Top of my reading list at the moment is The hidden psychology of pain by Dr James Alexander who's ideas support and further develop the ideas of Dr John Sarno re the origins of chronic pain. Sarno's ideas were that a lot of chronic back pain and pain syndromes like Chronic Fatigue Sydrome/ME are a psychologically driven response to unresolved emotions. Sarno's ideas are revolutionary and challenging to current medical thinking but as he is an MD and has treated a lot of people using his protocol, there are many clinicians who are beginning to take him seriously. John Alexander is one of them but he differs in that he is a psychologist so has, perhaps more of an idea on the psychological determinants of this. he has suggested that our response to pain is determined by our thinking about it - i.e. whether it dominates our lives, we catastrophise it, and interpret its meaning as one of 'things getting worse'. Certainly in my clinical practice I have noticed this tendency in the clients who fail to get better and I remember my own experience here too. I think I belong to that category or 'ruminators'. He refers to a couple of Pain Questionnaires1 that help determine these responses and therefore allow us to rate our contribution to pain and therefore suggest ways of re-training the mind (via hypnotherapy, psycho-sensory techniques such as EFT, etc).
My contribution to this debate is that trauma may be at the heart of this 'sensitisation' of the mind. I am coming to believe that all of us have traumatic memory - some small, some large but that the cumulative effect of these poorly processed emotions is one of priming the autonomic nervous system (the fight and flight mechanism) to one of hypervigilance - and the end result of that is that when challenging events do occur in later life (like accidents, viral infection, etc) our system (especially the adrenals) are so severely compromised that the immune system is depressed and we end up in a cycle of pain and worrying about pain...
This then becomes our focus and we start our journey to find external solutions, whether it be conventional or alternative. We fight the notion that the answer is in us as that seems like blaming ourselves for our pain when we feel innocent (which is correct - we are). But we need to take responsibility and begin to explore the old hurts (without endlessly recounting them) so that we can heal. I recommend Eye Movement Desensisation and Reprogramming (EMDR) for this as it heals the hurt without retriggering. It is quite profound.
I myself and having (EMDR) therapy so that
i/ I know what it feels like and
ii/ I can be cleared of my triggers to get my mental attic cleared
Both of these help me to be clearer when helping my clients.
I started by looking at my blood phobia which is something that limits me and makes me embarrassed (I feel faint if I even look at it). This seemed simple enough. But within a couple of sessions other images and ideas popped into my head unbidden and these have to do with my grandmother and mother and certain panic feeling they had. I have no doubt for myself that I have trauma from my early years (ages 2-3) which I don't remember but seems to keep me forever looking out for failure and disaster. This inner exploration is very interesting and has had the useful corollary of reducing my Reynaud's symptoms (white finger) and generally my anxiety levels.
So, I look forward to a day when I am free of these things and hope to be able to use my learning to help clients in pain - those who are willing to go beyond the external search anyway..
1 The Pain Catastrophizing Scale by
Michael JL Sullivan, PhD
travels through holistic health, wellbeing and hypnotherapy
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Daring Greatly
Vulnerability Researcher Brene Brown claims on page 165 of her book 'Daring greatly' states 'we are still awaiting the neurobiology to show that shame is perceived as trauma'. I have written to her to ask if she has come across the work of Ronald A Ruden MD PhD, a clinical research scientist in NYC. In his book 'The past is always present' he claims that: Shame, guilt,, etc are reflective emotions linked to attachment - he has described the process of traumatization in the limbic system as being a process of the Basal lateral complex BLC sending a message to the Central Nucleus (Ce) within the amygdala - it is potentiated by the neurotransmitter glutamate (released at the time when helplessness is present - ie. the situation is inescapable - such as being shamed by one you love and trust) - and processing inhibited by norepinephrine (which prevents it being rationalised consciously at the time - and is thus subconsciously encoded). Anyhow he explains it way better than I can - but shame is definitely identified as a trauma trigger by neurochemistry - perhaps one of the most important..
