Does EMDR work for Teens?
Are you frozen with anxiety and panic attacks?
Constant anxious thoughts and feeling on edge?
Do you struggle to find self-confidence?
Having a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep?
As a teen, you are navigating so much in the world. Going from being a kid to now emerging into adulthood, your brain is growing and changing…quickly. You are transitioning from relying on parents or loved ones to now starting to find your own independence. For example, trying new things, staying out later than usual. You are also likely dealing with the struggles of social media. Your peers are posting pictures with filters, they are constantly talking about that person they have a crush on, trying to dress to impress. Your mind is running a million miles a minute.
Now, you may have experienced some really heavy things in your past, or even now. It may be hard to focus at school, let alone when you hang out with friends and family. You may be curious to try EMDR. Maybe you have seen a Tik Tok on it, a friend talked about it, or maybe you have no idea what it is.
EMDR can help support you in healing.
P.S. Thanks for your curiosity and looking into getting support. This is the first step!
EMDR is short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is used to treat trauma, anxiety, depression, sadness, nightmares, PTSD, flashbacks to name a few. It uses eye movements or other bilateral stimulation to help people to begin processing painful memories. EMDR is something that is effective no matter what age you are, and can be extremely helpful for teens.
EMDR is not used to forget any memories, but rather to help ease the suffering that comes along with the memories.
I am not going to lie… EMDR is weird. It looks funny, sounds strange, but it can work. It mimics something called REM (Rapid Eye Movement) - you know, that weird thing our body does when we are sleeping, our eyes move back and forth really quickly. It is similar to that.
When something bad happens to us; bullying, a loss of a loved one, abuse, neglect, violence, ect. Our brain creates these file folders that contain all of our thoughts, feelings, and even pain we feel in our body such as a tummy aches or headaches. Think of our brain and memories kind of like a filing cabinet. Our brain wants to store these neatly away in these cabinets. After sorting out the painful/negative stuff, our brain will automatically lock them up as memories. Our brain likes to keep the ‘happy’ or ‘good’ stuff, and get rid of the negative stuff as much as possible. Now, when the brain files away a really traumatic or bad event, the file folders are overloaded. Imagine papers scrambled all over, disorganized, on a desk. Then, life events, or triggers, create more of these messy, disorganized papers. Your brain doesn't know what to do with it.
Examples of triggers can look like someone saying something rude to you, getting yelled at by someone, our parent telling us to clean our room, or even being reminded to get our homework done. These triggers then make us have negative thoughts, feelings, and body reactions. EMDR helps to organize these messy papers and put them back into our filing cabinets, neatly.
When we are finally able to put these papers back in their respective files, these triggers don’t have the same painful abilities as they once had, before. Then, we are less likely to react in crying, anger, violence, self-harm, numbing, substance use, and so on. It lowers the power of impact of the difficult memory.
What does life look like after EMDR?
The goal is that you feel more relieved. EMDR gets you further away from the pain of the trauma, so you can look back at it simply as a distant memory rather than a painful experience. It can improve your confidence, decrease anxiety and anxious thoughts, and decrease painful or traumatic memories, to name a few. You will also learn new coping skills and tools to deal with future distress as well. It is a very interesting form of therapy.
EMDR is not for everyone, so it is important to know that this is just one tool, however, there are plenty of other forms of therapy that you can use. If you are ever curious about trying EMDR, we are here to help!
I offer in-person counselling in Langley, and EMDR is one of the primary ways that I work with teens and adults. You can learn more about EMDR here, and more about me here. I look forward to helping you.
