The education that I gained in order to become a Clinical Mental Health Therapist focused primarily on traditional talk therapy. It is what I saw myself doing in my future practice, it is where my own personal experience and success with therapy originated, and it is what motivated me to become a helping professional. Yet, the community clinic where I worked insisted that I also be trained in EMDR, at their expense, to help meet their need for trauma informed care. I felt conflicted. I was so grateful for the support and opportunity, but I was also reluctant, skeptical, and, quite frankly, a bit annoyed. There were other specialties that I was far more interested in pursuing because of my familiarity with their style, presentation, and efficacy. All I knew about EMDR was that it stood for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The name alone sounded gimmicky and had me eye-rolling (pun intended). However, free training and education is rarely something I will pass up, so I agreed.
As with many things in life, the best way to learn is by doing and experiencing, and my EMDR training was no different. In the first 3-day phase of training, we were not simply asked to listen to lectures and PowerPoint presentations, but were placed into groups of three and tasked with an activity. The activity included the group rotating roles between observer, therapist, and client. As the client, we had to offer up our own memory to be “reprocessed” in the 45 minutes that we sat in that role each day. Because I showed up with reluctance and skepticism, I refused to offer up one of the more painful memories of my past. There was no way was I going to open up a wound that could not possibly be closed in the collective hour and a half that this “EMDR therapist in training” had to work with me. Instead, I decided to reprocess a somewhat benign memory of a recent car wreck that gifted me my newest aversion— driving in icy conditions.
Thirty minutes and half a pack of tissues later, I was opening up about a painful memory from when I was 16-years-old that I never would have connected to the car accident. I could not believe what was happening!
At first, I was angry (mostly at myself). I intentionally brought to my “session” a harmless memory that would not make me feel exposed. After all, I did not know this therapist that was randomly assigned to me. We had no rapport or relationship and the thought of being vulnerable in that position was unnerving! But I had to trust the process and, more importantly, trust myself. My brain knew where it needed to go, even if I did not at the time. By day two, I gave in. I decided to target the earlier memory in my next session and, by day three, we had worked back up to the memory of the wreck. I felt such an intense release of emotional burden that I had not even realized I had been holding onto. I also gained a greater understanding of why, while two of us were in the car accident, I was the only one feeling anxiety the next time we found ourselves, once again, driving in ice and snow.
I will add to this that, luckily for me, when it was my time in the therapist role, I had a client that was already sold on EMDR. Consequently, he brought to his session a very emotional and distressing memory that had me hoping, with all of my might, that this therapy would work and that he would leave feeling less burdened by this recollection.
ONCE AGAIN, I FOUND MYSELF AMAZED AT THE TRANSFORMATION THAT UNFOLDED RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.
I will forever be grateful for his willingness to be vulnerable and to trust me with his processing, as I am to each and every client I have worked with since. I went into the first part of training a skeptic, and walked away a believer, learning with enthusiasm as much as I could throughout the almost year that it took to complete the full training process.
My experience as an EMDR client was vastly different than that of my clients. As therapists learning a new technique, we understand that the process must be abbreviated for the sake of practicing the skill in the short time that we have together during training days. In a real-world application, I take time with my clients to build that rapport, trust, and safety that was missing in the experience I described above. We work together and take our time unveiling the memories that are to be targeted so that we are not so caught off-guard as I was during my first EMDR session. And, of course, we are not limited to three quick 45-minute sessions. While EMDR is considered a faster reprocessing tool than most traditional talk therapy, it is in no way rushed. Nor does it replace talk therapy in my practice with my clients. It is, instead, a proverbial tool in the toolbox that we can utilize when, and if, we need it.
I encourage you to watch the video here to learn more about how EMDR therapy works, what it is like, and why it is becoming more widely recognized as a powerful therapy model.
Melanie Marky, LCMHCA