IFS and EMDR - A Healing Combination
NOT Traditional Talk Therapy
There are many causes of trauma - it can be a single event, a series of events, a chronic medical condition, receiving a life changing medical diagnosis, childhood abuse/neglect, domestic violence, human trafficking, witnessing a crime or death, being the victim of bullying and many others too numerous to mention here.
Trauma can occur to individuals, families, groups, communities, cultures and even generations. What happens is that it overwhelms our resources to cope while igniting our fight, flight or freeze response. We experience it as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening. Trauma can have lasting adverse effects on our functioning. It can also leave us with a deep sense of fear, vulnerability and helplessness impacting our mental, physical, social, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic approach that views the mind as made up of different parts, each with its own feelings and roles. Instead of seeing any of these parts as bad or broken, IFS helps you explore and understand them with compassion. By working with these parts, particularly those that may feel hurt or overwhelmed, IFS promotes healing from within, allowing you to feel more integrated, balanced, and at peace. It’s a gentle, non-pathologizing method that helps you access your own natural wisdom and resilience.
EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a treatment modality that addresses trauma and your pressing concerns at the neurobiological level . Current concerns from the understanding that past emotionally-charged experiences can be overly influencing your present emotions, sensations and thoughts about yourself.
Without having to relive the incident or talk about it in great detail, EMDR allows us to focus on the brain’s ability to constantly learn -- to take past experiences and update them with new information. I have witnessed EMDR free people from the thoughts and feelings which have held them captive - sometimes for decades. In fact, I have experienced the lasting, helpful effects of EMDR myself on multiple occasions.
EMDR uses a set of procedures to organize your negative and positive feelings, emotions and thoughts, and then uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or alternating tapping, as the way to help you effectively work through those disturbing memories.
The good news is that the sooner you begin the process, the faster you can get to feeling better. That’s not just because you’re getting help, but because you’ve realized thoughts or feelings are interfering with your quality of life and you’re taking action. In fact, that’s the best time to get help - even if it’s taken years to come to that realization.
The pandemic served as an amplifier for what has been there at a low frequency for many folks. What you may have been able to tune out or successfully distract yourself from before, may now have become impossible to ignore. It takes courage and just the smallest seed of hope to push past the inertia of keeping it to yourself. I am here to tell you that there is cause for great hope in the process of embracing a healthier present perspective and I will support you in each step of the process.