ILYSM EMDR
ATTN: Anyone who desires to heal from trauma (i.e. painful memories)
The 411 on In-Patient Programs
It was the winter of 2013, I was in my mid-twenties walking along the gravel path to my first EMDR session. I was filled with hope and utter determination to heal from the trauma that had been holding me down and slowly suffocating my well-being for the past several years. I went into this EMDR session treating it like it was an open-heart surgery of a more emotional nature, that I would be conscious for so I could guide the clinician on what parts hurt the most and needed their attention first.
Walking along the gravel path I was making a mental note of each traumatic memory that needed to be reprocessed and healed. I didn’t want to waste any precious time or risk leaving anything out. I had my own recovery plan and I was going to give it everything I had so I could stop feeling so damn defeated and angry. I was better than this, and I knew it. The old me was happy and hopeful by default. I wanted to get back to that healthier version of myself. Little did I know, there was no going back, there was only room for getting stronger.
For the past three weeks or so, I had been in-patient at one of the top trauma treatment centers in the country. When I arrived, there was this sort of unofficial orientation among the residents who all felt compelled to take you under their wing and give you the scoop on which residents you should avoid, which sessions you should sign up for in advance, which therapists were the best, and what meals in the cafeteria would be something to look forward to.
This treatment center has a trauma-informed philosophy, meaning they believe that at the root of all behavioral struggles and challenges lies our trauma, and whatever coping mechanisms and behaviors we adopt are merely a response to that trauma. In other words, there’s a focus on treating the trauma itself, not just the symptoms of the trauma.
So with that, there were different tracks that you would be enrolled in based on your coping mechanisms. For some of us, that was alcoholism, or drug addiction, or eating disorders, or just good old fashioned depression. I fell into that last category. As a Pisces, it’s only fitting that my drug of choice was utter despair and melancholia.
Think of your “track” as what you majored in for your education in personal development. After all, the cost of tuition for just 30 days in treatment is basically the same, if not more expensive than a full year of university education. And you leave with a great network of lifelong friendships and bonds that most others would never be able to comprehend because like college, being in treatment can be a very formative and transformational experience if you want it to be.
Something that immediately stood out to me as I was going through this informal orientation from the other residents is that, regardless of which track they were on, or what diagnosis they had been given, every single individual who clued me in to know what’s what of this unique environment, said to me “and no matter what, do EMDR.”
My initial response was “E-M-D- what?” What does that mean? How does it work? What can I expect? Why is it so powerful?”
Dear Mental Health Industry, Do Better
Actually, I want to stop right here and petition to have EMDR renamed as ‘Memory Mapping’. I’m so tired of the mental health industry creating all of these terrible acronyms for everything. It makes the industry less accessible to the general public, and the last thing we need is more of that. I want to see more clinicians partnering with marketers to make the names of modalities (and other things that need to be casually referenced) more easily memorable, to make the services offered more appealing and desirable, and to make the value derived from working with mental health practitioners systemically more tangible.
The title of this piece is meant to illustrate this point. Industry-specific acronyms are great shorthand for professionals but do little to help newcomers navigate the endless sea of clinical jargon. I wonder what the chances are that any given reader of this article knew the meaning of both acronyms used in this title. ILYSM (pronounced as “ily-s-m”) means “I love you so much.” It is the shorthand of millennials and the gen-z population. And then you have EMDR, standing for “Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing.”
What’s even worse about the EMDR acronym is that even after you are able to remember the correct letters, in the correct order, and then can get out the mouthful of what the letters stand for, you still have to explain what the heck it means and how the name relates to the therapy itself. All of these things are an abomination to marketers and communications experts.
This is essentially a prime example of what not to do if you want your modality to get any notable traction in the marketplace, which I would hope would be the goal after all.
And please keep in mind, I am saying this as someone who is a self-proclaimed EMDR evangelist.
Honestly, EMDR makes me think of the Schlotzsky’s slogan, “Funny name, serious sandwich.” Except this slogan would be “EMDR, terrible name, incredible therapy.”
I believe EMDR was initially described to me as having an emotional bomb squad go in and remove the emotional triggers behind your most traumatic memories without erasing the memories themselves. And I have to say, what a perfect description for something that treats trauma and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Ever since I’ve learned about EMDR, I’ve always felt that those two acronyms should go hand-in-hand. If you know what PTSD means, then you should know what EMDR means because one treats the other. PTSD has been sensationalized by the media, it’s about time they do the same thing with EMDR. Regardless of whether or not you’ve been distinguished enough to receive an official diagnosis of PTSD, we’ve all experienced trauma, therefore I believe we would all deeply benefit from this evidence-based therapy that far too little of the general public is even remotely aware of.
If you know what PTSD means, then you should know what EMDR means, because one treats the other.
My personal introduction to EMDR was a rare one in that I had the opportunity to focus exclusively on doing a great deal of personal growth all day every day for weeks leading up to my first session. This, of course, is because I was in treatment for Major Depression.
Lucky me.
No seriously, though. I consider myself to be very lucky to have had the resources to do this work on myself before reaching the age of 30. I’m acutely aware that most people never get that chance, or even if they do, some will still refuse to take it out of pride or ignorance.
