In this article, we’ll talk about the effectiveness of EMDR therapy and mindfulness, two therapeutic interventions that are used together and seem to work well together.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (RBS) is a clinical practice that began as a trauma treatment, with the goal of reducing symptoms such as hypervigilance and intrusive memories.
It began to apply to soldiers returning from the Vietnam War and to women who had been sexually assaulted.
EMDR therapy is based on the Adaptive Information Processing (PIA) model. This principle holds that our mind has an innate ability to treat everything that happens to us, and it does so in a healthy way.
The problem arises when a traumatic experience is not treated effectively, in these cases perceptions are stored the way they were originally encoded and are also accompanied by distorted thoughts, sensations and images.
Many prestigious therapists combine mindfulness with mindfulness for EMDR success. Mindfulness is defined, in general terms, as conscious and un prejudiced observation of what happens in the mind, with acceptance, compassion and curiosity.
These two combined techniques, EMDR therapy and mindfulness, are very effective at recovering from trauma and depersonalizing traumatic events that have occurred.
Francine Shapiro was the creator of this technique, an action plan that transformed initial therapies through eye movements into a more inclusive information processing paradigm.
Currently, it is used by countless doctors. This technique seeks to go beyond simply relieving the symptoms of trauma, focusing on evoking positive affections and creating profound changes in fundamental beliefs, the ultimate goal is to also change the associated behaviors.
For example, EMDR treats trauma as an information processing disorder and does so on the principle that the mind has the ability to heal itself if it does not find something that blocks it.
The metaphor that is often used to describe it is the ability of the skin to heal a cut in just over a week, as long as there are no fragments stuck in the wound, in this case the brightness would be the memory stored dysfunctionally.
This type of therapy considers the treatment of memory and its pathological form of storage rather than the traumatic event itself.
It works by stimulating the brain to recover and process undated or cured memories, and links them to positive memory networks, giving way to a natural and adaptive restoration that reduces emotional load.
In EMDR therapy, memories stored dysfunctionally (isolated, shapeless and trapped in their original form in the limbic system) are now treated in neocortex in the form of semantic memory.
The semantic format we give to these memories allows them to be emotionally digested and to exist in memory networks with a coherent personal narrative.
EMDR also relieves the reactive sympathetic nervous system, associated with traumatic experiences, and significantly reduces physiological activation.
This is what connects EMDR therapy with mindfulness. Laurel Parnell, a renowned EMDR therapist, became interested in mindfulness in 1972, especially in the analogy of looking at one’s mind as a laboratory and discovering one’s truths in this way.
Parnell finished his EMDR mindfulness therapy after leading several mindfulness training retreats with pioneers such as Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein.
Many Tibetan monks also use the visualization and power of images to cultivate qualities as important as compassion, power, and wisdom.
Mindfulness is part of yoga training, a tradition that emphasizes the perception of the body at a very deep level. Mindfulness helps us experiment with information rather than judging it.
Both EMDR and mindfulness techniques focus on the present. That’s why they help you feel what’s lived and see traumatic events or depression as transient events of consciousness.
This combination is aimed at untangling the knots of trauma caught or awakened excessively under a state of hypervigilance, in short, it helps to achieve an adaptive resolution of stressful memories.