EMDR Therapy and EMDR Intensives in Colorado Springs
A lot of new clients reach out to me because someone in their life recommended EMDR - a doctor, friend, coworker, or maybe even someone on social media. They know they want the result they’ve heard about: that a problem they’re experiencing can finally be resolved so they can move forward without so much weight.
But they often don’t know what EMDR is, how it works, or why it might be helpful for their specific problem.
So, let’s start with the basics.
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is an evidence-based psychotherapy that helps the brain process experiences that continue to feel unresolved or trigger distress in the present.
EMDR uses what’s called Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) to activate connections in the brain tied to memory processing. BLS is simply movements that cross the midline of the body - this could be back and forth eye movements, tactile tapping, or alternating tones. While we don’t yet know exactly why EMDR works, research suggests that the combination of recalling a distressing memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation may support the brain’s natural memory-processing system.
We know that traumatic or overwhelming experiences can have a significant impact on the brain and body at the time they happen, and that this impact can have far-reaching effects. Memories can sometimes become “stuck,” almost frozen in time, with the sense of being re-experienced over and over. When memories are stuck this way, it is often experienced as triggers that draw strong reactions, flashbacks, recurring nightmares, anxiety and hypervigilance, or even chronic physical complaints.
EMDR is based on the “Adaptive Information Processing” model - we’ll call it the AIP for short. The idea is that our brains have a natural capacity to process experiences and integrate them with everything else we know. It’s why most things you experience, even if they’re difficult at the time, eventually become memories you can recall without the same emotional charge attached.
But the AIP doesn’t work the same way in the face of trauma. This is because all of your internal resources are directed towards survival, so anything you don’t need in the moment, like cognitive processing, shuts down. It’s common for memories to stay in the same state you felt at the time the experience happened, even long after the fact - it’s like the AIP got stuck around those memories. EMDR gets the AIP working again the way it is intended.
How Does EMDR Work?
EMDR is a process built on 8 phases, and a past/present/future emphasis that leads to comprehensive resolution of past trauma, current triggers, and future anticipatory concerns.
After creating a treatment plan based on your goals, the symptoms you want to resolve, and the experiences that may be connected to them, we spend time preparing for reprocessing. This helps make sure you have enough stability and resources available to approach difficult material safely.
Once preparation is completed, reprocessing can begin.
During reprocessing, you’ll keep “one foot in the past and one foot in the present,” alternating between focusing on aspects of the memory for brief periods of time during sets of BLS, then refocusing attention on what’s happening in the present as you rest between sets. You remain awake and aware the entire time. EMDR isn't hypnosis, and you don't lose control of what you're thinking, saying, or doing. It is often relieving for people to know that sets of BLS only last briefly, usually less than a minute, so the time spent in a difficult memory is contained, structured, and intentional.
This processing continues until the memory feels neutral - you’ll remember what happened, and you’ll remember that it was hard, but it won’t feel the same way anymore when you think about. At this point clients often tell me something like - I tried really hard to make myself think of the memory to see if it still felt bad at all… but it just seemed different.
That’s when we know EMDR did its job.
What Can EMDR Help With?
I find EMDR to be really helpful for anything that’s “stuck” - especially when you feel like you’ve tried everything and nothing has really worked. Because EMDR focuses comprehensively on the different ways that traumatic experiences can be stored - images and other sensory experiences, negative beliefs, emotions, and body sensations - healing can extend into each of these areas, creating a broad sense of resolution.
I have helped clients resolve the following issues, and more, using EMDR:
imposter syndrome
performance anxiety
domestic violence or abuse
narcissistic abuse
early childhood trauma
fear of abandonment or rejection
lack of confidence and insecurity
relationship stress, conflict, and trauma
medical trauma (heart attacks, brain tumors, falls, medical procedures, and more)
car accidents & driving anxiety, as well as other types of accidents
parenting issues
pregnancy loss or infertility
anxiety & phobias, including fear of flying
religious trauma
sexual trauma
EMDR is probably best known as a treatment for trauma and PTSD, but you don't have to have a PTSD diagnosis - or even think of what happened to you as “trauma” - for past experiences to be affecting you in the present, and for EMDR to help.
Is EMDR Right For Me?
If you keep having reactions that feel bigger than the situation in front of you, if you know something is over but your brain and body don't seem to know it yet, or if you keep thinking, I understand why I feel this way, but I just can't seem to change it - EMDR may be worth exploring.
After more than 25 years as a therapist, one of the things I appreciate most about EMDR is watching something that has carried enormous weight for a person finally become part of their past.
The goal isn't to change what happened - it's to help what happened stop having so much power over what happens next.
