Relationships
Maybe you have been feeling like you’ve even “talked it out” as much as you can with no resolution. Rather than throwing in the towel just yet, try a different approach. A more direct approach straight to your brain.
The sad thing is that people connected to each other can trigger each other’s trauma.
When that happens, we lose our ability to be at our rational, calm best. We become irrational and do things impulsively, without thinking. The consequence? Growing problems and complications between people who care about each other, or at least need to work together effectively.
How EMDR Can Help Relationships
1. Helps to Move Past Betrayal in the Relationship
EMDR helps you to wrap your brain around trauma and move past it. If there has been any infidelity or addiction in your relationship, then this will undoubtedly impact your intimate connection. EMDR will help you to think about what happened without triggering the intense emotional reaction you might have previously experienced. By removing some of the negative feelings surrounding the trauma, you and your partner can heal the tear in the relationship. You can move forward to nurture an intimate connection once again.
2. Supports Emotional Healing after a Negative Event
After turbulence in a relationship, residual emotions often cloud your special connection. For instance, dishonesty can cause feelings of distrust and jealousy in the other partner. These negative emotions can pile up and cause a big gap. EMDR helps to lessen the influence of these feelings by stripping them of their negative force. When you think about your partner’s moment of dishonesty, it won’t hit you like it used to. You will be more likely to feel empowered to establish healthy boundaries and maintain an uninhibited connection with your partner.
3. Targets Past Trauma Impacting Your Relationship
We all have emotional baggage leftover from our past. Whether it’s in the shape of childhood neglect, sexual abuse, or another form of trauma, it’s there. This past trauma can easily creep up and negatively influence your intimate relationships. EMDR helps to locate these buried memories and process them. By targeting past hurts, this type of therapy works to separate the pain associated with the memory. When you have deeply rooted pain, you naturally try to protect yourself. When you no longer feel the innate need to defend, you can more easily become vulnerable and open within an intimate relationship. Likewise the same can be said of our partner/ parent/ son/ daughter/ friend/ boss or co-worker. Their small or large traumas can be triggered just as easily, or ours can be triggered with them.
4. Works to Alleviate Anxiety Causing You Emotional Harm
Anxiety involves your entire body. Not only is your mind a whirlwind of spiraling thoughts, but your physical body feels the wear as well. If an event in your relationship or even your past has catapulted you into a place of anxiety, forming a close connection with someone else will be difficult. EMDR can help to reduce the impact of anxiety-inducing thoughts. Thus, opening the door for a deep and more intimate connection with your partner.
5. Helps to Release Habitual Behavior from the Past
As mentioned, deeply rooted pain causes you to want to protect yourself. You might not even realize you’re doing it, but your defense mechanisms are in full gear. You may find yourself putting up a shield and your body getting tense and hot just by the tone of your partner’s voice during an argument. Many times, this could be a trigger for you where a similar tone made you feel the same way many years before.Although living with past trauma isn’t easy to do, it’s easy to become accustomed to it. You can even become used to the learned behavior stemming from the hurt.
If one person can be less vulnerable to triggering, it can make a big difference in relationships.
It interrupts the cycle of emotional reactivity.
If one person gets help with their trauma, they can become a leader of health.
They can learn to be true to themselves, and not react emotionally to the other. This gives a breathing space in dysfunctional patterns of relating. Things can begin to change in a healthy direction.