Treatment of Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse Using Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

 While we're young, we have no wrongdoing. We are helpless since we have no resources with which to defend ourselves. We turn to our carers to nurture, care for, lead, and educate us about the world. Regrettably, many parents and carers are competent custodians but are not always able to deliver the greatest parenting owing to their challenges and problems. And then there are the parents who mistreat their children or are unable to protect them.

Nonetheless, most of us carry emotional scars from our childhoods into adulthood. They are left with emotional scars that hinder their capacity to trust others, form meaningful connections, and participate actively in society as adults. Child abuse may take various forms, including verbal abuse, neglect, physical abuse, emotional/mental abuse, and sexual abuse; as an adult, these attacks may manifest as melancholy, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

How and to what degree a person is impacted by childhood abuse depends on factors like the frequency, intensity, and duration of the abuse. The stress of living with, rejecting, and striving to overcome creates diverse emotions in different individuals.

In his book, "When the Body Says No", Dr. Gabor Mate draws on a wide range of scientific research, to illuminate the interplay between the body's emotional, nervous, hormonal, and immune systems. He demonstrates how people's physical and mental health may deteriorate as a result of suppressed emotions and excessive, unrecognized stress, particularly the repressed pressures we all carry from our formative years. Dr. Mat discusses why it's crucial to evaluate mental health alongside physical health.

When dealing with childhood traumas like sexual or physical abuse, this mind-body link is very important for EMDR therapy training. With the use of all five senses, EMDR "activates" and reprocesses uncomfortable and traumatic thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and memories, basically "targeting" childhood traumas and unsettling experiences.

While it is often difficult to fathom how our current-day difficulties and challenges are founded in our childhood scars, my experience has been that the linkages begin to manifest themselves throughout the session. EMDR allows for a "capture" of those latent tensions and a "joining of the dots," if you will. These repressed pressures may be dealt with and eventually let go of once they are recalled. Because of this, the process of "letting go" may go naturally. As we begin this process of mending the emotional and psychological scars of our youth, we experience speedy maturation, acceptance, and peace of mind.

More adults would reach their full potential if they took the time to heal from their childhood traumas, and fewer parents would look back with regret.

As a sort of psychotherapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) was designed to help people overcome the negative effects of traumatic or otherwise unresolved past events. It takes a methodical approach to deal with troubling memories, both in the here and now and in the future.

According to proponents of EMDR therapy, the treatment is effective because it allows the patient to process upsetting memories, so alleviating their discomfort. It is an integrated treatment, combining parts of various classic psychological orientations, such as psycho-dynamic, cognitive behavioral, experiential, physiological, and interpersonal therapies.

While most randomized controlled trials have focused on using EMDR to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it has also been shown to be useful in treating anxiety disorders, depression, marital difficulties, and childhood disorders.