My particular interest is in releasing childhood and adult trauma through bodywork and EMDR to release chronic pain and anxiety states. I am just learning my craft but am doing a lot of research on the subject to try to pull together a full understanding of the process. People find it difficult to understand that physical pain can be caused by emotional triggers but this is also beginning to be described in the literature. Your work on shame and vulnerability has meant a lot to me and when I point them in your direction, my clients. it helps them to understand the meaning of their experiences and how they can move beyond their self-limiting beliefs about themselves. As I work with a lot of academics (particularly women), her work has a lot of resonance from women who have striven to achieve and succeed despite their shame experiences. I aim to move them to a point not just of acceptance but of realisation that they can love themselves not despite but because of those experiences and the understanding and compassion it has given them for themselves and others.
I love Brene's work as it complements my own researches so well and her willingness to connect and share her personal experience. I think she's amazing - a much needed light at the end of a dark tunnel.
My particular interest is in releasing childhood and adult trauma through bodywork and EMDR to release chronic pain and anxiety states. I am just learning my craft but am doing a lot of research on the subject to try to pull together a full understanding of the process. People find it difficult to understand that physical pain can be caused by emotional triggers but this is also beginning to be described in the literature. Your work on shame and vulnerability has meant a lot to me and when I point them in your direction, my clients. it helps them to understand the meaning of their experiences and how they can move beyond their self-limiting beliefs about themselves. As I work with a lot of academics (particularly women), her work has a lot of resonance from women who have striven to achieve and succeed despite their shame experiences. I aim to move them to a point not just of acceptance but of realisation that they can love themselves not despite but because of those experiences and the understanding and compassion it has given them for themselves and others.
I love Brene's work as it complements my own researches so well and her willingness to connect and share her personal experience. I think she's amazing - a much needed light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Friday, 21 February 2014
Courage, Compassion and connection
This week I have been practising my presentation skills for a talk entitled 'Recovery from ME/CFS'. My plan is to be able to present this sometime in the spring - I want to do a joint presentation with a colleague of mine who is a nutrition...al therapist and iridologist. I think we make a good team. As a Chrysalis Effect Practitioner specialising in these chronic mind-body conditions you need a multi-factorial approach - one therapy cannot do it. One size does not fit all. The team-based approach is one which makes me different and I aim to be promoting this shortly. Ali will be working alongside me as a VIP (Vital impact Practitioner). We will be offering packages of care rather than ad-hoc appointments.. anyhow all looking exciting.
While I was thinking about what it takes to be able to present to people, I was reminded of US researcher Brene Brown talking about Shame and Empathy - something that is very much a part of what I do. I listen to people's stories, and I have to learn how to connect without judgement so people are able to tell me things that shame them, and thus release it. Without compassion this is impossible. It's what makes it possible for me to do this work. so it is timely that while looking up some information on Google I came across Brene Brown from a Tedx talk she did which has become an international sensation and launched her career as a speaker/storyteller. She has the most amazing effect on me - mainly because she talks from the heart about subjects that most of us try to avoid. And because this understanding is influenced not only by her research but by her own experience (and subsequent breakdown) when she realised that the quality of the life you live is largely down to how vulnerable you are willing to make yourself. The quality of your relationships, worklife, and spiritual expression are all down to how open you can make yourself to hear others, and yourself, without shame or judgement. This was very challenging to the person she was and to most of us.
Indeed, to do the work I do, listening to people's often painful stories, it requires Courage (talking from the heart- from the French word for heart - Coeur), Compassion and Connection. When I am able to do this I see tremendous shifts in people, who trust me with their shame, who have faith in me to hold the space while they work it through. This is an amazing journey that we undertake together and for all the people that have allowed me to do this, I thank you profoundly. Long may it continue.
Catch up with my work on www.alchemytherapies.co.uk
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
10 Tips to improve your health
Here is some information taken from my studies in nutritional medicine over the years..
