“You may not control all events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
—Maya Angelou
Here is how EMDR Intensive Therapy can help
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy has emerged as a powerful and effective treatment for various mental health conditions, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and those impacted by traumatic events. While traditional EMDR therapy can produce positive results, recent research and clinical practice have recognized the advantages of intensive EMDR therapy. Intensive EMDR therapy involves concentrated treatment sessions over a period of time, allowing individuals to experience significant progress and accelerate their healing journey. This essay aims to explore the benefits of intensive EMDR therapy, highlighting its potential to expedite recovery, enhance treatment outcomes, promote emotional resilience, and foster personal growth.
Expedited Recovery:
One of the key benefits of intensive EMDR therapy is the ability to expedite recovery from traumatic experiences. Traditional therapy sessions typically occur once a week in a specific time frame of 55 minutes, which can extend the healing process over time. In contrast, intensive EMDR therapy involves condensing those multiple sessions into a compressed time frame, such as multiple hours in one day or a longer session over a few days or a week. This concentrated approach allows individuals to delve deep into their traumatic memories and process them as efficiently but reducing the overall duration of therapy.
By intensifying the treatment duration, individuals engage in a continuous therapeutic process that maintains the momentum and focus necessary for profound healing. The concentrated exposure to distressing memories, accompanied by the rhythmic bilateral stimulation, facilitates the reprocessing of traumatic experiences. As a result, individuals can experience significant symptom reduction and improved psychological well-being in a shorter period.
Enhanced Treatment Outcomes:
Intensive EMDR therapy offers several advantages over traditional therapy in terms of treatment outcomes. With traditional therapy, the time gap between sessions may allow individuals to slip back into old symptoms or negative thoughts, potentially impacting the progress in between sessions. In contrast, intensive EMDR therapy provides a constant and focused therapeutic environment, allowing individuals to remain actively engaged in their healing journey.
Furthermore, intensive EMDR therapy promotes comprehensive processing of traumatic memories. Trauma-related information and emotions are interconnected and complex, requiring a holistic approach for effective resolution. The concentrated sessions allow individuals to explore various aspects of their traumatic experiences, uncovering hidden emotions, beliefs, and sensations that contribute to their distress and have ample time to process it.
Emotional Resilience and Empowerment:
Intensive EMDR therapy not only facilitates recovery but also strengthens emotional resilience and empowerment. Through concentrated sessions, individuals confront and process their traumatic memories in a controlled and supportive environment. Intensive EMDR therapy also empowers individuals by fostering a sense of control over their healing journey. The accelerated progress and tangible improvements observed during intensive sessions can instill a newfound belief in one’s ability to overcome adversity. This empowerment carries over beyond the therapy sessions, promoting a sense of agency and self-efficacy in the face of future difficulties.
In addition to its therapeutic benefits, intensive EMDR therapy has the potential to catalyze personal growth. Traumatic experiences can leave individuals feeling stuck, limiting their personal development. If this seems like something you might be interested in, please contact us today to speak about what time process of treatment can look like for you.
Understanding GAD
The medical term for anxiety is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Typically, a GAD diagnosis is made after at least six months of having more worry days than not. In addition to that, you’re experiencing at least 3 of the following symptoms:
- Increased heart rate
- Feeling weak or tired
- Experiencing gastrointestinal issues1
- Feeling nervous, irritable, or on edge
- Difficulty concentrating
- You’re not sleeping well
- Hyperventilating, sweating, and/or trembling
- You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop – having a sense of impending danger panic or doom2
If you’re reading this and thinking, “this is me!” you are not alone. GAD affects 6.8 million adults and women are twice as likely to be affected. It may start off small and gradually get worse. There is no known exact cause, but like so many other disorders, there are familial and biological factors as well as life experience and stress that play a role in how it develops and impacts a person’s life. But you don’t have to understand all of the ins and outs. All you need to know is that you need help getting your mind and body to calm down and relax, and we can help.
A few anxiety FAQ:
Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health conditions, and have an interrelated and complex relationship. There are many scholarly articles that cite the specifics of the mechanics. That’s not important for you to know. But here are a few facts that you may actually find helpful as you are trying to get a better understanding of what’s going on with you or someone that you care about.3
“Embrace the void and have the courage to exist.”
-Dan Howell
What exactly is depression? According to the American Psychological Association, depression is a medical illness that negatively impacts the way you think, feel and act. People experiencing depression experience constant feelings of sadness, and a loss of interest in the things they once cared about. There are different types of depression and oftentimes it does not result from a singular event. Any and all of these events can be explored in anxiety and depression therapy.
You may have heard the term “comorbidity.” In terms of the relationship between anxiety and depression, when the two conditions occur together, they are said to be comorbid or have high comorbidity. And according to the center for Anxiety and Depression, “the rate of people with both depression and anxiety is about 40-50 percent.”
Depression and anxiety have a cyclical relationship in that if someone experiences depression, it may lead to anxiety over the way they’re feeling. In the same way, constant worrying can negatively impact one’s daily life, relationships and employment. This can lead one to feeling depressed. It’s a vicious cycle. But, through anxiety and depression therapy, we can help you bring it to an end.
How do we treat depression and anxiety? We have a special group of practitioners who are highly trained in techniques that deal with these two very serious illnesses. But more than that, they are people. They live in this world and understand how outside of ourselves we all can feel sometimes. If you are struggling with anxiety and depression, come see us. Let’s talk…person to person. There is a happier and healthier you waiting for you on the other side of anxiety and depression therapy.
You may be asking yourself about the how’s of anxiety and depression therapy? What can I expect? Our answer to that is that most of our therapists are trained in a wide variety of anxiety and depression therapy techniques. To name a few (but not to bog you down with superfluous jargon that you don’t need in your everyday existence):
- Mindfulness techniques: designed to help you understand yourself more and teaches one how to be and stay “in the moment.”4
- Acceptance and commitment therapy: (ACT) is used to effectively treat workplace stress, test anxiety, social anxiety disorder, depression and more.
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy: Based on Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis this form of talk therapy examines how one’s childhood experiences may be contributing to one’s adult plight/crisis.
“The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.”
-Joseph Conrad
- Narrative therapies: A method of therapy that separates a person from their problem; encouraging people to rely on their own skills to minimize problems. Through stories, people are able to assign meaning and (re)shape their own identity.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy: a method of therapy designed to challenge and change cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation and health, improving coping strategies and resolving presening issues. Dialectical behavioral therapy: is a therapy that focuses on group and individual therapy sessions focused on mindfulness (accepting and being present within the moment), increasing distress tolerance, learning skills to improve emotional regulation, and enhancing interpersonal skills
- Internal Family Systems therapy: this model of therapy focuses on the theory that everyone’s psyche contains sub-personalities, or “parts”, and in therapy we attempt to explore these parts to achieve healing of various presenting issues.
Those are just a few of the tools that Alicia Beltran & Associates have at their disposal for helping clients navigate anxiety and depression therapy. Depression and anxiety can be influenced by life transitions, grief, self-esteem/defectiveness triggers, power/control dynamics, relational dynamics, identity development. However it manifests and for whatever reason(s), we are here for YOU!
