If translated into Russian, it is desensitization and processing by eye movements. Desensitization is a decrease in sensitivity. Reprocessing is processing those events that the brain could not process before. During sleep, we have different phases, one of They are the phase of REM sleep, it is in this phase that a person moves his eyes under closed eyelids. What happens in the REM sleep phase? Daytime experience is being processed. The brain processes the information it has received during the day. But sometimes the experience is of such strength, intensity, and volume that the brain is not able to process it. An experience that is too... scary, unbearable, painful. An experience after which you are left with a feeling, an idea of ​​yourself: I am bad, I am in danger, I am worthless, I am not worthy of good things, something threatens my life. A negative image of oneself remains. Trauma is an event that a person cannot integrate into his life, it is too big, it cannot be digested. Our psyche, as well as the body, strives for healing. For example, if you planted a drift and do not pull it out, then most likely it will begin to fester and will get worse. Or maybe it will integrate into the body and there will be nothing terrible, but when you touch it you experience pain, since the body does not accept a foreign body. The pain from pressing on it is definitely real, it is felt right now, it is strong, even if the splinter was placed years ago. By pressing on the “thorn” in the soul, we run away from the pain, break relationships, or avoid them altogether, so as not to put pressure on the splinter. EMDR through bilateral stimulation (eye movement, patting the body, auditory alternating stimulation) pulls out this drift, reduces the pain from the experience (dissemination), trauma becomes a biographical fact, and not a terrible event in life, and moreover, corrects a negative self-image to a positive one. At the same time, the neural network is activated. EMDR, as it were, manually triggers what could not be processed automatically, on its own, as happens in most events in our lives. We help our psyche digest negative experiences. Emotional pain goes away and the event that previously caused a lot of emotions in us, tension becomes an experience that can be described as “been and gone.” The emotional charge drops to zero. Moreover, those triggers that caught us, to which we reacted, stop doing so. We pulled out the splinter and it no longer hurts, the wound has healed. It looks like magic, but in fact there is a lot of research behind it, physiology, neurology. This is the most laboratory proven method of psychotherapy. The research is posted on the website of the European EMDR Association. I myself am also currently undergoing EMDR therapy and it is obvious to me that it works deeper, stronger than what I tried before. It is not always easy, especially with complex PTSD and there is no miracle in two sessions will happen. Healing the soul takes time. Step by step you can go towards your good. It's definitely worth it. #psychologist #emdr #dpdg