EMDR Therapy for Trauma in Frederick, MD

Having been basic and advanced trained in EMDR Therapy, I am now pursuing EMDR Therapy certification through Kase and Co’s rigorous certification program.
Based in Frederick, MD and Franklin County, PA, I specialize in online EMDR therapy to help moms struggling with the ripple effects of trauma or anxiety. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and uses a set of procedures to organize and “reprocess” upsetting memories or worries. EMDR consists of bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or alternating tapping, as a way to help one effectively work through disturbing memories.
Similar to how our brains process information during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, EMDR engages the brain in similar ways (through eye movements back and forth) to safely face memories that are keeping us “stuck.”

What is trauma?

Trauma can be a one time event or a series of events after which we have unpleasant feelings, sensations, or memories that can make us feel as if the event is still happening to us, even if it happened a long time ago, changing the way we interact with our environment.

Trauma is not the thing itself that happened, but rather, it is the way our body experienced that thing.

Sometimes, because it wasn’t “the absolute worst thing” that ever happened to someone, people can be hesitant to consider it a trauma. Something that one person considers traumatic may not be something that the next person would experience as traumatic.

Trauma, essentially, is in the eye of the beholder.

Traumas that I have heard women discuss in therapy are:

Becoming a mom during COVID, with little support, lacking childcare, and with the fear of illness

Being sexually assaulted or touched in a way that made one feel disempowered
Growing up in a home in which you felt “too needy” or “too much”
Experiencing a traumatic birth in which you felt detached from your body or as though no one was paying attention to your needs

Being alone in situations in which you felt helpless, unheard, or unsupported

Receiving a frightening medical diagnosis for oneself, one’s child, or for a loved one
Going through a divorce and/or living through the disruption of ending a long-term relationship, possibly moving homes or changing environments
Having a toxic or hostile work environment in which you couldn’t trust your judgment or ask for help or support when you needed it

What is EMDR therapy?

EMDRIA (The EMDR International Association) defines EMDR therapy as the following:

“EMDR is an evidence-based, clinician led, psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In addition, successful outcomes are well-documented in the literature for EMDR treatment of other psychiatric disorders, mental health problems, and somatic symptoms. The model on which EMDR is based, Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), posits that much of psychopathology is due to the maladaptive encoding of and/or incomplete processing of traumatic or disturbing adverse life experiences. This impairs the client’s ability to integrate these experiences in an adaptive manner. The eight-phase, three-pronged process of EMDR facilitates the resumption of normal information processing and integration. This treatment approach, which targets past experience, current triggers, and future potential challenges, results in the alleviation of presenting symptoms, a decrease or elimination of distress from the disturbing memory, improved view of the self, relief from bodily disturbance, and resolution of present and future anticipated triggers. EMDR therapy is a therapeutic intervention that must be administered by an EMDR trained clinician or those who are currently participating in an EMDRIA Approved training.”

EMDR therapy is a trauma-informed therapy that, as with many therapy approaches, focuses on the individual’s present concerns while linking them to past events or beliefs and considering desired future ways of responding. The EMDR approach believes we all hold within us unpleasant experiences (commonly referred to as traumas) that are overly influencing present emotions, sensations, and thoughts about oneself. A thought that one might have about oneself, consciously or not, that is rooted in past trauma may be, “I feel worthless although I know I am a worthwhile person.”

EMDR allows clients to safely face memories that are causing difficulty in their daily lives. By facing these memories in a way that is safe and supported, the client is better able to face other difficulties that come their way. EMDR utilizes a clinician led but client-directed empowerment approach which puts the client in the driver’s seat with the therapist at their side as the personal trainer.

What a client can expect in EMDR therapy

Sometimes clients in EMDR therapy will worry that they’re “not doing it right” if they’re not in the actual reprocessing phase of EMDR.

This article, published through EMDRIA, is an excellent summary of EMDR therapy, trauma, and how EMDR therapy can provide relief to a client.

Traumatic birth & EMDR therapy

Up to 45% of women report that their birth experiences were traumatic with some of them experiencing PTSD. Women who have experienced a pregnancy loss may find themselves hugely fearful or anxious when becoming pregnant again. And other women experience great fear related to childbirth, resulting in anxiety during pregnancy, referred to as perinatal anxiety.

EMDR shows great promise as an intervention that can assist in helping women to process a birth trauma or anxiety related to childbirth, pregnancy, or pregnancy loss. Postpartum Support International considers EMDR an emerging treatment for perinatal mental health issues such as birth trauma and postpartum anxiety.

EMDR therapy can help with a variety of issues in the postpartum period, ranging from unresolved PTSD from a traumatic birth experience to issues related to parenting and newly identified reparenting needs that a new parent may notice. This blog provides helpful insight into how EMDR therapy can be a particularly helpful approach as part of postpartum counseling.

EMDR therapy for anxiety

Whereas trauma is based in one’s past (fear of the trauma happening again), anxiety is future-based and occurs when one becomes overly focused or worried about something that is about to happen or could happen. While trauma is based in a past event or series of events, anxiety comes up when one is worried about what could or might happen in the future, keeping us from enjoying the present moment. Both trauma and anxiety can be helped by EMDR therapy by giving the client tools to manage their emotional tolerance, gain awareness of the thoughts or beliefs associated with the trauma or anxiety, and to calm the nervous system and rewire the brain so that it does not continually either loop back to the trauma or ahead to an imagined or anticipated event or outcome.

EMDR therapy for trauma

Trauma can best be defined as the residual disruptive and unpleasant feelings that remain after living through a distressing event. Even though we can know we’re in the present, trauma pulls us into the past, sometimes as if we are right back in the moment of the bad thing happening to us. A trauma of any kind, a one-time event or ongoing trauma, results in the person going through it needing to “tuck behind a wall” the feelings, sensations or beliefs associated with the event or events. However, the memories of the event often come out from behind this mental wall and cause disturbance to how one functions in the present, influencing their current life in ways that are upsetting or disruptive. The key to working with trauma through EMDR therapy is to safely and systematically bring the memories out from behind the wall so that they can be faced and diffused so that they no longer hold power over the person.

EMDR therapy for trauma is an evidence-based way of working with trauma. This includes a one-time trauma or multiple, persistent traumas. Creating a trauma-informed therapy means greater predictability for both client and therapist, with clear goals and collaboration.

EMDR therapy v. talk therapy

EMDR differs from talk therapy in that it is highly scripted, formulaic, and follows a concrete stage model to reach desired outcomes. When starting EMDR therapy for clients who are familiar with standard “talk therapy” it can feel strange for the client to engage differently with the therapist, as the therapist is far more like a “personal trainer” for the client, teaching the client exercises to work through challenging memories through visualization techniques and bilateral stimulation.

However, if the client can be open to EMDR therapy, they will see that EMDR allows them a lot of creative empowerment during the process, and many clients find themselves surprised by how quickly they are able to think differently and thus experience in a new way the memories or anxieties that had previously felt unmanageable.

EMDR Therapy for Trauma and Anxiety Online in Maryland and Pennsylvania

Check out the video below to learn more about EMDR Therapy, the data behind it, and how clients and professionals describe it working for them to transform their relationship with traumatic memories or events.

Video explaining EMDR therapy