Rebecca Saunders (00:03.864)
Hello and welcome to the EMDR Doctor podcast.
This is a podcast for clients where I share and explore information about all things EMDR. My name is Dr. Caroline Lloyd. I'm a mental health GP and an EMDR practitioner. And my goal is to demystify EMDR or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to help you on your EMDR journey. EMDR is a powerful therapy which helps to reduce the distress from difficult memories. And my goal is to make it accessible to everyone.
hope you enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome back to the EMDR Doctor podcast. Today, I'm going to be talking a little bit more about phase four. So this is the processing phase of EMDR where the memory work actually happens. So this is the part that most people are very curious about and it really is a bit tricky to explain, but I'm going to give it my best shot and hopefully you'll get a little bit more of an understanding.
of what it's like to do an actual processing session of a memory using EMDR. So in my last podcast, I talked a little bit about the eight phases of EMDR. Phase one being history taking, phase two being resourcing, phase three being the setup of the memory and phase four, the processing of the memory. So the setup of phase three may already be done.
I actually tend to do phase three and phase four together, usually in the same consultation or in the same visit. But many EMDR practitioners do do phase three, the setup of the memory in the consultation before the processing. And this is often a time constraint, but my sessions are a little bit longer than most. So I tend to do it all in the one.
Rebecca Saunders (02:06.798)
So the setup of phase three is identifying which memory to work on, looking at the picture or the snapshot of the memory, identifying the negative belief about yourself associated with that memory, how it feels emotionally and somatically in your body, rating it out of 10 in terms of distress, and then processing it in stage four, phase four.
what the setup might look like and I'll give you an example of this. Say for example I was bullied at school. The picture may be the bully's face yelling at me. The negative belief might be I'm stupid. The feeling might be shame and fear and that might feel like it's held in my stomach and it might be a seven out of ten intensity in terms of the distress. Ten being the worst distress, zero being no distress.
So we set all that up and then we start the bilateral stimulation. So in my practice, use for my bilateral stimulation, I use eye movements and I pair that with buzzy's. So different therapists use different bilateral stimulation and we can always tailor it to the person. So some people, their eyes get a bit sore with eye movements. So we don't have to use
Other people don't particularly like the buzzy's they prefer eye movements or we can use tapping or sounds, different kinds of bilateral stimulation. So personally I like the buzzy's they're these cute little devices that you hold on to one in each hand and they buzz alternately left and right. I also use eye movements and I use for that I use like a pointer.
that's actually a dog training pointer. So it's got a little red ball on the end, which makes it quite easy to focus on as it goes backwards and forwards. Eye movements can be facilitated by waving the fingers or with using a pointer or some therapists use a light bar, which has like an LED light that goes backwards and forwards. And they're all very effective. So there's no difference in the results that you get.
Rebecca Saunders (04:24.298)
with each of these techniques. So when it comes down to processing the memory, the therapist will ask you to hold in mind the picture, the emotion, the negative belief and the body sensations and then they'll do the eye movements and the instruction will be something like just let your mind go wherever it needs to go and this is the amazing thing. So your mind starts with the incident and then it will probably
explore it little bit, wander around associated topics or associated memories or feelings or sensations, or it might go to other related memories. And it's really incredible what the mind comes up with. And often people are really surprised at what's connected to that memory. So what that might look like with my example of the bullying is my mind might go to the bully, to the picture of the bully's face,
to a picture of the other people just standing around watching, to how upset I felt, to how I wanted to cry, to how the teacher wasn't there, to how I couldn't eat lunch that day, to what happened when I got home from school, to who I told or didn't tell, to how tight my stomach feels right now, to what happened when I did tell my parent about it.
to maybe speculating about what happened to that kid and so on. The therapist will continue on for about 20 or 30 seconds with the bilateral stimulation and then they'll check in with you and ask something like, what's coming up for you or what are you noticing now? And at this point, your therapist doesn't need to know all the details of every place your brain went to. So they just need to know a headline.
just to make sure that things are on track or they might want to know the last place that you ended up. So if I ended up with what happened to that kid, then that's what I would tell the therapist, not the 20 or 30 or 50 thoughts that came beforehand. The therapist needs to check in, where are you right now? And then they'll say something like, notice that or go with that. And then they'll start the eye movements again, then check in again.
Rebecca Saunders (06:53.548)
more eye movements, check in and continue like that until the memory reaches a place of resolution. So it's important to know that everyone processes differently and there is no right or wrong. For some people, it'll be all about the emotions. For some people, it'll be all about the pictures. For some people, it might be a lot of body sensations and
And there's no right or wrong. It's just whatever your brain comes up with, that's exactly what it needed to come up with. For some people, processing brings up a lot of emotion. So it seems like the bilateral stimulation just allows the brain to go to places that it doesn't normally go. And that's all part of the healing. Occasionally, a memory will start to feel more upsetting than it did before. And that is really normal.
