AILERON EMDR

AILERON (noun) ā-lēr-ron: An adjustable portion of the trailing edge of a wing. Translation: “little wing”. Used to control roll and support a change in flight path.

AILERON EMDR - therapeutic process

CONNECTION

Engaging in any kind of therapy is about connection. A professional, engaged, supportive space. EMDR therapy facilitates resolution; you cultivating a more balanced, higher-functioning daily life. EMDR is intentional, focused work. The work you do in EMDR not only resolves and/or neutralizes traumatic experiences & emotional wounds, but cultivates insight, self-understanding, & compassion.

COURSE

EMDR follows a protocol - a course of researched & tested phases. Once the initial information gathering, education, and resourcing phases are completed (typically 3-6 sessions), the therapist guides the client through identifying a focus for each session. With an established plan & target, the client then begins engaging in sets of bilateral eye movement. The client’s job is to follow the eye movements and become the ‘curious observer’ of their experience, let the scenery glide by, and notice how the mind and body respond in the here and now. See How Does It Work? below.

CO-PILOT

EMDR is client-driven. In EMDR, you, the client, are in the captain’s chair. The therapist is your co-pilot. As the co-pilot, the therapist’s role is to support the flight plan, make sure we are prepared, and adjust the navigation and speed as you, the client, receives communications from the mind & body. The co-pilot therapist observes & responds to support the changing terrain, and weather on our journey. Collaboration and co-working at its finest.

COMMUNICATION

The clients primary job is to be a ‘curious observer’ and notice. EMDR has a repetitive nature to it; we invite the sets of eye movements to take us where the disruption is in the mind and body. Through the recurring sets, clients will get very familiar with the therapist’s guiding catch phrases very quickly: “Go with that.” “Just notice.”….followed by….“Let that go.” “Take a deep breath.” “What do you notice NOW?” The client and therapist co-navigate the path and anchor into the understood innate capacity of the mind and body to want to heal & balance itself.

"You can outdistance that which is running after you, but you cannot outdistance that which is running inside you."

-Rwandan Proverb

eye movement desensitization & reprocessing

  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an action-oriented & client-driven therapy. We use guided sets of bi-lateral eye movements (similar to how our eyes move during REM sleep) to process emotional experiences.

    What does that mean?

    Clients of EMDR are here to take action in each session and be guided through the EMDR process and phases.

    EMDR is focused on a goal: Relieving the ways you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or trapped in your present life.

    Our past experiences inform our present reality. This is the work of EMDR. We target the past in order to create more peace in the present.

    If you have gone to talk therapy in the past, you will find EMDR quite different.

    Talk therapy is wonderful and beneficial! EMDR is less talk, more focused action. In an EMDR session, the sharing that occurs is primarily focused on finding a specific problem or experience to focus on and what you are noticing following the sets of eye movement.

    At the start of our work together, we share and connect to build a safe space, cultivate resources & tools, and ensure understanding of the process. All this is done with the goal of making your present and future feel better.

    Clients of EMDR are curious & brave, they are open to depth and to exploring the subconscious.

    In my experience, EMDR clients are seekers. Intentionally seeking to gain understanding of how their past life experiences are interconnected and may be influencing their lives today.

    The EMDR process is mind and body based.

    EMDR facilitates finding, reprocessing, and freeing the dysfunctional connections in the memory networks in our brain.

    Together we make a plan of action. The therapist is a trained facilitator, a co-pilot of sorts.

    We will focus on current pain points & frustrations and then use the EMDR protocol to trace back to past events/memories that have connection to current day struggles.

    These connections can be unexpected and resolving them can be life altering.

    Read more about this process and phases in “How Does It Work?” below.

    After essential preparation sessions, the EMDR process quickly finds the threads of connection in your life experiences and supports you in neutralizing what holds you back.

    Click here for a short Intro to EMDR video.

  • EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (usually eye movements) to process painful, challenging, and/or emotional experiences/memories in the present and past.

    The EMDR process connects to how memories are stored in our brains. The goal of EMDR is to reprocess the disturbance so that you can let go of those experiences.

    It is not necessary to talk in great detail about what you experienced in order to process experiences and break free of their emotional hold. 

    It is necessary to be able to observe and notice a negative experience and communicate how it is making you feel, in mind and body, in the present.

