Does your child struggle with anxiety, performance, bullying, or self esteem?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) therapy can be a great way to help your child or teen work through these issues in a safe and comfortable environment.
How does EMDR help kids & teens?
While EMDR is often used to treat severe trauma, here at the Center for Family Empowerment, our clinician Josie McCall has found great success in using EMDR to help treat “smaller” traumas–especially in children and teens. Things EMDR can help with that aren’t severe trauma include:
Generalized anxiety
Social anxiety
Phobias
Bullying
Social embarrassment
Intense fear
Public speaking anxiety
Just as it would for severe trauma, the EMDR process for coping with any of the above involves the same 8-phase treatment. Each one of the above issues can cause distress in the mind and the body, which is exactly what EMDR aims to reprocess.
This can be especially helpful for children, who may not be able to explore their anxiety or strong emotions with as much complexity as an adult could, but who still needs help healing from anxiety, low self-esteem, or phobias. Plus, what may seem like a non-traumatic event for an adult (someone being mean at school, etc.) can feel very traumatic for a child who might be experiencing that extreme emotion for the first time.
EMDR can give less verbal children space to process and heal from their distress without putting pressure on them to articulate at length why they are feeling what they are feeling.
What exactly is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing. It was designed to help alleviate the distress that can come with reprocessing traumatic memories. The goal of EMDR therapy is to reformulate negative beliefs hindering personal growth, relieve distress caused by trauma, and reduce the heightened physiological arousal that comes with traumatic memories.
In short, EMDR aims to heal psychological trauma the same way our body can heal from physical trauma. Take this example from the EMDR institute:
“When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes.”
What does the EMDR process look like?
What will the process be like for your child or teen? What can they expect if they come in for help with anxiety, low self-esteem, performance issues, or phobias?
EMDR is an 8-phase treatment. While other psychotherapies involve talking in-depth about a problem, trauma, or distressing issue, EMDR is focused on guiding your brain to heal its own psychological injuries. It goes like this:
PHASE ONE: History taking. In this phase, the therapist will work with the client to identify any possible targets for reprocessing and determine the client’s readiness for treatment.
PHASE TWO: Distress Management. During this phase, the therapist will ensure that the client has several different coping skills they can use to manage any emotional distress they feel throughout the process.
PHASE THREE-SIX: Target Identification & Processing. These phases consist of clients:
Identifying a visual image that relates to the troubling memory
Identifying a negative belief they hold about themselves i.e. “I’m so boring, I’m not smart enough, I’m not good, enough”
Identifying related negative emotions & bodily reactions/sensations
The processing comes through something called “bilateral stimulation” which means both sides of the brain are activated to help digest the difficult memory. It is typically not the case that a fear of public speaking comes from an organic piece of our biology- it’s that we have had negative experiences related to being in front of people. Those experiences lead to the anxiety that is felt presently.
After processing through the negative emotions, sensations & reactions that relate to the memory, once the client is experiencing no distress, they will switch to positive beliefs & emotions. This helps the therapist & client reprocess the memory to eliminate distress.
PHASE SEVEN: Closure. The client will keep a log in the week following treatment and record any self soothing activities they use.
PHASE EIGHT: Examining the process. The therapist & client will get together and examine how the process has worked.
Think EMDR therapy might be right for your child or teen? Contact us today!