seemed like it wanted to bite me but it didn’t”, or, “The neighbor’s dog wanted to bite me but I am safe now”. The emotional imprint of the memory can be changed from “I’m unsafe” to “I am safe now”.
The memory can then, with its new title, be moved from the amygdala to the hippocampus - from the alarm center to a memory center. After the event has become “just a memory”, it no longer activates the fight or flight response.
The key benefits of EMDR therapy are:
No Retelling: You don’t have to tell the story over and over
Rapid Results: Many people notice a shift from fear to calmer after a few sessions versus spending years in talk therapy
Emotional Distance: Many people describe EMDR processing like viewing a movie - from a safe distance
If you are intrigued by EMDR therapy in Seattle or Washington state and you would like to find out more, feel free to meet for a free consultation [here]
