Emotional baggage: we all carry it around with us. We think of it as our negative, neurotic thoughts that rear up and try to block our way or swipe at our feet to trip us up. Truth is, this baggage is the sum of our experiences. As we go through our lives we collect attitudes and beliefs about ourselves and the world. Some people are better at sorting out hot buttons and trigger points. Many manage very well going through the day with little interference from their baggage. Sometimes we are confronted with something that just rubs us the wrong way. Those times may be easy to avoid or smile our way through, or they can be painful and leave us unable to handle the situation. Thankfully, we live most of our lives someplace in between these two extremes. We may turn to therapy when we don’t know what is pushing our hot buttons or don’t have the necessary skills to manage them being pushed. We may be wary of counseling because we fear it would reflect poorly to be soliciting input on our everyday challenges. The very thought of finding a therapist can be intimidating, with the different approaches and credentials of the therapists. However, approaches that are geared toward short-term solutions can be very effective in helping us push beyond the challenges to find ourselves in a fresher and more productive place.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an exciting form of treatment being applied to an increasingly broad range of complaints. The name itself sounds complicated and perhaps a bit off-putting. But in practice, EMDR is a direct, effective way to tap into the brain’s natural tendency for healing. Since its development in the early 1980s by Francine Shapiro, it has been studied extensively. EMDR has proven effective for post-traumatic stress disorder, where it was originally employed, and is used to treat an ever-expanding list of challenges, notably anxiety and depression. Initially, EMDR skeptics dismissed its techniques as little more than exposure to a person’s stressors. Some place it in the same category as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with its emphasis on rationality and the aim to systematically change our thinking. EMDR does change our thinking but this misses the realm of cognitions that are preverbal, meaning the thoughts we have that exist from before we were able to give words to what was happening around us. EMDR’s effectiveness with these preverbal experiences makes it quite remarkable.
Underpinning this approach is the belief that information has been dysfunctionally stored in the brain and thus needs to be reprocessed so it can be integrated with the existing information. For example, one person might hold onto a heightened sense of responsibility for others’ wellbeing and not recognize that might be a result of his parents divorcing when he was only eight years old. Another might feel a nagging sense of uneasiness and be struggling with a disappointment from a month ago. Often, the difficulty experienced in the present is not summed up in a single incident but is a composite of many years of messages from others. These events, while not necessarily traumatic in the clinical sense, were experienced in the past, recent or distant, and continue to assert themselves in dysfunctional ways in the present. In this way, the person’s brain continues to experience the event on some level and is unable to resolve it. The dysfunctionally stored elements of the past can show up as bodily sensations or negative beliefs about the self. At times it may be difficult to put these feelings into words, hence the need to get the thoughts ‘unstuck.’ A skilled therapist facilitates the client’s ability to move towards the much-desired stability.
A degree of controversy persists over how it works. EMDR employs a technique called Bilateral Stimulation (BLS). In practice, this may look vaguely like hypnosis as the client watches the therapist’s hand move back and forth. It can also be done with alternately tapping on the client’s hands or knees or with audible sounds on either side of the head. Some claim that this movement back and forth generates a type of processing believed to occur in REM sleep (hence the early emphasis on Eye Movement in EMDR). Over time, there has been more focus on Dual Attention Stimulation (DAS). In essence, the client is paying attention to movements in the present with the therapist while also reprocessing the past. This is the mechanism believed to allow for the brain to integrate old experiences while adding new information, because it is forced to straddle between the past and the present.
Working with a qualified therapist whom you can place a degree of trust in can help to illuminate the places that cause us such dissatisfaction. A therapist, while needing to be competent and capable, helps the client to navigate the healing and push it along if the reprocessing should get ‘stuck.’ The refreshing aspect of EMDR is that the client is the one in the driver’s seat, which makes it appealing to people who may be wary of psychotherapy. Quite pointedly, your brain makes the connections to have a more fully formed image, rather than relying on the incomplete picture formed earlier.
One of the newer areas is in treating sports-related performance anxieties. Athletes strive to unlock all their potential to perform their best. A kernel of self-doubt can fester and block us from our goals. There may not be any major trauma, but just a lurking negative belief about the self that is unrelated to the ability to excel and reach the goals set. Nevertheless, these beliefs can present themselves in ways that undermine our best efforts to succeed in our sports endeavors. Performance can benefit from anxiety to spur us on to our greatest achievements, but if anxiety gets the better of us, we are left with our feelings of self-doubt.
Sports psychologists offer many helpful tools to overcome anxiety. Visualization helps us imagine what the event will be like and manage the difficulties that are most likely to arise. Seeing ourselves at the finish line motivates us to reach it by knowing how good it will feel to have finished. Creating mantras powerfully taps into hidden strengths greater than ourselves by evoking a loved one or a belief we want to have about ourselves. Breaking a task into smaller manageable parts can also be effective. Self-care factors into this as well; we must recognize that proper nutrition and sleeping habits are vital to our success. Common techniques that are readily available work well for many. For others, struggling with troubling self-doubts, EMDR can provide relief and take you to the next level.
Elite athletes often discuss the mental aspect of competing. With hours and hours of training, we can develop a degree of confidence in what our bodies can do. The hours of training lay the foundation for performance on race day but the mental strength to execute to the fullest of our ability can be overlooked. This sense of mastery derived from the continued practice motivates us to do better and to feel okay with ourselves even when the going gets tough. The human body is capable of wondrous feats, but the human spirit is what allows us to really soar.
Michael Westfall is a licensed clinical social worker (and a 3:22 Marathoner) with a practice in Manchester, CT. He has extensive experience with children and teens but works with many adults and couples as well. In-network with most state and commercial insurances, he is accepting new clients at this time. Please visit his website: michaelwestfall.com or call him at (860) 212-8923.