Online EMDR therapy from your own, safe environment
Online EMDR therapy from your own, safe environment
A traumatic experience can evoke unpleasant feelings and images for a long time to come. These can limit you in your daily life. If you are suffering from the effects of trauma, EMDR may be a solution.
At GGZonline, you can take this therapy online.
At first, it may be surprising to take EMDR online. Therefore, on this page you can read about what online EMDR entails and how it is designed.
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The goal of EMDR is to process a traumatic experience through rapid eye movements. This goal can be achieved by using two components: memory and eye movements.
Very briefly, things from memory are re-stored in a less invasive way by paying attention to the movement of the eyes at the same time. In fact, memories are re-stored while you are distracted, this makes the memories less intense.
Memory and EMDR
When something intense happens in life, the memories of it remain stored in your long-term memory. This does not mean that you think about it constantly, but that the thought of the event can be evoked at any time.
Recalling a thought causes the event to move from long-term memory to working memory.
You need your working memory to perform all possible tasks and this working memory has a limited “storage space. For example, a minute after seeing a series of random numbers, you can reproduce only a small portion.
EMDR takes advantage of this limited storage in working memory.
When something intense happens in life, the memories of it remain stored in your long-term memory.
Eye movements and EMDR
During EMDR, the therapist asks if you can think back to the unpleasant event. This ensures that the thought is in working memory at that time. Next, the therapist gets the working memory very busy by having you perform a task of following an object with your eyes.
Because your working memory is so busy tracking the object, the thought of the event is drowned out. This has been shown to cause the event to evoke a less unpleasant feeling after this therapy than before.
During the treatment, the therapist will regularly ask how things are going and what you are experiencing. Based on this, the therapist can monitor whether things are still going well and to what extent the treatment is effective.
How does EMDR work online?
Because EMDR was originally performed with a lamp or following the therapist’s finger, it may not sound logical that this therapy can also be performed online. Yet EMDR has been shown to be effective even when applied remotely.
From the comfort of your own home, you are in direct contact with a therapist at GGZonline. Instead of tracking physical objects, objects are displayed on the screen. In this way, your working memory is put to work drowning out the unpleasant feelings and thoughts.
The content of online EMDR is the same as the live version. So the only difference is that you are in your own home and the eye movements are triggered by objects on the screen rather than physical objects or light.
Benefits of online EMDR
There are several benefits to taking EMDR online. First, you follow the therapy from your own familiar surroundings. This can be very enjoyable, as therapy evokes intense and personal feelings.
You may also like the fact that after therapy you are immediately at home and do not have to get on your bike, on public transport or in your car.
In addition to the benefit of therapy taking place in your own, safe environment. At GGZonline, you can choose your own time of treatment.
Your turn is quick and you have no travel time.
Image calling is also secure and you do not need to download any software for it. You can look at the frequently asked questions for further information about online therapy.
EMDR at GGZonline
You can visit GGZonline for EMDR from the comfort of your own home. This brings many benefits. More information about signing up for EMDR can be found on this page.
Do you have some questions first? Then feel free to call, email or have us call you back.
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