What to Expect from EMDR Sessions
What I love so much about EMDR therapy is that it is evidence-based and process-oriented. Something that cannot be said for traditional talk therapy. The fact that there’s a format and structure to follow makes it an inherently better modality because it removes the uncomfortable guesswork of knowing where to begin with a therapist.
EMDR therapy works through activating bi-lateral stimulation of the right-side and left-side of your brain through instigating rapid eye movement while you’re in a conscious state. To my knowledge, that activation can occur in four different ways. The first being watching a light go back and forth from one side to another on this tripod device specifically designed for EMDR sessions.
Or you can watch the therapist wave their fingers back and forth from the left to the right side. This method is what was captured when EMDR had its fifteen minutes of fame in the Showtime series The Affair. I, however, find both of these methods to be somewhat distracting, and the ladder closely resembles the process for hypnosis, however, I promise you, that is not what is happening here.
I prefer to use the other two methods for bilateral stimulation in my EMDR sessions because they are a bit more passive. My therapist uses them together, she synchronizes them actually, to ensure the reprocessing occurs on the deepest levels. Those two methods involve wearing headphones that beep in one ear and then the other while holding buzzers that buzz in one hand and then the other. These beeps and buzzes can be sped up or slowed down by the therapist. And it is with the beeps and buzzes that the reprocessing occurs and when new synapse connections are formed.
After you’ve established and built a rapport with your EMDR therapist you create your safe place. Your safe place is an imagined or real oasis that you visit in your mind’s eye on a few different occasions in your EMDR sessions. You can visit your safe place whenever you are feeling triggered and quite literally need to retreat to a safe destination as you activate your parasympathetic nervous system with positive imagery.
You can also visit your safe place as a neutral meeting space for doing work with your younger or elder self. And finally, your safe place is most commonly used to end your EMDR sessions on a positive note. In my sessions, they always end with me going here and feeling calm.
Once you’ve established what your safe place is, you can begin doing the reprocessing. There are a few different formats for how this can go, the most common that I’ve experienced is starting with one particular emotion or memory and then following that down whatever rabbit hole my brain takes me.
It looks something like this:
Left Ear: Beep / Left Hand: Buzz
Right Ear: Beep / Right Hand: Buzz
Patient: “Today I want to work on this trigger I have with [insert trigger of your choice here].”
Therapist: “Ok great, follow that.”
Patient: Eyes closed, focusing on the trigger.
Therapist: “What is it bringing up for you?”
Patient: “I don’t know why but it’s making me think of… [shares first of many randomly associated memories].”
Therapist: “Ok great, follow that.”
And oftentimes it’s really just a full hour of following these memories that are all connected in your brain that seem to not follow any logical patterns, but alas, that is how they have been processed and stored in your brain. The key here is to surrender to the process of EMDR instead of letting your ego come in trying to judge and decipher the meaning behind every little memory. Our body doesn’t experience or process trauma from a place of logic. So that isn’t going to be how we heal from it either.
It’s going to feel like walking through a funhouse of offputting memories while you’re wearing a blindfold and listening to endless beeps and buzzes in your hands. But here’s the catch, at the end of each session you will have brand new synapses connections. You will no longer be so triggered by things that fill your body with rage or panic. You will have the wherewithal to handle those exact same situations in a much healthier and more productive manner.
EMDR therapy is like getting a system upgrade and debugging your brain. And who wouldn’t want that?
My EMDR Hack
Going into my first session, I knew that if I wanted to heal, that there would be no use in avoiding the painful memories that had been haunting me. At this point, I knew exactly what they were. So I came up with a plan for how I would make the most use of my time in these EMDR sessions by thoroughly showing the therapist exactly what needed attention without getting too close to the fire and burning myself in the process.
One of my favorite movies is Closer, with Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. A favorite scene of mine from this movie is when Julia Roberts’ character is showing her large scale black and white portrait photography at an exhibition. I’m bringing this up because I appropriated from this scene for my EMDR session. You see, I was an Art History major in college so this came rather naturally to me. (If this particular example doesn’t resonate with you, I encourage you to think of something that makes the most sense for your life experience).
So what I did, was I took a mental snapshot of each of my most traumatic memories and turned them into large-scale black and white photographs that were then displayed around that exact exhibition from Closer. I could picture it perfectly.
I then reframed my role with these memories as being the photojournalist who captured these pivotal moments in my personal history as I went on to explain to the therapist what was so significant about each photograph.
I’m sharing this because I want people to know that there are ways you can create cognitive dissonance in order to safely access the most painful memories that you need to heal from. We cannot heal from what we cannot confront. This was my intuition’s way of allowing me to go where I needed to go in my recovery, without triggering myself too harshly in the process.
I decided that I was in control of the narrative from this point forward. EMDR was the tool I used to make that shift. And that, is why I love it so much.
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Visit www.emdr.com to learn more and find an EMDR Certified therapist today
Elizabeth is the Founder of ZerModus, a wellness startup with cognitive-behavioral daily planners that help you design your state of mind for high-achievement and personal fulfillment. She is also the owner of H2Hx, the psych agency focused on helping mental/behavioral health organizations market themselves better to consumers. Her work has been featured in HuffPost, Mashable, PopSci, D Magazine, as well several other publications.
