PTSD – Lantern Psychotherapy

We’re excited to let you know that we can now offer Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) at Lantern Psychotherapy!

Please see our EMDR FAQ below for more information:

What is EMDR?

EMDR is a type of therapy which focusses on helping people with distressing memories. When we have difficult or traumatic experiences, our normal ways of processing and storing information in the brain can be disrupted. This can leave us with memories that feel more emotional than usual, and that continue to affect us negatively even after a long time has passed. EMDR aims to unblock distressing memories and allow us to store them properly, so that they are no longer causing problems in the here-and-now.

How does EMDR work?

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation – which just means stimulating both sides of the body in some way – to kickstart the brain’s natural information processing systems. This usually takes the form of eye movements, but could also involve you tapping both sides of your body, or listening to sounds in both ears.

We know from research that this process is effective in reducing the distress caused by upsetting memories, and although we don’t know exactly why this is the case, there are a number of different theories. For example, it could be that EMDR replicates the kind of information processing we do during REM sleep – when our eyes naturally move in a very similar way to the movements created in an EMDR session. We also know that concentrating on a number of things at once is difficult, and it may be that by splitting our attention between different sorts of tasks, EMDR reduces our capacity to focus fully on the upsetting memory and therefore makes the memory less vivid.

What happens in an EMDR session?

Your therapist will work with you to identify a target for the EMDR. This might be a recent traumatic memory, but could also be a difficult memory from childhood or another point in your life. When you have agreed together what memory to work on, your therapist will help you to practice bilateral stimulation – usually eye movements – and will take you through some exercises to make sure you are able to manage any difficult emotions that could come up during processing.

During a processing session, your therapist will ask you to think about your difficult memory whilst using bilateral stimulation. As you do this, you might notice changes in your thoughts, emotions or physical sensations. Your therapist will check in with you regularly about what is coming up for you, but you do not need to talk about your memories in detail.

Is EMDR just for PTSD?

There is a strong evidence-base for using EMDR as a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, many mental health problems – including Depression, Low Self-Esteem, Phobias and other anxiety problems – have their roots in difficult memories, and EMDR has been used to treat all of these.

What does ‘EMDR Therapist-in-training’ mean?

To qualify as an EMDR Therapist, practitioners must have completed a 3-part training course in addition to their core psychotherapy training. All therapists at Lantern Psychotherapy have completed at least the first part of the EMDR training course, and are now eligible to provide EMDR under supervision.

Will I be hypnotised?

We know that EMDR can seem a little strange at first though, and it’s understandable if you feel unsure about it. But no, you definitely won’t be hypnotised! In EMDR, you are always in control, and if you want to stop, you can – your therapist will always discuss this with you before beginning any processing work.

Please get in touch with us if think you might be interested in EMDR or if you have any questions – we’d be very happy to talk to you.

Have you ever stopped to consider what your thoughts look like? When you think about something, do you tend to think in words or pictures? Or a mixture of the two?

What about other sensory information? Do your thoughts contain sounds, smells, tastes or physical sensations?

What comes to mind when you read the word ‘red’? Or the word ‘beach’?

Now try closing your eyes for a moment, and imagining that beach.

What did you notice? Did you see a picture of a beach in your mind’s eye? Maybe you heard the sound of the waves, or felt the warm sunshine or a cool sea breeze on your skin. Your image might have been crystal clear, or more hazy. Perhaps you remembered a specific beach you love, or had a more general impression of beaches you have visited in the past.

You may have found that imagining a beach felt more ‘real’ than just reading the word – if so, you are not alone. Research tells us that when we really imagine something, our brains respond in almost exactly the same way as they would do if we were actually having that experience. From a neurological point of view, there is very little difference between vividly imagining walking on a beach, and actually walking on a beach.

One of the consequences of this is that thoughts that come to us in the form of images tend to be more closely connected to emotion than other kinds of thoughts. You might have noticed some emotions coming up for you as you imagined your beach. If you like beaches, you might have started to feel a sense of relaxation. On the other hand, if you hate sand perhaps you noticed a feeling of irritation!

It is this close connection to emotion that makes it so important to pay attention to the role that images play in our mental health. Unpleasant or upsetting images can be very distressing – often much more so than verbal thoughts. For example, for people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) images of the traumatic event are often so vivid that it can feel like the trauma is happening again, right now. For those with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), images of potential future catastrophes can feel so real and so anxiety-provoking that they might feel they have to go to great lengths to prevent these things from happening. And for many of us, images associated with difficult childhood experiences such as being bullied, or feeling vulnerable, or being told off by our caregivers, have a powerful impact on how we see ourselves even as adults.

But we can also use the link between images and emotions to our advantage – because images, often to a much greater extent than reality, can be changed. And while images have the potential to cause significant distress, they can also create positive emotions which are just as powerful.

If you would like to explore this further, or if you are struggling with distressing images or memories, please contact us at Lantern Psychotherapy to find out how we can help. In the meantime, you might like to experiment with using imagery to create your own personal ‘safe place’ which you can visit in times of stress:

Click to access SafePlace.pdf