Jennifer Moore, LMHC offering EMDR & ART
Anxiety and trauma therapy in Greenland NH and online throughout MA, NH & ME
Connect to your inner strength and natural healing abilities
Have you tried traditional talk therapy and haven’t seen the deep healing and lasting change you were looking for?
EMDR & ART are non-traditional therapy methods that can support you to find ways to heal from past negative experiences so you can be more present and focused to achieve your dreams.
What issues can be successfully treated with Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing & Accelerated Resolution Therapy?
Both EMDR & ART are proven to be highly effective and long lasting to treat trauma and PTSD, along with many other common issues people experience.
Disturbing Re-occuring Memories
Anxiety Issues
Panic Attacks
Phobias
Relationship Issues
Grief & Loss
Imposter Syndrome
Performance issues for creatives, artists and athletes
HOW DOES EMDR THERAPY WORK?
Traumatic memories are stored in the brain differently than other kinds of memories.
-
During a traumatic event, the body’s natural fight-or-flight response kicks in to cope with the immediate situation. The information processing system of the brain gets disrupted and the memories of the event become stored in a fragmented and unfinished way. After the bad experience is over the brain will bring up the fragmented pieces into the present in an attempt to resolve the fragmented memory (this often looks like unwanted thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, and intense emotional and/or physical reactions). The memory of the traumatic event seems to get stuck or frozen. The painful thoughts, feelings, sensations and images associated with the traumatic event seem to be locked in the nervous system.
-
EMDR therapy shifts how trauma is stored in the brain and reduces the disturbing emotions, sensations, symptoms, and beliefs associated with those experiences. By having the client focus on the sensations and emotions they have while thinking about the bad memory as they engage in activities like moving their eyes, tapping on their body or hearing a faint beeping sound that alternates between their ears. The alternating eye movements, tapping or hearing sound in each ear is called bilateral stimulation, stimulating the nervous system on both sides of the body. Each set of these bilateral stimulations typically lasts between 30 and 60 seconds. Through the use of bilateral stimulation EMDR therapy fundamentally changes the way the memory is stored.
-
The EMDR process can reduce sensitivity that you have around the traumatic memory, painful thoughts, emotion. and body sensations. The emotional charge associated with the traumatic memory is eliminated or reduced. Clients are often amazed that issues they’ve worked on for years in talk therapy become suddenly lighter, less intense, and more easily controlled after several EMDR therapy sessions.
HOW DOES ACCELERATED RESOLUTION THERAPY (ART) WORK?
ART changes the way distressing memories and images are stored in the brain so they no longer trigger strong physical and emotional reactions.
Change the way you feel when remembering an upsetting or distressing experience by using visualizations, imagination and metaphors.
Uses rapid eye movements similar to eye movements that occur naturally during a sleep stage called REM.
You’re in control, with support!
Find quick resolution without the need for extensive verbal disclosure.
Rapid positive results, usually within 1-5 sessions.
Long-lasting positive changes observed in research studies.
The goal of EMDR & ART is to help you to develop new coping skills, reduce the emotional intensity associated with your negative experience, and achieve a more positive outlook on life.
EMDR and ART incorporate several different therapeutic techniques, including:
Bilateral Stimulation which is a technique of using eye-movements, tapping or sound alternating on one side of the body and then the other, which has been found to activate the brain’s natural ability to process and store information in memory so that the past event doesn’t negatively impact the present.
Improve awareness of thoughts and body sensations connected to the trauma and ultimately reducing any distressing/upsetting thoughts, emotions, and body sensations associated with the trauma.
Cognitive restructuring techniques which are used to help you identify and change negative beliefs you have about yourself, other people, and the world which are a result of experiencing the traumatic event(s).
Imagery re-scripting (EMDR) and voluntary memory replacement (ART), which is where you get to choose how you want to focus on your traumatic experiences. This technique involves revisiting the traumatic event and creating a new, positive outcome or image that you use to focus on the memory of the negative experience in a more positive and adaptive way.
Group EMDR Therapy
EMDR Group therapy is a way to work through everyday triggers and trauma symptoms, without discussing or going into details about the trauma. The group guidelines ensure respect and privacy for clients and make it a safer way to process together but independently. EMDR in a group can make people feel connected and motivated to continue in their healing journey.
Group EMDR allows each person to focus and find healing on their own worst part of their upsetting or traumatic event. It incorporates all the steps in individual EMDR with the addition of using simple drawings or writing a few words instead of talking out loud. This is an important point about group EMDR because each person has an opportunity to process their own memory without sharing it with others to reduce the possibility of triggering others.
In the first few group sessions we will focus on everyone getting to know each other and building trust. We will review ways to calm emotions and cope with difficult feelings. When we use the EMDR group protocol we will incorporate bilateral stimulation, which is a central aspect of EMDR and is achieved by each individual person tapping on a visual handout. We also make sure to focus on positive thoughts or personal strengths. There is an opportunity for each person to share with the group any positives they discover during their own EMDR experience. We will end every group EMDR meeting with a calming exercise.
EMDR & ART FAQ’s
-
EMDR & ART both offer researched based therapeutic ways to access the natural healing capacity of our minds and bodies to move beyond the pain of an upsetting or traumatic memory and gain a better understanding of yourself. You remember the facts about the trauma, you just don’t have the painful emotions and body sensations that became attached to the memories that interfere with you in the present.
-
No you don’t need to share intimate details about your bad experiences. EMDR & ART both allow you to change the way your painful past experiences affect you without you having to verbally share all the painful details. Traditional talk therapies often require you to talk about your painful memories over and over, but EMDR & ART don’t require this to have effective results. With both EMDR & ART you can choose to share details as much or as little as you want to in order to find relief from the pain.
-
EMDR & ART creates the opportunity for you to change the way you feel about and experience memories, images, sensations and thoughts connected to upsetting negative past experiences. With EMDR & ART you are able to make the important connections needed to change the way the memories impact you.
-
There are only theories about how EMDR & ART work to successfully help people to heal from their past negative experiences. One popular theory is that our brains are able to process information while we sleep during a sleep stage called REM Rapid Eye Movement where our eyes move rapidly back & forth. The theory is that EMDR & ART activates the body’s natural processing ability to transform negative memories to ones that no longer cause pain.
-
The most important thing to have is a willingness to feel differently about what has happened to you in life. A willingness to find new meaning to your experiences and move past your past for a better future. A willingness to deal with discomfort today, in a supportive environment, so that your tomorrows are free from interference of pain past events.
-
My main focus is to support you to find relief from painful and upsetting emotions and feelings you are dealing with right now. I will listen to what is going on in your life and what you want to accomplish in therapy and then I will offer all the options for treatment that I believe will be the most effective for you. We will determine together what the best treatment focus will be for you and your unique needs.
-
When something happens that is upsetting/disturbing/scary or life threatening your brain may not be able to process the information correctly. Imagine writing the details of a very disturbing event into a 50 page document. Including all the images, thoughts, sounds, physical sensations, and personal beliefs associated with the negative event. Then take the 50 page document and throw the paper up into the air, all the pages of the document will fall all over the floor. Now any time you come near that area of the floor you will step all over the pages (this is the same as intrusive memories or thoughts when triggered, nightmares, and flashbacks about the event). EMDR is like picking up the pieces of paper in that document, putting them in page # order and putting it away in the file cabinet. The information is still there, but now it’s in order and you aren’t stepping all over it any more.
-
With ART you choose a negative experience that causes you a lot of painful emotions and uncomfortable body sensations. Then by using ART you are able create a new way to focus on the experience so that it reduces or stops the pain and discomfort connected to the experience.