How to Heal Psychologically By Moving Your Eyes

Yes! You can heal from trauma, depression, anxiety and other adverse life events that you have experienced, which may be impacting your mental health by moving your eyes. As you can imagine, it is not as simple as that. However, with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, more commonly known as EMDR, you can regain control over your life.

EMDR is quite different than traditional talk therapy. Rather than focusing on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the distressing issue, this process allows the brain to resume its natural healing process. Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic memories and events. This process involves communication between the amygdala (the alarm signal for stressful events), the hippocampus (which assists with learning, including memories about safety and danger), and the prefrontal cortex (which analyzes and controls behavior and emotion). While many times traumatic experiences can be managed and resolved spontaneously, they may not be processed without help.

Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create feelings of overwhelm, of being back in that moment, or of being “frozen in time.” EMDR therapy helps the brain process these memories, and allows normal healing to resume. The experience is still remembered, but the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved.” EMDR therapy is designed to resolve unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain. For many clients, EMDR therapy can be completed in fewer sessions than other psychotherapies.