What to Expect When Starting EMDR Therapy
Jaclyn Contreras, LPC is EMDR trained and now accepting new clients. Once you are an established client and working with Jaclyn she can help you determine when and how to best begin EMDR.
Read more below to learn an overview of this therapeutic technique.
You’ve recognized some changes needed to be made, you’ve done the research, and you have landed on wanting to utilize EMDR in your therapeutic journey.
🌟 Here are a few things to know up front in order to have the best experience possible, and manage your expectations. EMDR is an eight phase protocol, where the first three phases include getting a detailed trauma history, learning about your negative core beliefs, learning EMDR based coping skills, all before processing your trauma or negative core beliefs in phases 4-8.
The first three phases can take anywhere from four to six sessions to complete depending on the client. It should not be expected that processing begins in the first session. 🗓️
🧠 EMDR does stand for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, however there are multiple ways now to get bilateral stimulation of your brain including hand buzzers, music, and the traditional eye movements.
Each EMDR therapist is different and may have a preference, which they will introduce to you before moving forward with your treatment. 🎶
🚨 One last thing to look out for is that your EMDR therapist has received their training from an EMDRIA approved training site. A therapist can be trained to perform EMDR after the rigorous training if it has been EMDRIA approved, and then some therapists go on to become a fully certified EMDR therapist. Both can provide the modality, however one who is fully trained may charge more or have a specific niche versus someone who completed the course and is a generalist.
Some therapists claim to have EMDR training, but did not take the officially recognized course work that is recognized by EMDRIA, and this can be dangerous as this therapist has not been correctly taught or educated on using this protocol correctly. 📚
Jaclyn as an EMDR provider recommends coming in person for sessions with her. As her preference is utilizing hand buzzers when utilizing EMDR to process. 🙌
