Welcome to online EMDR Therapy with Dr. Alice
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy may be a helpful option for you if you’ve been struggling with the emotional weight of past experiences, trauma, or persistent negative thoughts.
It’s a unique and highly effective therapeutic approach that is designed to help you process distressing memories, and find relief in a safe and supportive environment.
What is online EMDR Therapy?
EMDR works by helping your brain process unresolved traumatic memories that might be stuck or causing emotional pain. “Stuck” memories often trigger strong emotional reactions in your present-day life, even though the events themselves are in the past. They can also affect the way your body reacts, as well as what you may think about yourself.
Bilateral stimulation a process that guides eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones that is used during EMDR. This stimulation helps your brain access and process the traumatic memory in a way that allows your cognitive processes to make sense of the experience, reducing its emotional charge.
Being guided gently in a safe and controlled way by your therapist, you’ll revisit the memory, your brain will reprocess the event, and remove the hold it has on your present. Over time, the distressing memory loses its power, and the emotional and psychological symptoms tend to fade, allowing you to heal and move forward.
How can online EMDR therapy help You?
EMDR can be effective for a wide range of issues, such as:
Trauma and PTSD: If you’ve experienced a traumatic event, EMDR can help reduce flashbacks, nightmares, and emotional distress related to that event. This might happen after a series of events or one-off distressing experiences, such as:
- a car accident,
- being bullied work,
- a traumatic time in hospital,
- sexual assault
- or a range of other experiences.
Phobias: EMDR can help process memories that led to the development of phobias. It can help with a range of phobias including fear of heights, dogs, enclosed spaces, needles, spiders or other things that might scare you.
Childhood memories: EMDR can help us address events in our past that have shaped how we view ourselves, how we feel and how we react to everyday events in our present. This might include times when you didn’t feel good enough, being bullied or a range or feeling like you had to deal with your problems and emotions alone.
Grief and Loss: Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a job, or a significant life change, EMDR can help you process these emotions and move through your grief.
Self-esteem and Negative Beliefs: EMDR can target core negative beliefs (like “I’m not good enough” or “I’m unsafe”) and help replace them with more positive, balanced thoughts.
What to Expect in Online EMDR Therapy
Initially, EMDR therapy will feel like any other therapy. We will work together to understand what you would like to achieve, how you’re feeling, and what might have led to the distress you are experiencing. We might draw on a number of therapy approaches to help you feel safe, contained and able to tackle EMDR therapy.
When using EMDR, I will ask you to think about the memory or the negative feelings tied to it. While you do this, I’ll guide you through a process called bilateral stimulation. This often involves moving your eyes back and forth by following a dot on the screen. Sometimes it can also involve tapping or listening to sounds in alternating ears. This back-and-forth stimulation is key because it helps your brain reprocess the stuck memory in a way that reduces its emotional intensity.
How does online EMDR Therapy work?
Essentially, it mimics the way your brain processes normal experiences during REM sleep.
Whilst bilateral stimulation continues, you might notice that the memory or feeling starts to change. You may feel less emotional or distressed, or new, more positive thoughts may emerge. Your brain is naturally “digesting” the memory, so it no longer has such a strong emotional hold over you.
After the distressing feelings around the memory fade, I will help you “install” more positive beliefs about yourself. For example, if the original memory made you feel unsafe or not good enough, you might replace those feelings with a sense of safety or confidence.
After the EMDR, you will still be able to remember what happened, but it no longer feels overwhelming or distressing, and your beliefs about yourself may have changed.
This process usually happens over several sessions, and many people find that they feel significant relief from symptoms after processing just a few memories. The goal is to help you heal from the inside out so that traumatic memories no longer control your life.
Why Choose Online EMDR Therapy?
EMDR is unique because it doesn’t require you to talk extensively about the traumatic event itself. Instead, it focuses on the brain’s natural healing abilities, helping you process the memory without being overwhelmed by it. Many people report experiencing significant relief in fewer sessions compared to traditional talk therapy.
Does EMDR therapy sound like what you’re looking for, then click here to get in touch.
