EMDR and Zero


Balancing Effective Mind/Body Approaches to Releasing Trauma


by Brigette Ingram K


imberly Rodgers, a licensed clini- cal social worker and owner of Monarch Therapy, LLC, is as pas- sionate about Eye Movement Desensi- tization Reprocessing (EMDR) as she is about sand tray therapy, which she uses to facilitate her clients’ healing process. While sand tray therapy uses the power of symbols, EMDR employs visual, auditory or tactile bilateral stimulation to get both hemispheres of the brain to communicate and process and integrate information. Rodgers frequently uses both approaches with patients who have experienced trauma.


EMDR


“What one person considers as a perceived threat to their safety, another may not,” says Rodgers, who points out that anyone who feels “crazy,” because others do not understand what they are feeling, can find a way to function again with EMDR, an evidenced-based therapy that the American Psychiatric Association recommends as one of the most effective forms of treatment for trauma.


According to Rodgers, when some- one experiences trauma, the memory of the event often gets stuck in a part of the brain that is not accessible for effective processing. As a result, when the memory is triggered by anything that reminds the person of the trauma— an anniversary date of the trauma or seeing someone who resembles the person who caused it—the individuals feels like they are reliving the experi- ence, with the same thoughts, feelings,


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Zero Balancing Teacher Verilee Herpich and students.


sounds, tastes, body sensations and visual images that occurred during the actual event.


“The brain often gets confused into thinking the trauma is still occurring,” explains Rodgers. “EMDR accesses the brain’s right and left hemispheres and gets them to work together, just as I do with sand tray therapy, and the infor- mation is processed and integrated.” EMDR, which helps people pro- cess at a deeper level than traditional talk therapy, can result in seeing trauma from a different perspective: as merely a memory or event that occurred, rather than as their identity. “Although the release of false negative thoughts im- printed with the trauma allows for liv- ing more fully in the present, it does not change the past or erase the memory, but allows the person to look at it from a different angle, with less self-defeat- ing thoughts and a more positive belief system,” Rodgers explains. In addition to treating trauma, EMDR has proven to be highly effective for other forms of anxiety, stress, sub- stance abuse and other life challenges or feeling stuck.


Zero Balancing


Dr. Fritz Smith, an osteopathic physi- cian, is also interested in helping the body to release tension and trauma. In a 2009 interview with Massage & Bodywork magazine, the creator of Zero Balancing explained the release of trauma from an energetic perspec- tive. “We have come to understand that energy is consciousness, that vibration


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