1. Change the fats you consume – use unrefined oils like extra virgin olive oil (for dressing, steam-frying) or groundnut/ coconut oil (for stir-frying). never re-use old oil, keep out of the light and away from heat (decant into coloured glass bottles and store out of light). Use butter or olive oil spread rather than margarine (and don't be fooled by those ads claiming this new polyunsaturated, butter-like margarine is better for you). Absolute hogwash. Organic butter is a natural product full of Vitamin D and A - animals are grass fed and the nutrients get concentrated into the milk. Avoid anything with trans-fats in (sometimes disguised on labels as ‘hydrogenated’ vegetable oil). But you won't always know. Most processed food has it unless is specifically states otherwise.
2. Buy fresh (preferably organic) food in season – or grow your own. Find out where you nearest farm shop is or subscribe to one of the many vegetable box schemes which deliver. Many offer recipes on their website to help you use the vegetables you are unfamiliar with. Including one or two raw ingredients into your diet per day will make a huge difference e.g. raw carrot sticks with oatcakes and humous for a snack, seeds sprinkled onto your salad or soup. I make my own muesli now to avoid processed cereals (which are not health foods despite the advertising hype!). Use organic oats as the base.
3. Avoid poor quality processed ‘foodstuffs’ - anything with more than 5 ingredients. These are not foods they are chemical foodstuffs designed for long shelf life/palatability rather than human nutrition. Avoid cheap carbohydrates - (especially fizzy drinks) and anything with health claims. 'Low fat' products are often high in sugar which is stored as fat anyhow. Sugarfree drinks are full of nasty chemicals which actually make you fatter. Drink water, natural fruit juices (not too much) or juice your own vegetables.
4. Drink more water. Most of us are chronically dehydrated as we turn to sugary drinks, tea or coffee to quench our thirst. This causes more dehydration from the caffeine and will destroy our blood sugar control. Use filtered water to reduce the toxins (nitrates, organochlorines) in tapwater. It tastes nicer! Carry a water bottle around with you so you always have some to hand. Check your feet for a good indication of your levels of hydration - if the skin is dry and cracked it's a pretty good indicator.
5. Supplement - most people are deficient in vitamins and minerals as our food no longer contains them in sufficient amounts due to intensive farming. Most importantly Vitamin D3 which most people are deficient in (it is now known that it is a pre-hormone that is involved in a vast array of processes from immunity, cardiac and bone health and needed in higher amounts than previously thought). Also supplement omega-3 fatty acid EPA - modern diets are so imbalanced in this that even eating more fish might not be enough to redress the balance. A high dose purified fish oil with at least 500mg EPA is best. you will have probably heard the various stories in the press that supplements are a waste of time as they just go through your body and get flushed away - they do if you have enough already - but if you are deficient they are needed. I am not encouraging high levels of supplement-popping as a panacea for a deficient diet. Diet should come first. But please understand that certain vitamins and minerals are commonly deficient - the two highlighted here are the most common but also Magnesium (chronically low in women - causing PMT, restless leg syndrome, etc), iron and the trace minerals. That's why a good quality mult-vit helps redress the balance. But I am also of the opinion that we should use whole-food supplementation more than pills - things like Maca root, raw chocolate, chlorella, etc are storehouses of good things without the chemical fillers in pills.
6. Aim to cook/prepare at least one meal from raw ingredients every day (even if it’s only you own home prepared muesli!) Try and share meals with friends and family as it makes you more likely to enjoy the social aspect of eating and may encourage you to try new recipes. Sit down to eat and remember to chew properly – this really helps your digestion. I call it ‘conscious eating’. Shovelling down something infront of the TV is counterproductive. As is dieting.. Anything that encourages an unhealthy relationship to food (and restriction and reward is a common pattern for most of us) needs to be broken. Learning to cook, using more natural ingredients takes us out of the passive, processed food consumerist fantasy and into natural relation to the food that we eat.
7. Start Juicing - blending combinations of fruits and vegetables is an easy and nutritious way of enhancing your diet. With a blender you can consume far more vegetables than you would be able to physically eat and because they are already liquidised they are easily digested. My favourite combination is spinach and orange juice. You can't taste the spinach but you get all the benefit as Vitamin C aids Iron absorbtion. You can experiment with your own combinations or buy a book to encourage you. Juicers are also good though they reduce the fibre, but this may be good/bad depending on your digestive capabilities. The latest bullet-type juicers seem to combine the benefits of both.