It's like the bilateral stimulation just opens up the memory and makes it more accessible to your brain. So more of the emotion comes up. And this doesn't mean that it's getting worse. It just means that your brain is accessing that memory more fully. And so the healing can take place more fully. There are often tears associated with the memory, sometimes more than what you expect. And if that does happen, please just let them flow.
So your therapist will be very used to people crying and it's all part of the process. And I say to my clients, you know, the tears that you shared as part of the process of that memory during the EMDR, you don't need to shed them again. That sadness or that emotion that was associated with that memory has now been resolved and decoupled from the memory. And you won't need to feel that sadness again for that particular memory.
So EMDR is not talk therapy. It feels very different. And sometimes for people who are used to talking the whole session, it can feel really strange that the therapist doesn't want to know all the details. So I want you to know that it's not because the therapist doesn't care about what you're going through or doesn't care about the memory because they do. It's just that they know that the beauty of EMDR and the healing of EMDR
Rebecca Saunders (09:19.284)
lies in the processing, not in the telling of the processing. Sometimes your therapist may seem to cut you off a bit or may seem to be uninterested in what you want to tell them. But it's not rudeness, it's thoughtfulness because they want the best for you and they want you to get the most out of the session
And to do that, we need to get back to the eye movements or back to the bilateral part of the processing. So the eye movements or the bilateral stimulation is the important part and letting your brain go wherever it needs to go is the important part, not the checking in in between the eye movements. So hope that's a little bit clear because sometimes, you know, it can feel as a therapist can feel quite rude when we sort of say,
OK, notice that. And we just dive back into the eye movements again. yes, we're not intending to be rude. We're just wanting you to get the best that you can out of the session. And eventually, as you keep processing, at some stage, there'll be a sort of a lull and not much will be coming up. And your therapist will likely at that stage ask you to go back to the original picture. And this is the bit that I really love.
So checking back in with that original picture, often looking back at it, the picture actually looks different. So it might look a bit more fuzzy or it might look a bit more open or there may be a change in colour. So it might be more colourful than it was before. Maybe it was kind of grey or black and white before. And when we go back to it again, it kind of looks more
Or sometimes there's a perspective shift. So it might be like with my example of the bullying in the playground. It might be like I'm looking at it from the other end of the playground. The bully doesn't feel so close. Or maybe I might feel taller and the bully doesn't feel so overbearing. Might feel that I'm looking down on the bully instead of being a target of them.
Rebecca Saunders (11:40.822)
Sometimes it actually feels like the picture is sliding away, like it's hard to catch. And this is just the most marvelous moment, you know, I can see in my clients, you know, they're looking for the memory, they're kind of trying to pursue it and it's not really there for them anymore. And that's when we know things have changed, that that memory is no longer held as this static, frozen, scary moment. And then we can check in with the distress and
Clients will often have to think a little bit before they respond. And I love to see how they kind of have to search for the distress. They're going, well, where is it? Why am I not feeling bad about that memory anymore? Why am I not feeling fear? And the answer will come back often as a very low number in terms of the distress that it's nearly gone or, you know, that it's entirely gone. And then especially with the first EMDR processing session with a client,
we get the wow. And that's just such a lovely moment. So a person's going to reflect on how bad that memory was and what it feels like now. And they say, wow. And there's such a relief and such an amusement about it. And it seems incredible to them. It's so unexpected. And it's such a joy to behold. And that's really.
That moment is the addictive moment for me and I know for many of my clients. So once they experience how good it can be to release a memory, there's just no stopping them. So I've actually had clients literally skip out of a session before. Not always. And I don't want to create too many expectations, but and things are different for people for different sessions.
it's going to be different for you than it was for your friend or for the person who came into my room before you. Each EMDR session is unique, so it can vary from session to session as well. So some sessions might be very intense, whilst others might feel lighter and sometimes they can be quite short. And it all just depends on what you're working through and how your brain responds.
Rebecca Saunders (14:05.686)
And I have to say results do vary from person to person. And sometimes we need to do a lot of work just to get to the processing part. Sometimes we can dive straight in. Sometimes we can only process a tiny bit of one memory at one time. We might need to work very slowly. It just depends upon the level of the trauma. But in saying that, I don't want you to get disheartened because sometimes people who have the most severe trauma
are the ones who respond most quickly. So it really is just such an individual thing. So I hope that this has given you a little bit of insight into how it feels to do an EMDR processing session. And I hope I've taken a little bit of the mystery out of it. Next week, I will be talking a bit more about the preparation phase and why that's so important. And in a later episode, I'll be talking about after EMDR and
what to do after a session. So I hope that's been helpful and until I speak to you next time, take care. Bye for