    The EMDR process has proven its ability to create the environment in our brains and bodies for negative experiences to be reprocessed and to discard the negative perceptions , keep what is useful, neutralize negative beliefs, and bring more self-understanding and compassion forward. Additionally, EMDR has proven that with a well trained therapist, clients can move through stuck points faster than with traditional talk therapy.

  • EMDR is for many people, much of the time.

    The goal is to be intentional in making sure EMDR is right for you, right now.

    Beginning EMDR starts with a thorough screening process that covers readiness, logistics, resourcing, current issues, and history. Follow this link to see more about the onboarding process.

    EMDR is a specific, structured, approach to therapy and healing.

    Before scheduling a consultation, please take a look at the following important values and foundations of EMDR.

    Are you open to or already agree withthe following concepts? If so, EMDR may be right for you:

    • Our past experiences, memories, emotions, and beliefs about ourselves are connected to our present.

    • Recognize that we have a conscious and subconscious mind and they both influence our daily life.

    • Interest and/or desire in taking an active role in understanding themselves, their patterns, choices, etc

    • A willingness to pursue, understand and learn to feel a wide range of emotions.

    • Interested in seeking out the root, not just relieving symptoms, of our struggles.

    • That the mind and body are connected and have curiosity and willingness to notice what information the mind and body have to offer.

    • Belief that mind and body have an innate desire and ability to heal, and with support, return to balance and homeostasis.

    • Have an ability and willingness to tolerate temporary emotional discomfort in order to heal, gain understanding and increase self-compassion.

    EMDR is an evidence-based treatment for many conditions such as anxiety, phobias, depression, grief, and more. EMDR is also emerging as a tool for personal growth & performance enhancement.

  • When an emotional or disturbing event occurs, it carries with it images, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. These sensations get stored in the memory networks of the brain. These experiences can have positive and negative lasting impact. The experiences can create a sort of lens, that shapes our perspectives and beliefs of self, the world around us, and can be triggered consciously and unconsciously.

    EMDR guides the client through a process to stimulate the stored information and allows the brain to reprocess the experience.

    Similar to what is happening in REM/dream sleep, the eye movements lend themselves to helping process the stored experiences and access associated events, beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.

    Your brain and body have an innate desire to recover and find balance- EMDR is a structured tool that can facilitate the healing process.

    -BODY'S INATE HEALING ABILITY

    One of the many beautiful parts of EMDR is that our minds can naturally do this. The process orients the mind to find the pain points of the past, the client does not have to make anything happen. Being guided through the process, the memory networks in the brain become active and bring forward the connected experiences.

    EMDR is a neurological, physiological and emotional process. By engaging in the process the disturbing experiences evolve. Connections to appropriate associations are made and the experience is integrated positively.

    As advanced as humans are, we are still an animal. And like many other animals, it could be argued, that we are first a nervous system. Our brain and nervous system are highly sensitive, adaptive, and perceiving systems with a super highway of information being processed at any given moment.

    When we experience something negative, scary, unpleasant, or unwanted our brains and nervous systems respond. Somewhat like a computer, the systems create a file of that learned information, it is typically a protective action.

    The more primitive parts of our brains are largely focused on safety. Our sensitive systems are wired to try and keep us safe and prevent further harm. Negative experiences get encoded with all the sensory information that was attempting to help us get back to safety. When the conditions are not present for us to quickly feel safe and regulated again, the information can become maladaptive or dysfunctional. We are still trying to get back to safety, but our encoded negative experience can have a glitch. Often through no fault of our own we integrate harmful information that shapes our perceptions and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. EMDR guides us to the harmful information, opens up that “stored file” and finds the glitch, tidies it up, and saves the necessary data and our systems are then flowing more efficiently and freely as they were always meant to do.

    This translates to a more balanced, grounded, peaceful existence and a nervous system that is regulated and respond more appropriately to life’s ups and downs.

    -NEURAL MEMORY NETWORKS/REM

  • The EMDR process was first realized by its creator, Dr. Francine Shapiro.

    Initially, it was her self-observation of how her mind and body were responding to trying to solve a current problem. A key point of her observation was eye movement. Her eyes moving back and forth as she was on a walk and thinking through an emotional event.

    Dr. Shapiro tuned in to this observation and developed the EMDR protocol and phases. This began in the early 80's and has been studied, researched and fine tuned over time. EMDR has been an integral parts of thousands of people, world-wide recovering from PTSD, other traumas, and the variety of emotional challenges that simply come from being human.