8. Add superfoods to your diet. These are foods that have particularly powerful effects on the body. Examples are; garlic, ginger, broccoli, green tea, blueberries, turmeric, cinammon, raw cacao, chilli, seaweeds (tulse, etc), spirulina and barleygrass. Some of these are protective against cancer, others help balance hormones or blood sugar. You can buy them from health food shops or online and sprinkle them in your juices, cooking, and salads. Add cinnamon to your (natural, organic) coffee in the morning. you don't need to restrict to enhance your diet. It's all about adding better choices.
9. Combat stress. Ongoing chronic stress is the modern disease. We are not even aware how stressed we are till we take a break. This lowers the body's natural immunity (highly implicated in more serious diseases like cancer too). Learn mindfulness techniques or practice meditation - just 10 minutes a day devoted to something relaxing can make all the difference. Do something that you love that stops your incessant thinking. Deal with your emotional issues that lead to stress. See a therapist if you feel you need help. Mindfulness, Meditation, Hypnotherapy and EFT are all powerful tools which help us to understand and deal with our subconscious influences that cause us to have addictions (smoking, drinking,etc) and to live lives to less than our full potential. Contac me if you would like to know more.
10. Take responsibility for your own health. Learn everything you can about health and wellbeing – via books, the web and courses. Encourage your friends and family (especially children) to understand why it is important. Maintain your health actively with help from diet, exercise and therapies. Prevention is much more powerful than cure and is our responsibility. Begin now as I have done. Small changes have big results. Don't wait til you get ill to act!
1. Change the fats you consume – use unrefined oils like extra virgin olive oil (for dressing, steam-frying) or groundnut/ coconut oil (for stir-frying). never re-use old oil, keep out of the light and away from heat (decant into coloured glass bottles and store out of light). Use butter or olive oil spread rather than margarine (and don't be fooled by those ads claiming this new polyunsaturated, butter-like margarine is better for you). Absolute hogwash. Organic butter is a natural product full of Vitamin D and A - animals are grass fed and the nutrients get concentrated into the milk. Avoid anything with trans-fats in (sometimes disguised on labels as ‘hydrogenated’ vegetable oil). But you won't always know. Most processed food has it unless is specifically states otherwise.
2. Buy fresh (preferably organic) food in season – or grow your own. Find out where you nearest farm shop is or subscribe to one of the many vegetable box schemes which deliver. Many offer recipes on their website to help you use the vegetables you are unfamiliar with. Including one or two raw ingredients into your diet per day will make a huge difference e.g. raw carrot sticks with oatcakes and humous for a snack, seeds sprinkled onto your salad or soup. I make my own muesli now to avoid processed cereals (which are not health foods despite the advertising hype!). Use organic oats as the base.
3. Avoid poor quality processed ‘foodstuffs’ - anything with more than 5 ingredients. These are not foods they are chemical foodstuffs designed for long shelf life/palatability rather than human nutrition. Avoid cheap carbohydrates - (especially fizzy drinks) and anything with health claims. 'Low fat' products are often high in sugar which is stored as fat anyhow. Sugarfree drinks are full of nasty chemicals which actually make you fatter. Drink water, natural fruit juices (not too much) or juice your own vegetables.
4. Drink more water. Most of us are chronically dehydrated as we turn to sugary drinks, tea or coffee to quench our thirst. This causes more dehydration from the caffeine and will destroy our blood sugar control. Use filtered water to reduce the toxins (nitrates, organochlorines) in tapwater. It tastes nicer! Carry a water bottle around with you so you always have some to hand. Check your feet for a good indication of your levels of hydration - if the skin is dry and cracked it's a pretty good indicator.
