Goforth Counseling Services provides EMDR in Huntersville, NC, and online.

EMDR is a trauma treatment tool used to reprocess traumatic memory. Bilateral stimulation (eye tracking with a light bar, buzzers, or tapping) is used to bring both halves of the brain online to make sense of old memory. For this to make sense, we need some basic background information:

Traumatic memory is coded differently than normal narrative memory, due in part to autonomic arousal during traumatic events. This is why you can remember what you ate for breakfast yesterday morning but you may not be able to remember all the details of your trauma, even though the trauma had a much greater impact on you.

Narrative memories are more verbal—they have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and they are stored in your conscious history so you can recall them when desired. You may remember meeting a close friend, graduating from middle school, or adopting your pet, and you will be able to visualize these events while knowing they occurred in your past.

Trauma memories are more sensory in nature, and recall is triggered not by desire to remember but by sensory cues in your environment that connect to the trauma (for example, sirens, fireworks, or seeing a certain model of car). Even though we remember when the trauma happened, these sensory memories exist outside of narrative memory. Trauma responses occur when environmental cues call forth traumatic sensory memory and elicit the same panic reaction we had during the event. Because these memories are not embedded in our conscious timeline, they seem to us as if they are happening right now, in this moment.

EMDR functions by activating the traumatic neural network in a safe context (the therapy office), bringing forward the sensory-based traumatic memory through visualization and imaginal exposure, and allowing your brain to process in a safe environment what it was previously too panicked to process in the moment the event occurred.

EMDR sessions are recommended to be done in person in the Huntersville office. While I am willing to offer EMDR online depending on connection quality and putting certain safety measures in place, I prefer to be present with you in the room. This allows me to more quickly assist in grounding you if needed.