Traumatic memories

When your past is present, traumatic memories impact your present and imagined future.   You may start seeing a pattern of recurrent thoughts, images, behaviours and choices that are consciously or unconsciously tainted by a past memory.

It is as though these negative memories are able to create a template which ‘steer’ you in a particular loop of thoughts, images, fears, actions and behaviour patterns.

Traumatic memories are lodged in our central nervous system and until they are dislodged from the central nervous system and swung into our vertical cortex for rational integration and resolution and adaptive processing, these memories set the stage for future problems.

Eye Movement Desensitisation & Re-processing (EMDR) does not eliminate a painful memory.  But what it does do is that it ‘desensitizes’ you from the pain of that memory.  The re-processing through bilateral stimulation allows you to ‘heal’ much like how the body repairs itself when the skin is cut.

EMDR mimics the REM sleep during which your brain processes stress and trauma.  In addition, the bilateral stimulation of the saccadic (rhythmic back-and-forth) eye movements initiated by the therapist during therapy s with  reducing the emotionality and vividness of the  painful autobiographical memories.

For example, post EMDR therapy, the rape victim may heal to experience safety and self-confidence  once again although it will not eliminate the memory of the incident nor the accompanied negative emotions towards the perpetrator.

Trauma is a subjective experience and could even be the experience of being humiliated in a classroom, falsely  accused of a misconduct or exclusion from a social event.

Please read more on EMDR under the section on Psychological Therapies.  You can move beyond your past and heal.

When you’re ready to move on and start the healing process, Contact Us.