EMDR Therapy in Goodyear, AZ
At Connections Counseling and Consulting, Carol Dickinson, a Licensed Professional Counselor, offers EMDR therapy in person or virtually, servicing Buckeye, AZ, Surprise, Glendale, and the metropolitan Phoenix area.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s a type of therapy that was first developed to help clients who have post-traumatic stress disorder. What sets EMDR apart from other trauma therapy modalities is its focus on processing traumatic memories to reduce their impact in the present rather than working on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that developed in response to them. EMDR is an evidence-based treatment for PTSD and trauma-related disorders.
The process of EMDR therapy includes eight phases used over several sessions:
- Taking the client’s history
- Client preparation
- Target memory assessment and activation
- Memory desensitization
- Installation of the memory adjustment using bilateral stimulation
- Body scan to identify residual physical disturbances
- Closure
- Re-assessment to determine general progress
EMDR standardized procedures are designed to stimulate bilateral brain activity using an external stimulus. The minute that trauma happens, it is encoded in your brain on a neural pathway that encompasses everything that happened during that trauma. Along with the memory of that event, this encoding can be sight, sound, smell, and taste. EMDR addresses everything in that memory, including all the sensory information contributing to flashbacks. EMDR creates a new healthy neural pathway to process trauma memory in a healthy way and desensitizes those memories. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to create new healthy neural pathways, which are most often auditory and hand-tapping and can sometimes be eye movements
What to Expect from EMDR Therapy
During a session, you may have some level of reexperiencing. This will be tolerable and will last for a short duration. During that session, the reexperiencing can be considered a wave that will crest and weaken as the memory is desensitized. This will gradually improve, you will begin to regulate, and the power of the memory will begin weakening.
Carol Dickinson, an LPC offering EMDR and attachment-based therapy at Connections Counseling and Consulting out of Buckeye, AZ, believes in collaboration. Your provider will be with you every step of the way as you work through disturbing memories.
Benefits of EMDR Therapy
In addition to being used for trauma-related disorders, EMDR can also be used to treat:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Chronic pain
- Addiction
Contact Us Today!
Connections Counseling and Consulting, in Goodyear, AZ, serves Buckeye, Surprise, Glendale, and the metropolitan Phoenix area. Carol, an experienced LPC, offers therapeutic interventions, including EMDR and attachment-based therapy, for individuals struggling with trauma and other mental health concerns. Call (602) 679-4691 to schedule a consultation.