EMDR Therapy
Therapeutic Modalities
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a specialized, evidence-based psychotherapy designed to help people heal from the symptoms and emotional distress caused by traumatic memories. Instead of talking in detail about a traumatic event, EMDR focuses on changing how that memory is stored in the brain.
When something traumatic happens, it can get "stuck" in the brain's emotional center, not fully processed. This causes the memory to feel as if it is still happening, resulting in flashbacks, nightmares, and intense anxiety.
During the session, you recall the distressing memory while focusing on a back-and-forth sensory stimulus. This is called Bilateral Stimulation (BLS).
What it looks like: The therapist might move their fingers back and forth for you to follow with your eyes, use light bars, or provide rhythmic sounds or taps.
Why it works: It is believed that this mimics the natural processing that occurs during REM (dreaming) sleep, allowing the brain to reprocess the trauma.
The Goal: EMDR helps the brain "digest" these memories, moving them from the intense emotional centre to long-term storage where they are no longer distressing.
CBT & Other Therapies
Emotion- Focused Therapy
Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) is a type of talk therapy that treats emotions not as a nuisance to be ignored, but as crucial signals that guide healing and personal growth. It is based on the premise that to change uncomfortable emotions, one must first learn to fully experience, understand, and accept them.
EFT assumes that emotions hold important information about our needs and goals. When we suppress or avoid difficult emotions, it often leads to mental health challenges or strained relationships. This modality focuses on identifying unmet attachment needs (like safety, connection) and underlying emotions (fear, loneliness) driving negative interaction patterns.
The Goals:
To become more aware of, accept, make sense of, and manage emotions
To create secure attachment experiences by helping individuals express vulnerabilities and respond emotionally, moving from distance to closeness
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a structured, action-oriented form of talk therapy that helps people identify and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviours to improve emotional well-being. It is based on the idea that our thoughts, feelings, and actions are interconnected—meaning changing how you think can change how you feel and behave.
Family Systems Therapy views a family as an interconnected emotional unit, where an individual's problem can't be understood in isolation but as a symptom of dysfunction within the entire system, focusing on patterns, roles, and relationships to create healthier communication and behaviors for everyone. It helps families break negative cycles by examining how each member's actions affect the whole, aiming for growth and improved functioning for all.
Psychodynamic Therapy is a type of talk therapy that explores unconscious thoughts, feelings, and past experiences to understand how they influence present behavior, emotions, and relationships, aiming to increase self-awareness and resolve inner conflicts for lasting change. Rooted in psychoanalysis, it focuses on uncovering buried patterns, often stemming from childhood, that create emotional tension, using techniques like free association and dream analysis to bring unconscious material into conscious awareness.