by Laurie A. Couture, M.Ed., LCMHC
Did you know that every night when you fall asleep, your brain does EMDR on itself? Well, it tries to!
What is EMDR, and what does it have to do with your sleep cycles? Eye Movement Desensitization and Processing or EMDR as it is commonly known, is a neuro-somatic—or brain-cellular—therapy that was invented by the late Francine Shapiro for healing psychological and emotional trauma. EMDR has been successfully used to rapidly treat multiple behavioral and emotional symptoms, which are often red flags for some type of childhood developmental trauma.
When we get a full night’s sleep, our brains go through multiple sleep cycles, each with four stages of sleep. Perhaps the most reparative stage of sleep for emotional health is Rapid Eye Movement, or REM sleep, which is the stage in which the majority of our dreams occur. During REM sleep, our eyes move rapidly from side to side, up and down, diagonally, and all around. Engaging the left and right brain hemispheres together with bilateral stimulation—side-to-side eye movements, seems key to REM sleep. These rapid eye movement are like a code or algorithm for helping the brain process—or digest—all of the emotions, memories, learning experiences, emotionally-charged occurrences, and feelings of the day and file them away (called encoding) in a way that helps us learn from them, remember them accurately, gain perspective, and feel better, refreshed, and renewed. This process is what has led to the saying, “Why don’t you sleep on that decision?”, as a good night’s sleep that includes multiple cycles of REM stage sleep can help us make better decisions in the morning about complex problems.
EMDR therapy is a multi-step process that uses the brain’s “code” for bilateral stimulation, directing it intensely, but gently, on a specific traumatic memory. EMDR uses eye movements to activate the brain’s healing “code”, all while the person is gently and carefully moved through several steps of focusing on emotions, body sensations, and small parts of the trauma story to keep the brain focused on the trauma. This is done in a specialized way that is empowering and safe for the client, and does not trigger fear or a fight-flight-or-freeze reaction (panic, dissociation). Bilateral sound tones and even bilateral tapping on the body can also be used to augment EMDR, especially for young children, hyperactive or aggressive youths, people with developmental or ocular disabilities, and people who prefer auditory learning.
While REM sleep necessarily helps us process, reorganize, and encode the regular day-to-day
happenings, it struggles to find, move, and consolidate the formidably challenging emotional injuries
that trauma leaves behind in the limbic system and even in the cells of the body. This might be why
nightmares are a common feature of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—The brain is trying to fix the
trauma but is only activating it as it tries to process the entire day’s events, plus the trauma, all at once! Traditional “talk therapy” can also activate trauma, as there is no “code” for activating the brain’s ability to negotiate with the limbic system without triggering it. However, EMDR “powers up” the natural REM process of our brains by concentrating bilateral stimulation on one memory. It reaches, isolates, grasps, releases, and moves traumatic residue (memories and reflex energy) to the part of the brain that can heal it—the highly advanced pre-frontal cortex. EMDR has a rapid, deep, and permanent healing effect on traumatic memories because it safely allows the brain to do its own healing, similarly to how a doctor cleans out debris from a wound and stitches it up to allow the body to do its own healing.
Laurie A. Couture, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire who specializes in treating childhood developmental trauma and attachment challenges in children and youths ages toddler to age 22. She has over 25 years of experience with kids and families as a trauma specialist, a consultant, a trainer and speaker, a Massachusetts licensed mental health counselor and outreach clinician, and provider in the fields of juvenile justice, foster and adoption social work, and education.
©2023 by Laurie A. Couture, M.Ed., LCMHC