Is your life limited by the irrational fear that characterizes an unrelenting phobia? If so, you know that fright and avoidance can make life difficult every day.
Recovery and relief are not out of reach for you. Despite how you feel right now, the root of your fear and related unprocessed emotion are not impossible to overcome. Fortunately, EMDR therapy is a proven, effective, and safe method for helping you heal.
How can EMDR support you? Consider the following:
Key Ways EMDR Can Ease Irrational Fear
EMDR Honors the Mind/Body Connection
For optimal healing, understanding the links between your mind, body, and feelings are crucial for dealing with fear and overwhelm.
EMDR addresses fear and panic in a more holistic way than some talk therapy.
EMDR can help you understand the manner in which your body recalls, internalizes, and retains specific fears and memories. Such awareness is paired with specialized eye and body movements meant to harmonize the left and right hemispheres of your brain.
In a relatively short amount of time, EMDR can help rewire distorted perceptions, sensations, ideas, and beliefs supporting your phobia. From there, your brain and nervous system can heal.
The outcome? Less distress and reaction, lasting relief, and a deeper sense of mental and physical well-being.
EMDR Aids Your Ability to Uncover Fears that Need Reprocessing
Again, an EMDR therapist helps you pay attention to thoughts linked to your phobias and sever any specific mental and emotional associations supporting your dread. Essentially, the therapy helps desensitize and focus your thoughts gently and fully, without attempting to erase scary experiences completely.
Working with your therapist, you may explore the following:
- Your history regarding the current phobia
- Objects or situations that trigger your irrational fear
- Any automatic thoughts or potential consequences that plague you
- Your ideas regarding the sources of your phobia
The EMDR process then supports improved tolerance for distress, boosting more recovery with less emotional pain and physical discomfort. The gentle approach is not pressure-filled and ensures you feel in control and completely aware of your situation.
EMDR Promotes Resolution to the Trauma that Triggers Your Phobia
Phobias often require more than just reprocessing feelings. Through EMDR, reprocessing invasive, unhelpful thinking can lead to more calm, self-control, and relaxation if you deal with unresolved trauma from your past.
Often, traumatic memories and the distorted beliefs that can result must be identified and addressed. This can disarm a highly sensitized mental alarm system. EMDR reprocessing can support such relief in a relatively short amount of time.
EMDR is Effective Along with Other Treatment Modalities and Part of Long-term Progress
The benefits of EMDR therapy are not just available to you when the therapy is used by itself. When EMDR is used in conjunction with standard anxiety treatments, both treatments are often more effective. Sorting out fear-based issues and coordinating treatment accurately is often accomplished with more success compared to treatments that rely on talk therapy alone.
In addition, EMDR therapists may use homework assignments, relaxation techniques, and other practices to help you face and process your phobia in specific ways.
Finally, remember that your relationship with a qualified therapist can be vital for your recovery and forward movement. Whether you employ EMDR therapy alone or pair it with another approach, the benefits can make all the difference in your ability to restore your peace of mind.
Take the first step…
If you’re ready to address a phobia and/or take a step toward easing your irrational fear, I would like to help. Please contact me by phone or email so we can discuss how we might work together to achieve your therapeutic goals as quickly and effectively as possible.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Linda K. Laffey, MFT
