EMDR is a psychotherapy that allows you to overcome challenges. Here’s how the sessions go.
- EMDR is a psychotherapy that helps people overcome difficult experiences.
- It is practiced in two stages: first via preparation sessions, then via eye stimulation sessions.
- An EMDR session lasts 60 to 90 minutes, its hourly cost varying from 60 to 100 €.
Since its discovery by Francine Shapiro in 1987, EMDR has been a psychotherapy that helps relieve suffering linked to painful or traumatic experiences.
EMDR session: a preparation phase
Due to the powerful effect of this therapy on the patient’s psyche, preparation is essential. Preliminary interviews allow you to:
– build a therapeutic relationship of trust with your practitioner.
– Identify with him a problem likely to be treated with EMDR, then the traumatic memories from the past at the origin of these difficulties.
– Implement psycho-corporeal emotional stabilization tools that can be used during sessions as well as in independent practice between sessions.
– Explain the eight phases of therapy and assess the severity of the disorder which approximately estimates the length of treatment.
EMDR session: alternating bilateral stimulations
The disturbing memories identified are then reprocessed one by one during the sessions.
At the beginning, the practitioner asks the patient to concentrate on the traumatic memory, keeping in mind the most disturbing sensory aspects (image, sound, smell, physical sensation) as well as the negative thoughts and feelings associated with it. The practitioner then performs series of alternating and rapid bilateral stimulations at eye level.
“Between each series, the patient says what comes to mind. There is no effort to be made during stimulation to obtain this or that type of result, the event recurs spontaneously and differently for each person depending on their experience, their personality, their resources and their culture”, precise EMDR France.
The practitioner continues the stimulations until the memory no longer generates disturbances and is put away. Then, always with rapid alternating bilateral stimulations, it helps the individual to associate this memory with a positive, constructive, adapted, updated thought and to evacuate possible remains of unpleasant physical manifestations.
“It sometimes takes several sessions to process a single memory. The psychological treatment process activated by the method is a conscious process. It corresponds to what our brain naturally does when it is not blocked. continues the association.
When should we consider EMDR sessions?
An EMDR session lasts 60 to 90 minutes, its hourly cost varying from 60 to 100 €.
Here is a list of symptoms which, when they appear, may prompt EMDR sessions:
– Images, thoughts and nightmares that impose themselves on the person in a repetitive, involuntary and painful way.
– Sometimes, sudden flashbacks take her back to the past, making her relive the scene as if she were still there.
– This reviving occurs spontaneously following a stimulus (sound, place, smell, etc.) or when alertness is reduced (falling asleep phase).
– It causes unpleasant physical sensations such as sweating, tachycardia, stiffness, etc.
– The patient lives in a state of permanent anxiety and stress which leads to hypervigilance, startles, irritability, difficulty concentrating, sleep disorders, fear, etc.
– Sadness, lack of taste, lack of vitality or even emotional and emotional indifference are often associated with the symptoms just mentioned.
– Discussions, people or places reminiscent of the traumatic event may be systematically avoided, which can considerably restrict social, family and professional life.
