When a trauma occurs, it seems to get locked in the nervous system with the original picture, sounds, thoughts, and feelings. The bilateral stimulation we use in EMDR seems to unlock the nervous system and allow the brain to process the experience so that the memory or experience loses its emotional "charge".
*Therefore, from an EMDR perspective our task when resolving phobias is to figure out what memories are crucial to understanding your fear. We start with the assumption you were not born with your fear. So your fear started due to a certain event or series of events. These experiences, as memories, are still active. One could say that every time you are exposed to a difficult phobic-situation memories of a former 'damaging' event are consciously or unconsciously triggered and reactivated. With EMDR I will help you resolve these memories, so that they lose their emotional charge. Once these memories become neutral, they will no longer stand in the way of entering certain situations that might be related to your fear; and, thereby increase your confidence in doing so. To find the right memories, I'll ask you to search your mind through time, like a time machine, to determine which event on your timeline has started, or aggravated, your fear.
Let's take the example of a dog phobia. Through certain early experiences one might learn to fear a dog. One could say that every time we are exposed to a difficult situation such as a walk in the park or being exposed to a dog memories of a former ‘damaging’ event, such as being bitten by a dog are triggered and reactivated. With EMDR I will help you resolve the memory of being bitten so that it loses its emotional charge.
In session we will explore together which incident (or incidents) has resulted in your current, specific fear. Some clients find it helpful to draw a graph where the x-axis is our age and the y-axis is our level of fear (0-10, where "10" represents the worst level of fear). Together, we can then explore the evolution of your fear over time, pin-pointing what events were instrumental in our fear getting to where it is now. Then we can decide the order of importance of these events and what experiences may need to be processed first.
In addition to using EMDR techniques to process these important events we will also learn grounding/calming techniques to help prepare you to deal with anxiety-provoking situations. Together we will learn as much as we can about your fear. Since many times there are other people who aren't as fearful as us of our specific phobia it is wise to spend some time investigating whether it really is as dangerous as we think it is. Researching the feared situation will allow us to not overestimate the probability of danger that something bad will happen to us. In addition, we will learn to visualize and get a mental picture of how you would like to handle and cope with your phobic triggers in the future. Eventually, when you feel ready, we will move towards "real life" exposure to your feared events so that your brain and nervous system can feel itself responding more effectively with previously-feared situations.
Many of us appear to avoid certain activities for so long that they no longer know how to behave and how to feel secure in this situation. To be able to help further alleviate your fears and concerns, it is important that you learn to counter the negative belief that contributes to this sense of threat and anxiety. Therefore, you need to actually test the catastrophic expectations you have that fuel your anxiety in real life. I would like to ask you to gradually confront the objects or situations that normally would provoke a fear response. It may seem odd, but if you have a positive experience and it appears that the catastrophe you fear does not occur, it helps you further demonstrate—or to convince yourself—that your fear is unfounded.
I want you to understand that nothing will happen against your will during the confrontation with the things that normally would evoke fear. The essence of this confrontation is that it is safe.
Activity:
To prepare yourself for working on your fear I invite you to create a graph as described above. With your age and important events related to your fear along the x-axis and your level of fear (on a scale from 1-10, where 10 is the worst) along the y-axis. This will help better understand the course of your phobia, where you are today, and how we got to where we are.
*De Jongh, A., Ten Broeke, E., & Meijer, S. (2010). Two Method Approach: A Case Conceptualization Model in the Context of EMDR. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 4(1), 12‐21.
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