EMDR Therapy for Depression and Trauma in Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Largest Fully EMDRIA Trained Team in the County
There are a lot of therapies in the world.
Most people think of talk therapy. Lying on a couch and talking about how you feel. This is the image that’s leftover from Sigmund Freud and early psychotherapy.
While this type of therapy is still quite common and can be effective, there are many other therapies that have been created to treat your traumas and life issues.
At Sun Point Wellness Center in Lancaster, PA, we use a variety of therapies to help your concerns. The two most popular, and (we’ve found) most effective, are EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). Using these skills together, we’re able to help people overcome trauma, depression, and much more.
What is EMDR?
“Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy
“A structured therapy that encourages the patient to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories.” - APA.org
The name, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, actually tells the story of the major steps in this powerful therapy.
It starts with a light bar, left-to-right sounds, or hand clickers that engage both sides of your brain, left and right. Doing this means that everything we talk about and do will be registered and corrected in both your emotional and your rational minds.
Next, we work to take the power out of your traumatic memories. This entails creating space between you and the events that are haunting you.
If you’re in the midst of trauma, PTSD, depression, or other powerful emotional states, this might sound like a dream. It’s not. We’ve seen EMDR help people open up and change the power of their worst moments, often in just a few sessions.
Finally, we reprocess these memories. We change them from being able to make you feel the pain over again to being just a part of your past. These memories, the ones that seem to control your life, can be changed into a new pattern, one that’s healthier and actually strengthens you.
What is DBT?
“Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) provides clients with new skills to manage painful emotions and decrease conflict in relationships. DBT specifically focuses on providing therapeutic skills in four key areas. First, mindfulness focuses on improving an individual's ability to accept and be present in the current moment. Second, distress tolerance is geared toward increasing a person’s tolerance of negative emotion, rather than trying to escape from it. Third, emotion regulation covers strategies to manage and change intense emotions that are causing problems in a person’s life. Fourth, interpersonal effectiveness consists of techniques that allow a person to communicate with others in a way that is assertive, maintains self-respect, and strengthens relationships.” - Psychology Today
As you can see from the definition above, DBT is a complex series of therapies that work very well.
Mindfulness has grown in popularity over the last few years. It gives everyone a chance to be in the present. That’s one of the most powerful skills you can learn. It allows you to see things in this moment, not the traumas of the past or the fears for the future.
Distress tolerance helps you to overcome the flash response that you feel when confronted with a negative emotion. Sometimes, it’s negativity from inside yourself. Other times, it’s negativity that you’re receiving from someone else. This lets you confront the negative emotions, rather than running away from them.
Emotion regulation is a skill that far too many of us never really learn. We experience intense emotions in their full power, rather than having a way to tone them down and keep themselves in place. In DBT, we learn to regulate our emotions. We learn to keep the sharp peaks from being too sharp, and the lows from being too low.
Interpersonal effectiveness is how you learn to communicate better. You learn to have conversations without either fighting or having to swallow your pride. Learning to have conflict in another manner creates much stronger relationships. Sometimes, you’ll hear old married couples say they’re together because they learned to fight well. What they mean is that both of them get their say, they can be angry for a moment, then they learn to get over it.
DBT is one of the most effective we have for couples counseling. Both partners go through each stage of the process. When they have a disagreement, they can do it in a way that lets both parties feel heard, and that leads to resolutions that are productive and healthy.
Using These Skills for Depression and Trauma
When we’re learning EMDR and DBT, we’re able to help clear out the low lows of depression and to unravel the power of traumas.
Very often, it’s the poorly processed events in our lives that lead us to feeling depressed, anxious, and traumatized.
EMDR will reduce the power of your traumas and pain. EBT will help you to communicate in your relationships better. Stronger relationships are often enough to propel our lives in a new trajectory.
A Note from Laura Morse
Our team in Lancaster, PA, is here to help you. We’ve assembled some of the most skilled therapists in the region.
EMDR International Association is the world’s authority on EMDR. From training to certifications, they set the standard for EMDR practitioners. At Sun Point Wellness Center, we have the largest EMDRIA trained and certified team in the area.
Everyone here has dedicated their lives to trauma recovery, relationship counseling, and sex therapy. We’re here to make your life better, happier, and more comfortable. Furthermore, we train clinicians who are working towards becoming Certified EMDR Therapists as we’re confident that this evidence-based model is essential in clinical counseling sessions.