EMDR therapy Austin Texas

Sex­u­al assault leaves deep scars — often invis­i­ble to every­one else but nev­er to the vic­tim, who’s con­stant­ly aware of the gap­ing hole in her safe space.

Once the for­bid­den mem­o­ry pops up, every­thing else goes blank. It doesn’t mat­ter that the vehicle’s mov­ing at 85 mph on High­way 130.

The mem­o­ry after a sex­u­al assault, for a woman, is ever dis­turb­ing. It’s crip­pling, in fact.  If you’re a woman liv­ing in Austin, Texas, and these words feel uncom­fort­ably famil­iar to you, heal­ing through trau­ma ther­a­py is pos­si­ble. 

Of the many ways, one real­ly stands out. It stands out because its abil­i­ty to speed up trau­ma recov­ery in cas­es like this is vir­tu­al­ly unmatched.

That way is called Eye Move­ment Desen­si­ti­za­tion and Repro­cess­ing (EMDR) ther­a­py. It’s a ther­a­py tech­nique pur­pose-built for trau­ma cas­es.

 

How does EMDR work

“Bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion” is the core of EMDR’s approach. There are sev­er­al ways to acti­vate bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion, but eye move­ments are the most pop­u­lar.

Dur­ing an EMDR ses­sion, the ther­a­pist guides the client to shift their eyes from side to side—a process that is a bit like hyp­no­sis but also very dif­fer­ent.

The goal of mov­ing the eyes is to acti­vate both sides of the brain as you remem­ber the sex­u­al assault. But, rather than be over­whelmed by the trau­ma, the two sides of your brain com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter, work­ing to inte­grate the mem­o­ry in a less dis­tress­ing way.

These eye move­ments reduce the emo­tion­al inten­si­ty of the mem­o­ry so you can remem­ber the assault with­out feel­ing intense dis­tress. This explains the repro­cess­ing and desen­si­ti­za­tion bit.

Unlike tra­di­tion­al talk ther­a­py, EMDR taps into your brain’s nat­ur­al heal­ing process­es. It helps you process trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries with­out reliv­ing the intense emo­tions.

Think of it as a gen­tle nudge rather than the immense emo­tion­al waves that come with tra­di­tion­al talk ther­a­py. Unlike con­ven­tion­al ther­a­py, EMDR does not require you to talk deeply about trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences. EMDR’s style is more sen­so­ry and emo­tion-based. A mea­sured path, real­ly.

As you’d expect, more women find it less over­whelm­ing than oth­er ther­a­pies. There’s just some­thing about let­ting your brain do all the work through guid­ed instruc­tions.

Talk ther­a­py wants the ther­a­pist to trig­ger heal­ing and remain active through­out the process. EMDR ther­a­py wants your body and brain to heal them­selves while the ther­a­pist plays the role of guardian.

 

Why EMDR therapy might be a better treatment option

If you’ve been a vic­tim of sex­u­al assault and are strug­gling to over­come the pain of this trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry, I think you should con­sid­er EMDR ther­a­py.

It’s got sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits:

Works for trau­ma

EMDR is very effec­tive for treat­ing trau­ma and PTSD. Its abil­i­ty to facil­i­tate mem­o­ry repro­cess­ing works well to absorb neg­a­tive emo­tion­al impact.

Doesn’t require as much talk

There are many rea­sons why any­one hates to talk about a trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence in detail. EMDR gets that in ways that tra­di­tion­al talk ther­a­py doesn’t.

Struc­tured process

EMDR has a strat­e­gy that works. It fol­lows a struc­tured eight-phase approach:

• His­to­ry tak­ing and treat­ment plan­ning
• Prepa­ra­tion
• Assess­ment
• Desen­si­ti­za­tion
• Instal­la­tion
• Body scan
• Clo­sure
• Reeval­u­a­tion

Faster results

Although this isn’t always guar­an­teed, more peo­ple expe­ri­ence paci­er results with EMDR com­pared to oth­er ther­a­py tech­niques.

 

Virtual EMDR Austin

The expe­ri­ence of a sex­u­al assault is hor­rid, to say the least. Many sur­vivors feel iso­lat­ed and often quit social inter­ac­tions alto­geth­er. Oth­ers are unfair­ly blamed and have to car­ry the stig­ma like a sign on the fore­head.

Not to men­tion the insom­nia, chron­ic pain, and a dozen oth­er uncom­fort­able phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions.

You, or any­one else for that mat­ter, shouldn’t have to go through pain like that for a sec­ond longer than you need to.

Of all the ther­a­py tech­niques, I tru­ly believe EMDR ther­a­py is best posi­tioned to help your body and mind heal fast. It’s an effec­tive tool for teach­ing your body to release the pain.

If the thought of using EMDR inspires hope in you, reach out to me for a free con­sul­ta­tion. I am a licensed and Cer­ti­fied EMDR ther­a­pist with years of expe­ri­ence using this tech­nique.

On a final note, I want you always to remem­ber that heal­ing is pos­si­ble. EMDR is an effec­tive path to mak­ing recov­ery pos­si­ble for you.

Reach out to sched­ule your free 15-minute con­sul­ta­tion