EMDR is not about "resetting" the memory or erasing the mind; It is a form of therapy that reduces the degree of discomfort of existing memories that disturb us, or even eliminates them in most cases, thus making these memories free of their emotional burdens. The purpose of this article is to provide information about EMDR based on more scientific foundations and to explain the Adaptive Information Processing model in order to give information about how EMDR works.
In order to understand EMDR, it is based on the theoretical foundations of Adaptive Information Processing<. We need to be able to understand the /strong> process. According to the Adaptive Information Processing model, the brain processes and functionalizes the information that reaches it through each new experience. Information such as emotion, thought, sensation, image, sound, smell are processed and integrated by connecting to related memory networks. Thus, learning about that experience occurs.
The information we acquire is stored to appropriately direct our reactions in the future. It is important that this system works correctly; Thus, protecting our mental health and supporting human development through learning is achieved by the good functioning of the adaptive process.
In the process we call adaptive solution, the person transfers the knowledge/experience/memories he/she has acquired by establishing appropriate association connections and using his/her experience constructively, in a positive or neutral way. includes it in the schema of emotion and cognition. In other words, what is actually useful is learned and stored for future use with appropriate emotions.
So when and how does this system become dysfunctional? When a person suffers a severe psychological trauma or relatively minor but persistent minor traumas, this system may not work as before due to some changes in the nervous system. In events that cause the system to lose balance, an imbalance occurs in the nervous system and this imbalance prevents the adaptive information process from processing the memory constructively. New information is not processed and integrated into the existing memory network.
In order to make sense of the experience, a connection cannot be made with the functional information in the memory networks and mental healthy conclusions cannot be drawn. As a result, learning does not occur. Emotions, thoughts, images, sounds, body sensations remain neurologically disturbing.
This is the original material. It is kept in the special stressful and exciting state of the moment and can be triggered by many internal and external stimuli. When this triggering occurs, the reactions can be observed disproportionately by an outside observer due to the effect of the trigger, as the mind stores these memories in their traumatic state without being able to process them.
According to EMDR, harmony is behind the disorders, negative emotions, thoughts, behaviors and personality traits. Such memories lie disruptive, dysfunctional, unprocessed and stored in isolation. The person's negative beliefs about himself (e.g., I am stupid), negative emotional reactions (fear of failure), and negative somatic reactions (abdominal pain the night before the exam) are not the problem itself, but its symptoms, that is, its manifestations today. Unprocessed memories that lead to these negative beliefs and emotions are triggered by events in the present.
In addition to significant traumas such as natural disasters, major accidents, losses, war, harassment, rape, and other events experienced at all ages, especially childhood, Any experience that has a traumatic effect; Negative events experienced in daily life in the family, school, work environment, exposure to violence, humiliation, rejection, neglect and failures may be among the unprocessed memories. In fact, the effect of EMDR is valid not only in significant traumas but also in these situations. In these cases, the adaptive information processing system begins to fail, as in major traumas.
Traumas called "big T" in EMDR, such as rape, sexual harassment, and war experiences, are clearly evident in the victim's behavior, way of thinking, and self-reflection. It has an impact on your emotions and makes you vulnerable to symptoms such as nightmares, traumatic memory re-experiencing, and disturbing thoughts. These people will have self-attributions such as "I am weak", "I am worthless", "I will be abandoned".
Of course, such negative attributions can also be seen in clients who have not been exposed to such traumas. These clients seem to have acquired these negative judgments about themselves in early childhood. These clients have not experienced an explosion in a minefield or been sexually abused, but still the memory of something they have been told or experienced is locked in their nervous system and can be traumatic. It creates an effect similar to months. When evaluated, these people, like "capital T" trauma victims, see and feel the event, and are highly affected by the event or the negative belief felt. In fact, when we look at the dictionary meaning, events that leave a long-term negative impact are called traumatic in nature.
The concept that past experiences are the basis of existing dysfunctions is not new. Let's look at how these situations play out on an example in the context of EMDR, memory storage, and the Adaptive Information Processing Model. Let's imagine a little girl is walking next to her father and reaches out to hold his hand. At that moment, the father deliberately or accidentally swings his arm back and hits the child's face.
