What EMDR helps with
EMDR for anxiety with a history behind it
Anxiety is a signal from the nervous system that something is not safe. When the signal keeps firing in situations that are safe, there is usually an earlier experience that taught it to. EMDR goes after that experience.
The anxiety that does not respond to logic
You already know the panic attack will not kill you. You know the email is not a catastrophe and the drive is not dangerous. Knowing has not helped, because the alarm is not coming from the thinking part of the brain. It is coming from a memory network that learned, somewhere, that this kind of moment is a threat.
That is why years of good coping skills can leave the anxiety intact. Skills manage the alarm; they do not turn it off at the source.
How EMDR works on anxiety
EMDR identifies the experiences that trained the alarm: a frightening event, a period of chronic stress, a critical parent, a medical scare, a humiliation. Those memories are processed with bilateral stimulation until they no longer carry the charge. Then we work forward: the current triggers, and the future situations you have been avoiding, are run through the same process so the nervous system has a new template.
The sequence is standard in EMDR and is called the three-pronged protocol: past, present, future. In a weekly hour it is slow because every session restarts. In an intensive we move through the three prongs in order across your EMDR blocks.
Focus or Depth for anxiety
Panic that started after one clear event, or a single phobia, often fits a Focus Intensive. Generalized anxiety with roots in childhood, or anxiety tangled with depression and grief, usually needs the Depth format so we can work through several memories and the beliefs they share ('I am not safe', 'I cannot handle this').
You will leave with the resourcing skills we practice in preparation, which also work on ordinary anxious days.
Questions
Does EMDR work for panic attacks?
What if I do not remember a cause?
Will I be more anxious during the intensive?
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Free 20-minute consult. The consult confirms your state, fit, and which option suits you.