EMDR And Anxiety Therapy

EMDR

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and is used to heal a range of psychological problems including anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress and panic.

EMDR works to reduce a persons sensitivity to conscious and unconscious memories, associations, and even belief systems that may result from a spectrum of life experiences ranging from difficult to traumatic.

This sensitivity often expresses itself in a variety of symptoms and or subsequent disorders which may include:
nightmares
panic attacks
substance abuse
addictive behavior
exaggerated startle response
avoidant behavior
depression
heart palpitations
flashbacks
generalized anxiety disorder
social anxiety
agoraphobia
Shyness
performance anxiety
fear of public speaking
phobias

EMDR helps a person process information that was so disturbing it could only be taken in as pieces and fragments of data.
For example, a person who survives a car accident may have difficulty returning to the scene of the accident or may have difficulty recalling the events preceding, during or even shortly after the accident. The event unfolded in a flood of stress hormones and other neurochemicals worked to pre-empt thinking in favor of moving/fleeing.
EMDR effectively desensitizes frightening fragments of thought in the form of vivid or even vague memories, flashbacks, disturbing reflections and stressful associations. As a result, optimal cognitive processing can take place and help the client develop an appropriate sense of mastery over the disturbing material.
Effects on Episodic Memory

To understand better how Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing works, lets think of post traumatic stress as an inability to fully process episodic memory to the degree that a cohesive ego narrative or, well put- together story of \"I\" is formed. Episodic memory is the memory of events, times, places, emotions and knowledge of a difficult or traumatic experience.

A study in the journal Neuropsychology (17 (2): 221-9) tested the effects of eye movement therapy on episodic memory and found that bilateral eye movements such as those in EMDR produced better recall compared to no eye movement or a vertical eye movement process. It is thought that the transfer of information across the brain’s hemispheres improves the processing of episodic memories because visual impulses in bilateral form stimulate otherwise latent information processing resources that require a dialogue of sorts with one another.

Turning Point Psychotherapy, Therapy &; Counseling. Specializing treating anxiety, depression, trauma, bulimia anorexia nervosa, and addiction in Santa Cruz California area and via webcam internet and skype.http://www.turningpointpsychotherapy.com