EMDR is a psychotherapy that helps relieve suffering related to painful life experiences.
- EMDR is a psychotherapy that helps relieve suffering related to painful or traumatic life experiences.
- EMDR allows patients to express the painful memory while being stimulated bilaterally through eye movement.
- An EMDR session lasts 60 to 90 minutes, during which the patient may go through intense emotions.
Since its discovery by Francine Shapiro in 1987, EMDR has been a psychotherapy that helps relieve suffering linked to painful or traumatic life experiences.
Why use EMDR?
Even though we all experience things differently, “this can, for example, be confronting the death or illness of a loved one. It can also be a sudden breakup, an attack, harassment or even physical, psychological and sexual abuse,” precise the EMDR France association. “The shock can also be that of a road accident, a natural disaster or even an attack,” she adds.
Sometimes when trauma occurs, the brain is unable to “digest” all the information received. The event then remains frozen in emotional memory and continues to have a negative impact on daily life.
“EMDR therapy is based on the model of adaptive information processing. In the event of a traumatic event (where we are for a prolonged period beyond our window of tolerance), our memory cannot integrate it in a normal way with our seahorses”, explains psychiatrist Emmanuel Contamin. “These two small, intricate structures in the center of our brain are like a processor that organizes the indexing of memories in time and spatial context, as well as the storage of their different aspects in different areas of the cortex. When the experience is traumatic , the hippocampi are as if disconnected, and it is the amygdalae, small nuclei located in front of them, which take over. They are like sentinels or smoke detectors which will associate all the perceptions of the event with danger signals”, he continues.
How does EMDR work?
EMDR therefore offers patients the opportunity to express the painful memory while being stimulated bilaterally through eye movement. “This process promotes neural connections and gradually allows all the information to be restructured. The event is then integrated and freed from emotional pain,” explain members of the non-profit organization.
“This psychotherapy aims to allow traumatized people to find a new lease of life, individually and collectively. This is the commitment of our association”summarizes Martine Regourd Laizeau, psychologist and psychotherapist.
EMDR: how to choose your therapist?
An EMDR session lasts 60 to 90 minutes, during which the patient goes through intense emotions. At the end of the session, the person can generally feel a marked improvement. The hourly cost varies from 60 to 100 euros.
Faced with the strong development of the EMDR offer, check that the health professional you choose respects the following criteria:
– psychologist, psychiatrist or psychotherapist recognized by the ARS.
– committed to respecting the code of ethics of the EMDR France association.
A directory bringing together all the practitioners by region is available to you on this link: https://www.emdr-france.org/lannuaire-des-therapeutes-2.
EMDR can also be practiced on children.