5. Supplement - most people are deficient in vitamins and minerals as our food no longer contains them in sufficient amounts due to intensive farming. Most importantly Vitamin D3 which most people are deficient in (it is now known that it is a pre-hormone that is involved in a vast array of processes from immunity, cardiac and bone health and needed in higher amounts than previously thought). Also supplement omega-3 fatty acid EPA - modern diets are so imbalanced in this that even eating more fish might not be enough to redress the balance. A high dose purified fish oil with at least 500mg EPA is best. you will have probably heard the various stories in the press that supplements are a waste of time as they just go through your body and get flushed away - they do if you have enough already - but if you are deficient they are needed. I am not encouraging high levels of supplement-popping as a panacea for a deficient diet. Diet should come first. But please understand that certain vitamins and minerals are commonly deficient - the two highlighted here are the most common but also Magnesium (chronically low in women - causing PMT, restless leg syndrome, etc), iron and the trace minerals. That's why a good quality mult-vit helps redress the balance. But I am also of the opinion that we should use whole-food supplementation more than pills - things like Maca root, raw chocolate, chlorella, etc are storehouses of good things without the chemical fillers in pills.
6. Aim to cook/prepare at least one meal from raw ingredients every day (even if it’s only you own home prepared muesli!) Try and share meals with friends and family as it makes you more likely to enjoy the social aspect of eating and may encourage you to try new recipes. Sit down to eat and remember to chew properly – this really helps your digestion. I call it ‘conscious eating’. Shovelling down something infront of the TV is counterproductive. As is dieting.. Anything that encourages an unhealthy relationship to food (and restriction and reward is a common pattern for most of us) needs to be broken. Learning to cook, using more natural ingredients takes us out of the passive, processed food consumerist fantasy and into natural relation to the food that we eat.7. Start Juicing - blending combinations of fruits and vegetables is an easy and nutritious way of enhancing your diet. With a blender you can consume far more vegetables than you would be able to physically eat and because they are already liquidised they are easily digested. My favourite combination is spinach and orange juice. You can't taste the spinach but you get all the benefit as Vitamin C aids Iron absorbtion. You can experiment with your own combinations or buy a book to encourage you. Juicers are also good though they reduce the fibre, but this may be good/bad depending on your digestive capabilities. The latest bullet-type juicers seem to combine the benefits of both.
8. Add superfoods to your diet. These are foods that have particularly powerful effects on the body. Examples are; garlic, ginger, broccoli, green tea, blueberries, turmeric, cinammon, raw cacao, chilli, seaweeds (tulse, etc), spirulina and barleygrass. Some of these are protective against cancer, others help balance hormones or blood sugar. You can buy them from health food shops or online and sprinkle them in your juices, cooking, and salads. Add cinnamon to your (natural, organic) coffee in the morning. you don't need to restrict to enhance your diet. It's all about adding better choices.
9. Combat stress. Ongoing chronic stress is the modern disease. We are not even aware how stressed we are till we take a break. This lowers the body's natural immunity (highly implicated in more serious diseases like cancer too). Learn mindfulness techniques or practice meditation - just 10 minutes a day devoted to something relaxing can make all the difference. Do something that you love that stops your incessant thinking. Deal with your emotional issues that lead to stress. See a therapist if you feel you need help. Mindfulness, Meditation, Hypnotherapy and EFT are all powerful tools which help us to understand and deal with our subconscious influences that cause us to have addictions (smoking, drinking,etc) and to live lives to less than our full potential. Contac me if you would like to know more.
10. Take responsibility for your own health. Learn everything you can about health and wellbeing – via books, the web and courses. Encourage your friends and family (especially children) to understand why it is important. Maintain your health actively with help from diet, exercise and therapies. Prevention is much more powerful than cure and is our responsibility. Begin now as I have done. Small changes have big results. Don't wait til you get ill to act!
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
The road less travelled...treatment of depression and mood disorders with hypnotherapy and coaching
Reading a paper by one of the speakers at the upcoming NCH hypnotherapy 'extravaganza' (Michael Yapko on a live transatlantic hook up on 15/2/14 at Royal College of Medicine), I came across this statement about the value (or not) of CBT in treating depression - that it wasn't so much changes in cognition (thinking) that brought about positive results as 'the activation of purposeful
and goal-oriented behavior'. And this set me thinking that this is exactly what coaching does (with a bit of hypnotherapeutic technique thrown in). This is what I am currently learning. I am in the throes of completing the last of my 4 case studies. When finished by the end of this month I hope to become a fully ILM accredited wellbeing coach.
