I’ve never been in anything like combat. Could I really have trauma?

Yes. Many forms of trauma–including some that cause the worst psychological symptoms–do not involve exposure to combat or any other forms of physical violence.Yes. Many forms of trauma–including some that cause the worst psychological symptoms–do not involve exposure to combat or any other forms of physical violence.

Why can’t I just move on from this? These things all happened years ago!

Traumatic memory appears to be stored differently from other memories. This may have an adaptive function but traumatic memories–as opposed to good memories or non-traumatic bad memories–appear to be robust in resisting degradation over time. Many people with traumatic memories report experiencing memories “as if it were yesterday” despite the passage of years or even decades.

These memories have been bothering me for years. How could they be changed in just a few days?

Trauma modalities such as EMDR recruit the natural capacity of the brain to process traumatic memory and store it differently. This process seems to be similar in speed and effectiveness for memories that are recent and old.

What actually happens during a trauma intensive?

The first couple of hours are used by me to learn more about you. The evaluation is about getting a whole picture, the good things in your life as well as traumatic experiences. The rest of day one (usually Monday) and the remainder of the time is spent on processing memories — one by one — so that they stop causing problems in the present. The intensive ends when we reach either the time allotted or the last of target memories, whichever comes first.

What does EMDR look like?

If you could watch an EMDR session, you would often see a client seated and visually tracking the movement of the therapist’s hand back and forth from left to right. This is done while the client has a specific troubling memory in mind. The goal is to invoke the same process (bilateral processing in the brain) as occurs during the REM phase of sleep but while the client is fully awake. If eye movements are not preferable for a certain client, sound or tactile cues can be used to engender the same effect.