EMDR Blog Series: #1 Trauma/PTSD
In this blog series, I am going to go into great detail about EMDR in terms of what it is, who could benefit from it, and the different stages of therapeutic process. In this first blog, I’d like to write about trauma. EMDR can greatly benefit traumatized patients and awaken memories that will allow them to move past those awful experiences, ensuring them a happier life.
Trauma is any event or occurrence that the brain cannot metabolize, preventing people from being able to learn from their experience. Instead, they continue to have negative feelings, and poor beliefs about themselves. Reminders of that event will cause additional pain not including the initial pain that the event caused, making them feel worse. This can often lead to depression, anxiety or substance abuse.
There are many different types of trauma that can exist in numerous forms. Do you think you’ve ever experienced a traumatic event? Trauma is not limited to a formal diagnosis of PTSD, and not everyone who experiences an abnormally awful event will develop PTSD, but perhaps the definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could be helpful. PTSD is the result of exposure to an situation that may involve direct personal experience, or witnessing an event that is not within the realm of expectable daily experience. This can range from physical, sexual and emotional abuse to experiences of war, terrorism, or natural disaster. No matter the experience that triggered it, PTSD is a formal diagnosis including symptoms of:
- Intrusive thoughts such as nightmares and flashbacks
- Avoidance behavior such as psychological amnesia and not wanting to think about accident or participate in previously pleasurable activities
- Hyperarousal such as difficulty falling asleep, irritability, and problems with concentration.
Another condition that people may develop after a traumatic exposure is Acute Stress Disorder. Please read my next blog which will go into much more detail about this other trauma disorder.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve moved away from using the word ‘trauma’ and instead refer to ‘emotionally charged experiences.’ This includes trauma and also any other experience that has had enough emotional charge to it that it causes the brain to store the memories associated to the event in the mid-brain. For me and my clients, using ‘emotionally charged experiences’ gives us different way to talk about life-events that are still having an effect on current life experiences (past carried into the future) without thinking they had to rise to the level of ‘trauma’ to be considered problematic and on which I would do EMDR.
To be clear, I really like your posting and explanation that “trauma is not limited to a formal diagnosis of PTSD.’ And, while I know that there is a need to be ‘clinical’ and ‘scientific’ in the use of language, I do wonder if we moved away from using terms such as ‘trauma’ and ‘PTSD,’ if that wouldn’t open our thinking so we would begin using EMDR on a wider range of the human experience.
Dear Jordan:
Your position has great merit; as an EMDR Trainer I run into this problem frequently.
To be clear (though since you are already trained you know this) the definition of trauma in AIP terms is any experience that we have that our brain encodes in a manner that can’t be used for furter learning; and that whenever anything in our present life bears an association to that “traumatic event” whether it be explicit or implicit, we have reactions that are more intense than just the present situation (or as you so nicely put it,) limbically (midbrain) driven.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think we are on the same page, and want the same things to evolve; for people to understand, use, and ask for EMDR psychotherapy.
Best Wishes,
Mark
PS If you have been trained by an EMDR Internationally Approved training program, why don’t you fill out the form on the drop down menu, “For EMDR Clinicians Only.” I’d love to read your opinions on my position that EMDR should be taught and practiced as a two person ( Relational/Intersubjective) psychotherapy.