Hypnotherapy and coaching have many things in common even though the latter does not specifically use hypnosis. For one thing they both empower the person to bring about improvements in their lives by tackling unconscious beliefs and behaviours. They also go beyond the therapy room in that they both require tasks to be completed outside of the session. In case there is any doubt about why this is necessary therapeutic change is likely to be greater in those therapies that employ homework (according to much research quoted by Yapko in his paper Intl. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 58(2): 186–201, 2010. This concurs with what I have found in my experience too. Those people who engage fully outside the session are likely to gain a lot more than those who are passive and dependent on the therapist to effect a 'cure'. In fact this is the basis of all the therapies that I employ - to believe in the person where perhaps they don't believe in themselves and to educate and empower them beyond the therapy to create meaningful changes in their lives. Erikson always believed the client had everything they needed already within them (so called 'utilisation' approach) but clearly modern medicine has the opposite belief.
My recent experience at the dentist confirms this - my dentist wanting to take all the credit for the rapid healing of my tooth when I have been doing so much to restore it (Neem oil pulling, taking extra doses of vitamin c and chlorella for detoxification etc.). His comment to me when I suggested this, was to point to the credit card I was about to pay with saying 'that's your credit!'. I hope he was joking...
and goal-oriented behavior'. And this set me thinking that this is exactly what coaching does (with a bit of hypnotherapeutic technique thrown in). This is what I am currently learning. I am in the throes of completing the last of my 4 case studies. When finished by the end of this month I hope to become a fully ILM accredited wellbeing coach.
Hypnotherapy and coaching have many things in common even though the latter does not specifically use hypnosis. For one thing they both empower the person to bring about improvements in their lives by tackling unconscious beliefs and behaviours. They also go beyond the therapy room in that they both require tasks to be completed outside of the session. In case there is any doubt about why this is necessary therapeutic change is likely to be greater in those therapies that employ homework (according to much research quoted by Yapko in his paper Intl. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 58(2): 186–201, 2010. This concurs with what I have found in my experience too. Those people who engage fully outside the session are likely to gain a lot more than those who are passive and dependent on the therapist to effect a 'cure'. In fact this is the basis of all the therapies that I employ - to believe in the person where perhaps they don't believe in themselves and to educate and empower them beyond the therapy to create meaningful changes in their lives. Erikson always believed the client had everything they needed already within them (so called 'utilisation' approach) but clearly modern medicine has the opposite belief.
My recent experience at the dentist confirms this - my dentist wanting to take all the credit for the rapid healing of my tooth when I have been doing so much to restore it (Neem oil pulling, taking extra doses of vitamin c and chlorella for detoxification etc.). His comment to me when I suggested this, was to point to the credit card I was about to pay with saying 'that's your credit!'. I hope he was joking...
Thursday, 12 December 2013
The origins of Trauma
Many of my clients have suffered trauma in their lives. Often in childhood but sometimes re-ignited in adulthood through accident or loss. The many symptoms that this causes are a disparate group of issues such as panic attacks, depression, anxiety, disconnection, lack of emotion (or, conversely an overload of emotion). A lot of the hypnotherapy literature is aimed at changing people's thinking, beliefs and thus behaviours (especially cognitive behavioural- based therapy) but this ignores that trauma is an invisible (subconscious) driver which does not respond to talk therapies. you can analyse your feelings all you like but if you are not addressing the old unconscious memories then you will only scratch the surface.
So, what is a trauma and how is it formed? According to a theory developed by Ronald R Ruden in h
is book 'The past is always present', for a memory to be traumatic it has to be inescapable. So, it triggers and ancient survival mechanism which encodes something so well that it cannot be erased - in order to prevent you suffering that fate in the future. An event is only an event unless it has 3 major components; a strong emotion, a sensory input (sight, smell, taste, sound, feel) and a cognition or belief around that feeling e.g. I'm a bad person, I'll never escape this, I'm all washed up, etc.
