By Adrienne Loker, LCSW, EMDR, SE
The theoretical framework of EMDR asserts that we get stuck in our mental health symptoms because our memories are stored in the wrong filing cabinet.
Our memory filing cabinets sort information into two groups: threatening and non-threatening. Of course, us humans like to interpret these as "negative" and "positive."
"Negative" or, threatening, memory networks can be adaptive or maladaptive.
An adaptive memory network holds information about things that pose a risk to our survival. When we operate from an adaptive threatening memory network, we might take precautions on the highway, walking late at night, or swimming in the ocean.
A maladaptive memory network holds information about things that once posed a risk to our survival, but no longer does. When we operate from a maladaptive threatening memory network, we have either an overreaction to benign stimuli, or an underreaction to malignant stimuli.
For example, we might go into full panic if someone sets a boundary with us and tells us "no." Or, we might seek out toxic people and be inappropriately vulnerable with them.
Once a survival memory creates a network, it operates as a magnet. It pulls in all new stimuli that resembles any aspect of the original memory. As the network grows, it takes on a leadership role in filtering all new experiences.
In EMDR Therapy, we aim to rewire maladaptive memory networks to become adaptive.
By starting with the present disturbance, we work backwards to identify the touchstone memory of the memory network. Once we can reprocess this memory, the entire network begins to dismantle.
Here's an example:
In 2018 I enrolled in my own EMDR therapy. I originally sought out therapy because I felt stale in my trauma recovery and I wanted something that could take me to the next level. At the time, I was having difficulty in one of my parenting relationships. In the therapy world, we talk about how our child clients tend to be a mirror of what's happening in the parents' world. I knew that his "acting out" was a reflection of my own anxiety that provoked his behavior.
In working with my therapist, we started with a benign life experience that I felt so much shame toward. My kid, five at the time, accidentally threw away the change from his lunch money - despite me reminding him to be careful about this exact scenario that morning! In therapy, I started with my check in - complaining about the audacity of a 5 year old to be so impulsive and thoughtless! My wise therapist didn't challenge my unrealistic expectations.
Instead, she asked me to hold the image that produced the highest emotional response from me. As I held this image, she had me identify the negative belief associated with it: "I'm helpless." From there, I told her how my body responded to this experience (tension in my throat), and she instructed me to floatback to the very first time I could recall experiencing this sensation with this belief of helplessness.
I was immediately transported back to a time in my adolescence where I'd been confronted with suicidality and risky behaviors. As I held both timelines, I realized how they'd been crossed so that I had been incapable of discerning a past timeline with present day timeline.
We spent the rest of the session reprocessing the memory that surfaced. Afterward, I was able to be present with my kid and see his behavior as normative kindergarten behavior, rather than pathologizing him from this place of responding to old stimuli in my life. Needless to say, he and I have gotten much closer since!
If you're ready to get curious about your memory networks, you can get started for FREE by accessing our Enrichment Collection. We have a variety of experiential exercises to help you regulate your nervous system and live in today's timeline. Access if for FREE 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.
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