Treatment
Beginning Treatment
During your first visit, there may be some initial paperwork, but the majority of our time will be spent exploring your symptoms and any problems you can identify. Medical history, family history and work history are all important, and it may take several visits for me to truly appreciate your life experience. However, starting with the basics and as much detail as you can offer will help me work with you on identifying treatment goals and a treatment plan.
Goals and Methods
Although your treatment goals may change through time, my primary objective will be to help you meet those goals. If you are not sure about what you want to achieve through therapy, I will , at a minimum, begin assisting you with stabilizing your condition and achieving day-to-day functioning. Treatment methods used include cognative behavioral therapy and other mindful measures, but most of my clients benefit from EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Although it may sound strange, this method has strong connections to changing how your brain processes information, which is critical to the recovery and maintenance of mental health.
EMDR
According to EMDR International Association, EMDR is, "an integrative psychotherapy approach that has been extensively researched and proven effective for the treatment of trauma. EMDR is a set of standardized protocols that incorporates elements from many different treatment approaches. To date, EMDR therapy has helped millions of people of all ages relieve many types of psychological stress." If you are interested in the technical definition, click here: EMDRIA EMDR definition.
What to Expect
EMDRIA describes the treatment process in the following manner: "The amount of time the complete treatment will take depends upon the history of the client. Complete treatment of the targets involves a three pronged protocol (1-past memories, 2-present disturbance, 3-future actions), and are needed to alleviate the symptoms and address the complete clinical picture. The goal of EMDR therapy is to process completely the experiences that are causing problems, and to include new ones that are needed for full health. "Processing" does not mean talking about it. "Processing" means setting up a learning state that will allow experiences that are causing problems to be "digested" and stored appropriately in your brain. That means that what is useful to you from an experience will be learned, and stored with appropriate emotions in your brain, and be able to guide you in positive ways in the future. The inappropriate emotions, beliefs, and body sensations will be discarded. Negative emotions, feelings and behaviors are generally caused by unresolved earlier experiences that are pushing you in the wrong directions. The goal of EMDR therapy is to leave you with the emotions, understanding, and perspectives that will lead to healthy and useful behaviors and interactions."
Does it Work?
EMDRIA summarizes the effectiveness of treatment by stating, "Approximately 20 controlled studies have investigated the effects of EMDR. These studies have consistently found that EMDR effectively decreases/eliminates the symptoms of post traumatic stress for the majority of clients. Clients often report improvement in other associated symptoms such as anxiety. The current treatment guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies designate EMDR as an effective treatment for post traumatic stress.
Client Corner
"Kinga helped me process a negative impact a previous employer had on my self-confidence. Therapy worked great for me. Those feelings don't bother me anymore."
-Anonymous Client (seen 2009)
“I had problems that were rooted in childhood abuse. That lead to other problems including addiction. EMDR has been an important part of dealing with the root causes of recent feelings and behaviors.”
-Anonymous Client (initially seen 2013)
