If you are interested in receiving EMDR Therapy in Winnipeg, you’ve come to the right place. I have been providing EMDR Therapy since 2015 and have since helped many clients achieve relief from symptoms associated with trauma and other issues that cause distress.
I am a Certified EMDR Therapist. That means that in addition to completing the required EMDR Basic Training, I have completed additional advanced training and consultation to ensure exceptional standards. I have received specialized instruction in various topics, including complex trauma as well as early intervention soon after a traumatic experience. I participate in and lead ongoing EMDR-specific, professional peer consultation meetings.
What is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is, in a nutshell, a type of therapy that helps the brain make sense of a memory in a new way. I often use a hypothetical example when explaining it to clients:
Suppose a person gets hit by a red car. They get quite injured and spend some time in the hospital, but ultimately their physical injuries heal and they get back to their lives. However, each time they see a red car after the accident, they become very anxious. They know red cars aren’t scary, but yet they are feeling very scared. Sometimes we can know something to be true, yet feel something completely different. EMDR Therapy helps the brain shift things so that the client can feel calm when they think about the traumatic memory of the red car incident, and also when they encounter red cars in their daily life.
So there it is. EMDR does not change the fact that an incident is distressing, but changes how a person feels about the memory.
What is an EMDR Therapy session like?
People often think of EMDR session as the back-and-forth eye movements or other bi-lateral stimulation that associated with this method. That is for sure a part of it! It might be surprising to know that this part is only one part (phases 4-6) of an 8-phase process. In other words, there is more to EMDR than just the stuff with the lightbar and/or tappers. The process of EMDR is definitely not a one-session deal but it is usually much quicker to resolve trauma-related distress than regular talk therapy.
You can read more about the phases here.
The first few phases are basically a conversation where you and I would discuss your experience, history, and treatment goals. Depending on your unique experience, we might spend more time in any one of these phases before moving to phase 3 onward. When we do get to phase 4, we use a variety of stimuli to help the brain stay busy such as an LED lightbar, tappers, or hand movements to make the back-and-forth movements. There are effective ways of adapting this for online sessions. EMDR is just as effective in person as online.
After phase 4, we do some more work with the memory to make sure that there is no more distress attached to it.
How Long Does EMDR Therapy Take?
We will know more information after the assessment process. The length of therapy is different for everyone. Factors that that affect this include the client’s goals for therapy, the amount of time that has passed since the traumatic event, the nature of the issue at hand (i.e. developmental trauma versus single-incident trauma), and an individual’s coping strategies.
If we are working on a single incident trauma—one experience that happened one time—it is typically quite short-term. However, this can vary depending on individual factors. If the concern is more complex than one experience that happened one time, the process is typically longer.
Research advances in the last few years have challenged what we know about EMDR Therapy. It used to be the case where clinicians were quite cautious about proceeding with EMDR processing work (phase 3 onward) in cases of complex trauma, often preferring to spend more extensive time working with clients on coping skills prior to EMDR processing work. While all clients are unique and there are cases where this may be indicated, there is now research demonstrating that working more quickly may be more helpful. (1)
What issues can EMDR Therapy help with?
EMDR Therapy is most well-known for its ability to help with symptoms of trauma and PTSD-related concerns. https://www.emdria.org/about-
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(1) van Vliet, N. I., Huntjens, R.J.C., van Dijk, M.K., Bachrach, N., Meewisse, M., & de Jong, A. Phase-based treatment versus immediate trauma-focused treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder due to childhood abuse: randomised clinical trial. BJPsych Open, 7(211), 1-7. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2021.1057