The next time you have a similar strong emotion the brain links the two events together and they combine to form one big cumulative memory. And, astonishingly, time does not erase the power of the memory. When you feel the emotion it is as if it is happening right now in the present. Hence people can be completely stuck with these uncontrollable feelings which limit them in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
So, what is a trauma and how is it formed? According to a theory developed by Ronald R Ruden in h
is book 'The past is always present', for a memory to be traumatic it has to be inescapable. So, it triggers and ancient survival mechanism which encodes something so well that it cannot be erased - in order to prevent you suffering that fate in the future. An event is only an event unless it has 3 major components; a strong emotion, a sensory input (sight, smell, taste, sound, feel) and a cognition or belief around that feeling e.g. I'm a bad person, I'll never escape this, I'm all washed up, etc.
The next time you have a similar strong emotion the brain links the two events together and they combine to form one big cumulative memory. And, astonishingly, time does not erase the power of the memory. When you feel the emotion it is as if it is happening right now in the present. Hence people can be completely stuck with these uncontrollable feelings which limit them in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
EMDR
EMDR stand for Eye movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing which is a new tool I have recently learnt to deal with Trauma (usually childhood although it can be a more recent trauma which is reigniting the old one). When you are young your memories are not stored by your prefrontal cortex as they are in the adult. hey are stored in a more primitive part of the brain called the limbic system composed of the amygdala - modulated by the hippocampus. It is the interaction between these two which decides whether the event is to be avoided in future and if it is it encodes it in a particular way with the resulting emotion and the sensations felt at the initial event. Unfortunately for us if we feel that emotion at a subsequent time the old event and emotion recurs as if it was happening today'. Traumatic memories are permanent, additive and present. Trauma may occur when no escape is possible so it may be accident, bereavement or abuse. But what the mind interpret as 'inescapable' is dependent on your developmental stage. For a very young child, just her mother ignoring her when she reaches out is enough to trigger the system. It is almost impossible not to create some trauma as we grow up, even in functional families. The possibility obviously increases in dysfunctional families.
So how does EMDR work? By stimulating the brain bilaterally i.e one side to the other, this allows memories and their resulting emotion to be
desensitised i.e. disconnected from eachother. Now you can remember the event but you are no longer triggered emotionally. This is very important as the stress of being constantly trigger unconsciously by events you may not even remember is very distressing to the body and puts it in a continuous state of alert known as 'hypervigilance'.
By following the therapist's fingers as they move from side to side with your eyes you are mimicking what the brain does during REM (Rapid Eye movement Sleep) as it 'prunes' the memories you had that day and allows only the relevant parts of them to be stored. You couldn't possibly remember everything that ever happened to you in your conscious brain. It would get completely overloaded. so the brain has devised this mechanism to help process the memories and EMDR does the same thing but can be applied at a much later stage than the original event. It doesn't matter if years have passed from what happened - in the limbic brain there is only the present and all event that are similar are linked by neuronal connections.
So, in a typical session you start by imagining the original emotion (this is very different to talk therapies where we largely talk 'around' difficult events). We need to get you in the emotional state so that the neuronal pathway is firing. We then do a round or two of the finger movement until the original distress rating (or - SUDS score - Subjective Units of Distress) is reduced. People often have other memories come up which are linked to the recent event and we work on each one until the distress causes by the memory is reduced to 0. EMDR does revisit the trauma but it does not relive the trauma (there is no revivification) as the bilateral stimulation works very quickly to defuse the emotion.
If any of this sounds improbable, it has been very well documented in the literature since it was invented by psychologist Helen Shapiro. It has been used extensively with Post-traumatic stress syndrome with service personnel. But it works with everyday traumas too and my initial forays into using it are showing me that it is, indeed, a miraculous tool. I am using it in my hypnotherapy clinic (it is not, strictly speaking a hypnotherapy tool) as it marries very well with these techniques. Do contact me if you are interested. 07973 417312
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