By Adrienne Loker, LCSW, EMDR, SE
EMDR is a power form of psychotherapy, but it can often be experienced as too much and too fast - which is why infusing EMDR with Somatic Therapy is paramount to reducing the risk of re-traumatization and amplifying the healing process.
To give you a sense of what resourcing (tapping into your own capacity for safety) might feel like in the beginning stages of your EMDR therapy, try out the exercise below:
Think of a time this week where you felt most like yourself.
Take your time – sometimes you have to weed through some unpleasant experiences before you arrive.
Once you’re there, take a snapshot of this experience where you felt most like yourself.
Visualizing this snapshot, scan your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, noticing where this experience lives inside your body.
If you notice multiple places, let your attention land on the place that feels the most open.
If you struggle to notice a place, give yourself permission to sit with the experience for a moment longer. Perhaps you’re not used to be being embodied, and the sensation might be incredibly subtle or quiet. Give yourself a few minutes for your experience to emerge.
Or, perhaps your Inner Critic doesn’t feel safe feeling safe and is doing everything they can to prevent you from moving forward. If this is the case, just thank this part of you for showing up. Use your eyes to explore your current surroundings, letting your eyes tell you where they want to go. Let them land on something comforting or familiar.
As you notice this experience of feeling most like yourself, zoom out to notice what supports you in feeling most like yourself…and what supports the supports that connect you with feeling most like yourself?
Come back to your body, noticing any places of softness or expansion. Using your hands, gently and slowly tap on your knees one side at a time for five seconds total. Pause and scan your body again. As long as this continues to feel enjoyable, let yourself repeat this exercise.
Now, bring your attention to a mild annoyance within the past week. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst and 1 being neutral, choose something close to a 2.
As you notice this annoyance, scan your body to take note of any shifts. After a moment or two, let your attention come back to the experience of feeling like yourself.
In Somatically-Centered EMDR, we work to:
1) Enlarge the part of our nervous system that experiences feeling safe
2) Increase the neurological pathways from dysregulation to regulation
3) Reprocess trauma by taxing the working memory through dual attention
Our approach allows you to achieve years’ worth of traditional therapy in a matter of months.
Learn more about EMDR Intensives here.
Adrienne Loker, LCSW is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist, EMDR Consultant in Training, and Somatic Experiencing Therapist. She owns and operates a trauma-sensitive therapy practice, Seeking Depth to Recovery, that specializes in the treatment of complex and non-verbal trauma, using experiential modalities in an intensive format. In as little as one 90-minute intensive therapy session, participants report marked insight into their anxiety, panic, depression, and trauma compared to their previous experience with traditional talk therapy.
#TraumaTherapy #TreatmentforTrauma #ComplexTrauma #CPTSD #EMDR #IFS #CPTSD #ComplexPTSD #SomaticHealing #SomaticTherapy #SomaticInquiry
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