Before examining trauma and its effects physiologically, we can start by defining trauma. Events that disrupt the daily routine, develop suddenly and unexpectedly, and create feelings such as terror, anxiety and panic can be described as traumatic experiences. EMDR sees any early disturbing experience as having long-term negative effects, similar to major traumas.
People who experience trauma become stuck and their development is disrupted. Being in trauma means living life as if the trauma is still ongoing, and most people who do not receive support continue their lives this way after the trauma. Trauma affects not only the people exposed to it, but also those around them. For example, depression appears to be common in the spouses of men suffering from PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Children of depressed mothers also grow up insecure and anxious. In order to better understand EMDR, it is necessary to examine the process of trauma and the functioning of the brain.
Research on trauma gives us very important information about the changes in the human brain of traumatic events. In a study conducted by Bessel Van Der Kolk, brain images of participants who experienced a traumatic event were examined. In this important study, participants who had experienced trauma were first interviewed and a text was prepared that, when read, could revive their traumatic memories. In addition, participants were asked to describe a scene in which they felt safe to measure and compare. This scene, like the traumatic scene, was turned into a text. These texts were read to the participants while using a scanner that measured the participants' brain activity. The results at this point were quite surprising:
While the traumatic scene was being read to the participants, the area with the highest activation in the brain was the limbic area, called the emotional brain. The most surprising finding from the study was the significant decrease in blood flow in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, called Broca's area. Broca's area is one of the speech centers of the brain, and interruption of blood flow to this area is often seen in stroke patients; be functional in this area When we don't, we can't put thoughts and feelings into words. It is a known fact that people who experience trauma cannot tell others about their experiences, even after years have passed. The result seen in this study makes this understandable; It has been scientifically proven that trauma affects the effects of a physical injury in a way similar to that seen in a stroke due to vascular occlusion.
The more ineffective Broca's area is in the study, the more effective it is Brodmann's 19th area, that is, the visual area where images are recorded when it first enters the brain. the area was that active. When words fail, disturbing images take over the lived experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. Unprocessed parts of the trauma, such as sounds, smells, and bodily sensations, are stored independently of the story of the event and are ready to be triggered.
Scans also revealed that during flashbacks, the subjects' brains showed activity only on the right side. Right side; intuitive, emotional, visual, spatial, while the left side is verbal, sequential and analytical. The right side of the brain is the first part to develop in the womb and provides non-verbal communication between mothers and their babies. The left hemisphere is the part that activates when children begin to understand language and learn to speak. While the left brain remembers situations, statistics, and words of events, the right brain stores the sounds, sensations, smells, and situations evoked by memories. It is the left brain that explains our experiences and puts them in order. Under normal conditions, both halves of the brain work in harmony with each other.
When people who have experienced trauma remember the past event (as in the study mentioned above), the right side reacts as if the traumatic event was happening at that moment, while the left side does not work well and remembers the past. They may not be aware that they are remembering again. Inactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to sequence and organize experiences and to put changing feelings and perceptions into words. Broca's area, which is inactive when returning to the past mentioned above, is also in the left brain. Just because they are afraid, angry, angry, ashamed or frozen, this activation area in the brain is activated. It is caused by an imbalance in the brain.
This is where Emdr comes into play; The natural tendency of the brain's information processing system is to protect mental health. However, if the system is blocked or loses its balance due to the effect of trauma, incompatible reactions are observed.
The main aim during EMDR therapy applications is to provide adaptive information processing by stimulating both sides of the brain and to ensure that the traumatic memory is shared not only with the right side of the brain but also with both the right and left brain. to enable it to be perceived and experienced. Psychopathologies occur when the information processing system, which normally works well, becomes blocked due to a traumatic experience. EMDR enables this memory to be accessed and an adaptive solution achieved by activating the system with bidirectional stimulation. Observations from thousands of EMDR sessions prove this assumption.
In EMDR treatment, the trauma itself is the starting point, but the focus is on opening and stimulating the association process. In a study investigating the effectiveness of Prozac and EMDR, EMDR was found to be more effective, which shows us that; The belief is that drugs dull images and fears, but they continue to exist in the mind. It is a remarkable data that, unlike the subjects using Prozac, the participants who underwent EMDR did not bear obvious traces of trauma. For this reason, EMDR therapy is seen as the most effective and liberating method for your existing trauma.
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