How Therapists Are Adapting EMDR Therapy During COVID-19

There is little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is felt as a collective trauma by unprecedented numbers of people around the world. It's natural if you feel particularly overwhelmed right now, between the terror of the virus itself, the economic impact or the anticipation of what's happening next.

Especially if you're a trauma patient already, COVID-19 will present a variety of special challenges. A big one is having to pursue psychological recovery in an electronic format — your therapist's in-person presence offers a sense of comfort that you do not experience across a computer screen when emotionally distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The famous trauma eye motion desensitization and reprocessing, EMDR therapy Austin is probably one of the most challenging forms of therapy to put online.

 

What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of therapy initially intended as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma sufferers. Other conditions, such as anxiety, phobias, sleep difficulties and chronic pain, have since been shown to help. Whether and why EMDR functions is indeed something of a mystery. One theory suggests that it may imitate how memories are processed by the brain during REM sleep, but there is no doubt that it helps many.

The core of EMDR, which Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., founded in the late 1980s, is to help reprocess painful experiences in the brain. Those memories can get trapped after a traumatic event and trigger a visceral stress reaction in your present life.

At first it might seem a bit unconventional to do EMDR therapy. You will be using bilateral stimulation, rhythmic patterns of the left-right as you focus on one traumatic memory at a time. Bilateral stimulation may follow your therapist's finger or a light beam with your eyes back and forth, alternating tapping on your legs or keeping pulsing paddles in each of your hands. You must rely on the complicated memory by utilizing simultaneous relaxation at the same time. Meanwhile, in a sequence of reprocessing exercises, you'll explain what you are feeling with your psychiatrist before the memory disturbance reduces.

 

How Are Therapists Adapting EMDR Online?

 

COVID-19 has relocated much of the therapy online, and with those in the midst of EMDR counseling, therapists face a big obstacle with whether to maintain providing EMDR directly to clients. Historically EMDR has been performed in the presence of the psychiatrist. It's a hands-on form of treatment — Bilateral instruments of relaxation usually live in the lab. Therapists have overcome this issue by encouraging people to press at home on their legs or using a video-sharing system to activate and end the left-right stimulus on the phone.

Online trauma therapy raises particular safety concerns, since therapists have minimized online access to participants. Trauma treatment can be intense and trigger reactions at the crisis level that therapists would like to help contain during an in-person session. Additionally, therapists need to view your whole body to better understand what's going on and they realize when you're stressed and will help you remain healthy. Now you don't worry. We are here to help you. Now you can continue your treatment online. Just call us at 512-761-8521 to talk to our therapist Austin tx.