The child experiences an intense and negative emotion and may internalize it as "I can't get what I want, something must be wrong with me." This feeling, perhaps an intense feeling of helplessness and powerlessness, images, sounds and the pain of the slap are stored in the nervous system. Adaptive.
This experience, which we can also call a node in the Information Processing model, can be a cornerstone as one of the first self-defining events in a person's life. Since memories are stored together associatively, the next event representing this type of rejection will also join this node and initiate the formation of the neural network that will form an important place in this little girl's definition of her self-worth. Subsequently, all experiences of rejection by mother, father, siblings, friends and others will join this node as linked information. After the development of language, different childhood memories with similar emotions will be connected to memory networks around this node. What about positive experiences? Positive experiences cannot be identified with this network because the node is defined by a negative emotion.
Once the verbal conceptualization driven by emotion is established in the neural network, this means that every subsequent experience is generalized and collected in this network. This process continues in adolescence and adulthood: For example, when the girl in the example above is rejected by a teacher or someone with whom she wants to establish an emotional bond, all the events are tied to the same nodal point. knows. What happens when this girl child becomes an adult? In this case, every event in which one feels rejected or involves the possibility of rejection joins the neural network, and the expression "I can't get what I want, there is something wrong with me" is generalized and associated with the feeling of rejection. Events that accumulate over time become a self-fulfilling prophecy, so that even the slightest sign of the possibility of rejection can trigger a neural network dominated by the belief that "there is something wrong with me."
So how will these be resolved? The solution to these disorders is achieved by stimulating the inherent "self-healing" process. According to the Adaptive Information Processing model, psychological dysfunction, with all its complex elements of low self-esteem and self-efficacy, results from information stored in the nervous system as described above. Through EMDR, this information is accessed, processed and analyzed adaptively. To achieve this, the client is asked to bring an image of the original event to his mind so that physiologically stored information can be stimulated. After this information is stimulated, the information processing mechanism is activated by eye movements (or other stimuli), and with each new set, adaptive information is assimilated in the neural network and transformed until the target material reaches a healthy/functional state. When the client accepts a belief such as "I am fine" instead of the underlying belief "There is something wrong with me", he will begin to behave differently. For most clients, successful EMDR sessions result in new positive cognitions that can be generalized across the entire neural network. That is, the therapeutic solution manifests itself in past and present-related events in every dimension of the target (image, body sensations, emotions, etc.) and appropriate changes in behavior occur. As EMDR activates the information processing system and keeps it dynamic, emotions and thoughts such as guilt and fear from the child's perspective are transformed into an adult perspective that includes responsibility, security and self-confidence to make choices. Even in long-term psychodynamic therapy, insight emerges in a single moment in time; In the Adaptive Information Processing model, insight occurs when two neural networks are connected to each other.
Change during EMDR treatment occurs faster than other classical treatments, probably because;
1. It is possible to target memories in groups (for example, memories gathered around the theme “I am worthless”)
2. Materials related to the dysfunctional state can be accessed directly.
3. Focused protocols are used. (For example, the protocol used for panic attacks and the protocols used for obsessive compulsive disorder are different from each other. This varies depending on the client's needs and the problem he is experiencing, the therapist intervenes with the best method for the client.)
4. Stimulation of the internal information processing system directly changes information at a physiological level.
In summary; The Adaptive Information Processing model posits the existence of an innate system programmed to transform disturbing input into adaptive decoding and psychologically healthy integration. A trauma can disrupt the information processing system, causing perceptions to be stored in a situational manner and manifest as symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The Adaptive Information Processing model intervenes in this situation and eliminates the system-disrupting effect of “Big T” traumas, allowing the mind to move towards recovery.
It is assumed that many psychopathologies based on early experiences are stored in a situational manner. We can also call the impact of these events “little t”. This naming indicates that childhood events can have negative effects on the person and his psychology, and that negative emotions and sensations can suddenly be triggered in the face of existing situations. Thus, a humiliation experienced in childhood can dysfunctionally affect a person's self-perception and appropriate behavior as an adult. These common experiences, clearly referred to as “little t,” are not felt as “little t” by the child. This causes the event to result in emotional overload and dysfunctional storage. However, regardless of the cause of the EMDR event or when it occurred, the associative nature of memory networks allows the correction of existing self-evaluations and behaviors by generalizing the positive treatment effects.
Whatever the issue you are experiencing and want to resolve, EMDR information processing
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