EMDR Therapy in Nevada

Short for “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” EMDR therapy involves using bilateral stimulation to help reprocess traumatic memories. Bilateral means “both sides.” There are different types of bilateral stimulation, but as the name would suggest, eye movements are the most commonly used form of bilateral stimulation used in EMDR therapy. A therapist might use their fingers or lights, for example, to guide your eyes during EMDR. 

You won’t jump into the bilateral stimulation process right away. EMDR therapists should get to know you and work with you to cultivate a sense of safety first. EMDR therapy entails moving through eight specific phases to help clients get the most out of treatment. The phases of EMDR therapy include:

• Phase 1: History taking, where a provider asks questions and works to gain an understanding of your experiences, memories, triggers, and goals. 
• Phase 2: Preparation, which focuses on educating the client about EMDR and developing coping strategies to address triggers. This can help clients who are hesitant or nervous about undergoing EMDR.
• Phase 3: Assessing the target memory, which involves activating the memory the client and therapist want to target and bringing it into your awareness.
• Phase 4: Desensitization, where the client focuses on a traumatic event while the therapist guides your eyes with their fingers (or another mode of bilateral stimulation) until your level of distress lowers. 
• Phase 5: Installation, where the therapist uses bilateral stimulation to help the client “install” positive beliefs. For example, a positive belief for a childhood trauma survivor could be, “I am an adult, and I am in a safe place now.” The therapist will continue using bilateral stimulation until you feel that the positive belief is more ingrained. 
• Phase 6: Body scan, where the client notices how their body feels from head to toe (or vice versa) to see if any negative sensations emerge. If they do, the therapist will continue using bilateral stimulation until negative sensations dissipate to a more manageable level. 
• Phase 7: Closure, where the client and therapist focus on helping the client return to a state of calm after bilateral stimulation. Remembering traumatic events can be heightening, so the goal of this stage is to help you return to the present and feel safe. 
• Phase 8: Evaluating treatment results, which entails discussing your current level of distress and how your symptoms may have lessened or changed. If you are ready to move on to the next traumatic memory, you can. If not, you and your therapist can continue working on the current target memory. 

Phases 4-7 occur consecutively (one after another) during the bulk of EMDR sessions. EMDR can be an extremely valuable part of your treatment plan and is available to clients in all of our care levels. Throughout EMDR, you’ll use the subjective units of distress rating system to identify your distress level and communicate it to your therapist. The subjective units of distress rating system is a rating scale that allows clients to identify how distressed they are from their own point of view, with 0 being the least distressed and ten being the most distressed.