EMDR Near Me- Treatment Timeline

EMDR Therapy Near Me- Timeline of Treatment

EMDR will require a minimum of 3 sessions to resolve a single incident trauma like a car accident. Weekly appointments are recommended at an office near you. This will allow you to attend sessions without too much inconvenience. You may find that after you resolve the initial trauma you will want to continue just to get more support. Or you may find that you want to move slowly and get to know your therapist better before diving into sensitive material.  The easier it is for you to attend the more likely you will get to counseling regularly.

What Timeline To Expect:

Session one: Intake

 In this session therapist will want to understand the full picture of your life. They will not only ask about the challenges but will want to know your strengths and what is going well in your life. Knowing both will help their facilitation of the EMDR process. 

Time will also be taken to understand the traumatic event its complexity and how it has impacted your life. When trauma is complex and someone has gone through multiple events the therapist will want to have a full understanding so they can make the best treatment plan for going forward. 

Session Two: Learning and Planning

Your therapist will give you an in-depth explanation of how EMDR works. Then they will check to see if you would like to move forward with the process that day. You do not have to! It is very important to recovery that you listen to yourself go at your own pace and feel you have full control. There are lots of other ways to begin supporting you with dealing with trauma symptom other than EMDR. 

If you decide to move forward. The therapist will help you to begin to develop some resources to drawn on during the process like images and feelings of a  Safe Place, a Nurturing Figure, a Protective Figure and a Wisdom figure. These images are drawn from your own life experiences and they help you build confidence and control before you move into re-processing the traumatic event. 

You will also have time to start identifying the trauma events you want to work on and the sequence that the treatment will take. That is a very collaborative process between you and the therapist and it can be surprisingly creative once you get going. 

Session Three- Re-Processing Can Begin

If you are ready you can begin the EMDR in this session.  If it was a single event. This one session may be all you need. If it was more complex and recurring, it would take a few more sessions depending on the events. 

EMDR can be a very quick and surprisingly easy process. But it also is scary to confront  painful events and should only be done when you feel ready. It is not uncommon for a client to choose to do more traditional therapy for a few weeks to build up rapport and trust with the therapist before deciding to start EMDR. 

By Josie Bohling, LMFT- Josie has enjoyed supporting clients recover from trauma symptoms for over 15 years. She finds it incredibly inspiring that people can heal from trauma and go on to live lives free of the burdens it can impose on ones life. If you are interested in learning more or working with Josie Bohling, LMFT. You can contact her at Shade Tree Family Counseling free for a consultation.

801-203-0082