Do you feel depressed? Do painful memories of the past intrude and persist? Do negative beliefs about yourself echo inside your head? Is it hard to move on to a fresh and positive perspective?
EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was developed as a tool for treating trauma. With all kinds of post-traumatic stress disorders (that can happen in catastrophic events, accidents, physical, emotional or sexual abuse), it has proven to be especially effective. But it can also be applied to reprocessing those life events that reinforce negative beliefs about ourselves and the world.
Beliefs like: ” I am powerless”, “The world isn’t safe”. ” I always get hurt in relationship” “My body is ugly”… endless statements we can tell ourselves that just perpetuate that old stuck, trapped way of thinking and being in the world.
EMDR has a way of working with the painful feelings that get lodged in our bodies, the images that go along with that and the thoughts that we can obsess about…. to process it to a new more objective and positive reality. It can be used to build on strengths and good feelings. It can help break old destructive, addictive patterns of behavoir. EMDR is a powerful tool that when used by an experienced professional in the context of a safe therapeutic relationship at the right time can have tremendous healing effects.
Marlena Kushner, M.A., M.F.T.
Certified EMDR Therapist
Women’s Therapy Services