EMDR Therapy in Scottsdale, Arizona

Why Is EMDR Treatment Used? 

EMDR Therapy: What Does The Treatment Involve?

Because EMDR is working to help your brain do the healing and each individual has their own individual factors to consider (length of time with the trauma, how quickly the brain responds, how well a person is able to manage to stay in the present moment while observing things from their past), lengths of time for treatment may differ. A person might need to spend significant time in Phase 2 (see below) if they haven’t yet developed skills to calm their nervous system and need some practice now. This is still EMDR and they will likely begin to see positive results during this time as well.
In EMDR there are 8 phases to treatment and they are all important. At Lorain Moorehead Therapy and Consultation, we adhere closely to this structure in order to provide fidelity to the model. You will likely not be tracking each of the 8 phases as they are happening, as they tend to blend seamlessly together. You are “doing EMDR” in all of the 8 phases–there is sometimes a misconception that this phrase refers to Phase 4 and beyond, but there is important work and insight happening in all 8 phases. 

Since processing can continue throughout the day and during sleep, re-evaluation means we check in at the beginning of the next session to see if level of distress is still a zero, or if anything new has come up. It’s fine if it does–we will do phase 4 until it returns to a zero. After a target is complete and distress remains at a zero, we can move on to a new target from Phase 3. 

Phase 8: Re-Evaluation

Closure is how we will wrap up the session. Because it is common to need to end a session in the middle of a reprocessing phase, we will utilize strategies from Phase 2 to be sure that you are leaving feeling comfortable and not overwhelmed be the information that you accessed. In the event that the target was closed, we will end the session after installation and a clear body scan. 

Phase 7: Closure

Here you will observe and note any stress or discomfort that remains in the body. Trauma is held in all channels, and here we are checking the somatic, or body channel to see if anything remains stored. We will continue BLS until this channel is clear as well. 

Phase 6: Body Scan

Here we install the PC, adaptive belief with the goal of increasing its strength. The further use of bilateral stimulation will increase how true the PC feels including how much you believe it.

Phase 5: Installation

Now that the maladaptive information has been activated, we need to move right into desensitization, where we combine the Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) to begin to desensitize the emotional intensity of the memory. BLS can be tapping, a buzzing device, a lightbar for eye movements, a bilateral sound, etc. and we will carefully direct it and attune to it to be sure it’s effective.

Phase 4: Desensitization

Phase 3: Assessment

This is also called resourcing- here we are providing education around the EMDR process as well as building safety and determining whether it is safe to move into the next phase. Are you able to utilize your nervous system calming strategies? When we are accessing this window we are able to activate states that are curious, calm, interested and playful.

Phase 2: Preparation

We are gathering information regarding the maladaptively linked memory, or the blip in your memory system, and determining how many adaptive links they have in their information system that allow you to calm your nervous system (phase 2). We take things slowly here in order to balance these two things. We are looking for themes here and sorting experiences to see if anything fits under the same umbrella. 

Phase 1: History & Treatment Planning

Here we review the work that was completed in Phase 1 and narrow down the best place to start, and create a plan for how to move forward called a Target Sequence plan. In this process we will also which negative cognition (NC) seems to be the most pervasive and which adaptive believe (PC) would be more useful to install.