EMDR therapy and Dissociation
EMDR therapy is a powerful form of therapy that increases neural connections as part of the healing process.
When there is a trauma, the experience tends to stay separate from normal learning, beliefs, information and experiences that would help it be digested and stored as just another memory.
EMDR therapy helps the brain to connect this other type of adaptive information in the brain. But once we begin the process of the brain making more connections, we cannot control what connections it makes.
The reason that it’s important for EMDR therapists to screen for and understand dissociation is because dissociation is a lack of connection. By doing EMDR therapy we can connect to this disconnected information.
If that dissociation is breached, then clients can be reconnected with past trauma or dissociative parts they were not aware of and are unprepared to face.
That is why it is so important for EMDR therapists to know about and screen for dissociative experiences with their clients. So that we can help guide the process appropriately and help our clients to pull themselves together at the end of session and have tools to help themselves between sessions.
It’s also why it is so important that if you as a client know you have dissociation or parts/alters that you find a Certified EMDR therapist with expertise in working with dissociation.
