EMDR in Buffalo, New York, and Pennsylvania
Is talk therapy not working for you?
Spending years talking about your trauma without seeing improvement can be frustrating. EMDR therapy can help you process trauma in days or months instead of years.
You’re in the right place!
What is EMDR?
-
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
-
EMDR helps individuals process traumatic memories through a structured eight-phase approach. The therapy involves recalling distressing events while simultaneously following the therapist's finger movements with their eyes, which is believed to help reprocess the memories and reduce their emotional impact.
-
It is common for people to cry during EMDR. EMDR is an emotional process that, while sometimes difficult, can be extremely transformative and healing.
-
Some studies show that 80-90% of individuals with single event trauma (that is, an event that happened one time that was traumatic, such as a car accident) had no symptoms of PTSD following three 90-minute sessions of EMDR. EMDR is considered the “gold standard” for trauma treatment.
-
The EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) has a great explanation of this on their website. Please visit this link for more information.
EMDR therapy can help you…
Regulate your emotions better, leading to more productive and healthy relationships
Improve your self-esteem and self-worth while building resilience
Reduce (or even eliminate) symptoms such as anxiety, depression, nightmares, and flashbacks associated with trauma
I’m here to help.
FAQs about EMDR
-
The insurance model limits therapy sessions to 50 minutes. However, many EMDR patients find 50 minutes to be insufficient for trauma processing. 90 minutes or more is the preferred length of sessions. EMDR is also available in intensive format, which can be scheduled in blocks of 180 minutes (3 hours).
-
This timeline is completely individual to each person. It is important to do the appropriate work ahead of trauma processing to give you the self-care and coping skills to manage the intense emotions that come up with EMDR. We will work together to assess when you are ready to move into the active trauma processing phase.
-
For those pursuing the traditional weekly model of therapy, depending on the amount of trauma one wants to process, this can take many months (although, this is shorter than the typical amount of time spent in talk therapy). EMDR Intensives can speed up this process significantly. Visit my intensives page for more information.
