EMDR--more effective than Prozac

For Depression, Trauma, PTSD

“…Traumatic memories persist as split-off, unmodified images, sensations, and feelings. To my mind the most remarkable feature of EMDR is its apparently capacity to activate a series of unsought and seemingly unrelated sensations, emotions, images, and thoughts in conjunction with the original memory. This way of reassembly old information into new packages may be just the way we integrate ordinary, nontraumatic day-to-day experiences.”

I have written before about the power/potential of EMDR, and about my own experiences with it in trauma-healing, but I am making my way through the dense text that is The Body Keeps Score, by Dr. Bessel Van Kolk, MD. He is the psychiatrist who helped to name/establish the disease we know as PTSD.

He has a chapter on EMDR, where he discusses studies on its effectiveness in treating depression and trauma. Research studies revealed that it was even more effective in treating those conditions than SSRI’s (anti-depressants like Prozac). The Prozac would help alleviate the symptoms but only so long as the individual kept taking the meds. Once they stopped, then the symptoms returned. On the other hand, engaging in several sessions of EMDR, helped to alleviate the symptoms of the condition entirely and permanently.

All of that to say—it’s a powerful form of treatment.

I will never say that people should not take medicine; I know it’s survival for many.

But I do think that it is important for us to explore options that do not make us dependent on pharmaceuticals. I also think it’s important to look for options and other methods where we may imagine an existence without these symptoms, permanently, not just a temporary relief from them.

I understand how strange EMDR sounds, and that it could be that effective. But even Kolk writes:

“EMDR loosens up something in the mind/brain that gives people rapid access to loosely associated memories and images from their past. This seems to help them put the traumatic experience into a larger context or perspective.

People may be able to heal from trauma without talking about it. EMDR enables them to observe their experiences in a new way, without verbal give and take with another person.

EMDR can help even if the patient and the therapist do not have a trusting relationship. This was particularly intriguing because trauma, understandably, rarely leaves people with an open, trusting heart.”

He writes of a patient who did not like him, and others that he treated even though though they did not speak the same language.

A powerful treatment, especially helpful for those who are unable/unwilling to approach talk-therapy.

Kolk also writes that REM sleep helps to decrease depression. While I believe that to be true, and have experienced that myself, it seems to be an increasingly cruel joke because those with depression are so often prone to insomnia as well. Though, EMDR also can help with treating depression to then help with REM.

It is fascinating to me the way that the rapid eye movement with dreaming through REM sleep and EMDR therapy seems to be a vitally important process for how our brain processes information—both the mundane and the intense stuff.

There is still so much that neurologists, researchers and scientists, do not understand about why this is so, but at this point, I’ll take it. I don’t quite understand/grasp it, but neither can I entirely comprehend the way that hot 26 yoga works for me, or gut health/a healthy microbiome.

I don’t need to understand the tools that work for me. I am just immensely happy that they do.

In the spirit of advocating for mental health, I hope we can all find the appropriate ways to manage our own mental health, in whatever ways work for us. May we all discover the appropriate tools. And if we have not, to encourage each other to do so. To keep looking.

“There’s no use in suffering, Danielle, when there’s help out there.”

~my mama

Happy mental health journey, all.