What happens in a typical session
What happens in a typical session
The following are what can happen for some EMDR sessions. Each therapist is a different person / personality and they will have their own learned style that they developed to best help their clients. Therapists would have already found works best for them to help their clients, leading them to accordingly add, modify or change some of events listed below in their practice.
The course of therapy described below is what generally happens for EMDR sessions. But because each client is unique, therapy sessions will end up being customized to best accommodate the clients’ own personal strengths, individuality, personality, and therapeutic goals in the course of the sessions.
Basically, each session can last anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes in length.
The first sessions are used to establish a rapport between therapist and client. This is for the client to ascertain if he feels safe in the therapeutic environment in order to allow him a time and space to internally face deeply unpleasant emotions and memories in the safety and support of another person.
Prior to the actual therapy, the client learns and practices skills designed to manage the onset of heightened feelings that may later surface. These skills offer the client more control and the sense of power over feelings that in the past felt very out-of-control. A period of education of how the brain works is also done to allow the client understand the reason for certain feelings happening to him from his brain.
The core therapy practice is something called “bi-lateral stimulation”, essentially a sight, feeling, sound or combination thereof that rhythmically moves side to side.
Once the actual “therapy” begins, it is actually very passive. The client is asked to bring an image or feeling to mind they wish to work on, and then simply passively looks/listens or feels the side to side movement for a small number of repetitions, based on the therapists judgement.
The therapist occasionally pauses the movements to ask the client to rate the intensity of different feelings they are experiencing in order for the therapist to gauge how much the clients pain is fading.
The client then goes back to noticing the movements.
Other questions the client is asked in pauses are “how true” are certain beliefs the client said cause him life blockages and emotional distress in his life. These statements gradually feel less and less valid and true.
Throughout this time, the client simply lets his mind wander, guided by whatever he is feeling in the moment.
The client is also asked “how true” are feelings that are positive and supportive towards goals that the client is hoping to achieve through therapy. These statements gradually feel more and more true over time.
The therapist will make suggestions and offer directions throughout the session based on the clients stated goal(s) and objective(s).
Near the end of the session, the therapist guides the client to focus on them body starting from head to toe, asking to notice any areas of tension or discomfort that may indicate a corresponding emotional feeling that may need to be treated in a subsequent session.
When the client eventually;
- rates his discomfort on the issue as zero, or near zero,
- his belief of the truthfulness of his negative self beliefs as near or completely false, and
- his positive beliefs and near or completely true,
the therapy is paused to see what else the client wants and if it needs to continue.
This may take several, a few, or only one session to get to this point. It depends entirely on the therapist, the client, and the depth of the issue(s) involved.
Despite possibly looking or feeling outwardly like nothing much is happening, inwardly, the brain is doing a great deal of work and processing “behind the scenes” on the emotional neural elements in its network of connections.
This reprocessing may bring up strong emotions at a later time. It is because of this, that the previous coping skills are taught prior to the therapy in order to give the client more control over the process of his therapy.