EMDR Therapy
Have You Done All You Can To Heal But Still Feel Stuck?
Is a painful experience from your past disrupting your career, sabotaging your relationships, or influencing how you perceive and navigate this world?
Do you ever feel like life would be infinitely more fulfilling and manageable if fear, self-doubt, and worry didn’t have so much say in how you live?
Perhaps you spend a lot of time performing small rituals or routines that make you feel safe or in control—only to find you have little to no agency over those behaviors themselves. Or maybe you just feel stuck in your head, constantly filtering through the white noise of internal criticism, negative self-talk, and limiting self-beliefs.
If any of this resonates with you, our EMDR-certified therapists at Integral Psychological Services would be honored to guide you toward profound healing, personal growth, and enduring change.
What Exactly Is Eye Movement Desensitization And Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy?
EMDR is an evidence-based, neurologically driven therapeutic approach to treating trauma as well as the myriad personal and mental health challenges that often ensue. EMDR directly capitalizes on the brain’s neuroplasticity to help clients overcome even the most severe and therapy-resistant trauma-related issues, particularly PTSD.
What’s neuroplasticity?
Think of it like this: while our brains often operate like computers, they’re not perfectly rigid or concrete structures. Rather, our minds are kind of like hard sculpting clay that, under the right conditions, can be shaped and reshaped.
EMDR is designed to directly take advantage of that malleability, enabling us to transform how our minds perceive danger, process painful memories, and react to psychological triggers/reminders.
In essence, EMDR helps to rewire the brain so that we’re able to experience and respond to life in ways that are more grounded in reality. All the things that make us feel threatened, the beliefs that hold us back, the scars that fuel irrational, compulsive, or obsessive behaviors—they lose their charge and thus their capacity to control us.
Have questions? Send us a message!
Why EMDR Treatment Instead Of Traditional Talk Therapy
Or Cognitive Models?
When you’re coping with PTSD, anxiety, OCD, depression, or any kind of trauma-related condition, healing and moving forward can be incredibly difficult—even with therapy.
That’s because trauma has a tendency to mess with our neural networks, throwing in pieces of “code” and altering our “programs” in an attempt to protect us from further harm. It convinces the brain that worrying all the time, beating ourselves up, mentally prepping for worst-case scenarios, and engaging in things like “magical thinking” and OCD rituals are actually keeping us safe.
Because the emotional and psychological wounds from trauma can become so deeply embedded in the psyche, simply talking about feelings and rationalizing thoughts won’t always do the trick. Oftentimes, tending to that original wound and finding peace in its aftermath require an in-depth, mind-body-based approach to therapy like EMDR.
What Is The EMDR Process Like?
Despite its imposing name, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy is a comparatively gentle and non-invasive approach to healing. Unlike traditional talk therapy models, EMDR doesn’t necessarily require you to revisit the past or rehash painful details.
Talking about the past is only a small part of EMDR’s structured, eight-step process—and it’s typically used as a vehicle for history-taking and goal-setting as we get started.
If you worry about getting overwhelmed, the preparation phase in EMDR (Step 2) is specifically designed to equip you with effective tools and skills for helping you stay calm, grounded, and in control at all times.
After we’ve gotten to know you, identified your goals, and provided you with self-regulation strategies, we can move on to the assessment and desensitization phases (Steps 3 and 4). That’s where we target a specific memory—or an associated experience, image, thought, feeling, or physical sensation—that’s keeping you stuck or causing distress.
As you hold this target issue in your mind, your EMDR-certified therapist will have you perform a series of back-and-forth eye movements. This eye movement—analogous to the rapid eye movements you experience during REM sleep—is a form of bilateral brain stimulation unique to EMDR therapy that helps unlock and enhance your brain’s neuroplasticity.
As this happens, the feelings of distress gradually dissipate, and we can begin reinforcing more positive thoughts, emotions,
or self-beliefs (Step 5). We’ll continue with having you do a mental body scan to identify and help resolve any lingering physical tension (Step 6).
Using some of the skills you’ll learn in the preparation phase, we’ll conclude by making sure you feel grounded and present (Step 7). At that point, we’ll evaluate results and explore if you could benefit from further EMDR treatment (Step 8).
How Effective Is EMDR Therapy?
There are a lot of great therapeutic approaches out there, each with its own purpose and strengths. However, the effectiveness of EMDR therapy, particularly in treating trauma and PTSD, is unprecedented in some ways.
In one study, after six 50-minute EMDR treatment sessions, 77 percent of survivors of multiple-incident trauma and 100 percent of survivors of single-incident trauma no longer had PTSD . Its efficacy has been backed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Psychological Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs as the go-to method for treating PTSD.
Although a structured process, EMDR harmonizes well with other counseling strategies to create a comprehensive approach to treatment. While traditional cognitive and talk therapy models have their well-earned place in our practice, EMDR is uniquely powerful in that it allows you to actually alter how your brain processes and responds to information.
It transcends what rationalization, behavior modification, and self-discipline can achieve on their own because you finally have your brain working with you instead of against you. In addition to the sense of relief you can hope to experience, you’ll gain valuable skills and insights into yourself that can help you manage day-to-day stressors and navigate life in the long run.
Why Did We Decide To Integrate EMDR Into Our Practice?
Integral Psychological Services prides itself on providing a robust and comprehensive therapeutic experience for clients, so it only made sense to include EMDR. After all, EMDR can be an integral part of the healing process, especially when it comes to anxiety, OCD, and trauma/PTSD.
Our team of counselors is highly trained in an eclectic mix of evidence-based and holistic therapy models, many of which work seamlessly in tandem with EMDR. Time and time again, we have seen the power that this gentle, non-invasive form of therapy has to help clients heal, and we want you to experience that same sense of relief and transformation.
Let Us Help You Experience A Deeper Level Of Healing
If you’re struggling with OCD, anxiety, trauma-related depression, or PTSD—even if you’ve tried other forms of counseling without success—EMDR treatment is a powerful vehicle for healing and change. How you think and feel, how you respond to stressors and reminders of the past, how you view yourself and see the world—it can change for the better with EMDR.
To learn more or to schedule your first EMDR therapy session, we invite you to call (616) 600-2845 or use the contact button below.
Profound healing and integral change are possible.
Connect with us online for EMDR therapy sessions or through one of our offices in Grand Rapids, Comstock Park, Walker, or Rockford, Michigan.
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EMDR Therapy in
Grand Rapids (E. Beltline)
3333 Evergreen Dr NE #210,
Grand Rapids, MI 49525