Aware And Prepared

Why EMDR Works: What It Is and How It Helps Trauma Survivors Heal

• Mandi Pratt • Season 4 • Episode 14

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0:00 | 14:14

Why has EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) been one of the most effective tools in the shortest time for trauma survivors? In this episode, Mandi breaks down what she learned at the Conference on Crimes Against Women about EMDR. She unpacks how trauma gets "stuck" in the brain, why time alone doesn't heal it, and mentions how a groundbreaking Austin Police Department program is giving free EMDR therapy to crime victims. 

If you've ever hesitated to seek trauma therapy because you thought you'd have to relive every painful detail, this episode will change your mind.

RESOURCES

  • EMDR Overview (Francine Shapiro's work) - The therapy approach discussed throughout the episode, developed to help the brain reprocess stuck trauma.
  • Austin Police Department EMDR Project - A program training local therapists in EMDR to provide free sessions to crime victims, led by clinical consultant Claire Godfrey.
  • Youth180 - Organization represented by Viviana Triana, chief programs officer, who co-presented on EMDR at the conference.
  • Free Nervous System Calm Guide - awareandprepared.life/calm - A free one-page PDF with 10 ways Mandi calms her own nervous system.

Connect with Mandi:

TIMESTAMPS

 [02:15] What EMDR actually is and Viviana's acrostic explanation

 [03:30] Why EMDR works and how it differs from talk therapy

 [05:00] How trauma gets stuck in the brain

 [08:30] Explicit vs. implicit memory processing

 [09:30] Why time doesn't heal all wounds

 [11:00] The three types of trauma

 [12:00] The Austin PD EMDR project with Claire Godfrey

 [14:00] Program results: therapists trained, clients served

 [15:00] Closing thoughts and free resources 

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

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Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply. And live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve. 

Hey, welcome back to the Aware and Prepared podcast. I am Mandy, your host, And this podcast is brought to you by Women Aware and Prepared, my company where I teach others how to live safer with more peace and provide keynotes and workshops for campuses and HR managers and others. So today, I am reporting back to you after attending the conference on crimes against women, where I had something to present. 

So I sat in on a lot of sessions, and there was one that I found very helpful for myself, and I thought you would find this helpful too. It was about EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, I've mentioned that before, and it was actually recommended to me decades ago when I was suffering from complex PTSD. But unfortunately, I didn't pursue it because I was going through such a hard time, and I thought it meant that you had to, like, rehash all of the horrible moments, which now I know it doesn't mean that. 

So what you'll learn today is what EMDR actually is and why it works, how it works, and why it can be an effective modality for survivors. , and then why time doesn't heal all wounds, and understanding that is actually helpful. So we're gonna talk about those things, and then I'm just gonna mention how Austin Police Department has used that, um, helping get crime victims free EMDR therapy, so first, to give credit where credit is due, the two presenters that presented all the information here were, first, Claire Godfrey. 

She's a clinical consultant with the Austin Police Department, and then Viviana Triana. She's the chief programs officer with Youth one eighty. Viviana was the one who was explaining to us more about what EMDR is, and I love how she explained it. So I just told you what EMDR stands for, but she made her own little acrostic and said it can stand for Eyes Moving to Digest and Recover. That's her version of EMDR. 

I found that so much more helpful. Eyes Moving to Digest and Recover. Why it works, we're gonna go over that. But f- first of all, I had a friend who went through this. Um, she actually was part of a crime, um, hit-and-run. Somebody actually ran her and her good friend over, and they were hurt very badly. Um, and of course, she had nightmares and a lot of anger after that and a lot of troubles. But she got the EMDR therapy, and it helped her so much. It didn't take that long, and all of a sudden, that anger was let go, and all of that was let go. 

It was wild. So I could see that transformation, like, firsthand. So EMDR, why it works. So it's extensively researched and shown effective across diverse population groups, and thankfully it doesn't require detailed verbal accounting or recounting of the trauma, and then it's shown to address trauma in the shortest amount of time compared to other modalities. So we have like talk therapy, which is great, but EMDR gets your body involved, they have your eyes following like a pen back and forth, um, while they're helping you reprocess some things. That's just one example. 

Um, it works broadly across thoughts, emotions, and body sensations, and it's adaptable for both complex and ongoing trauma. So the way that Viviana was describing this On how the brain and trauma work. She was saying the brain can't hold onto unprocessed trauma, so it shows up as symptoms, nightmares, rumination, which means getting stuck replaying the same thoughts, triggers, and intrusive memories. 

The brain is trying to digest the experience but gets stuck in the nervous system. So the unhelpful or overwhelming experiences don't get filtered out properly. People find they can't function like they used to be able to because the brain is, quote, "full." The past becomes present. The experience stays stuck instead of becoming a memory. So how the brain normally processes information is REM sleep. That's that deep, deep sleep that's necessary for moving information through the brain. This is how the brain digests experiences. 

Did you know through my company, women Aware and Prepared, I share keynotes and workshops focused on prevention and healing, helping people live safer with more peace. I've been invited to speak at universities, school counselor conferences, the Institute on Violence, abuse and Trauma. Crisis centers, social work, conferences, junior high and high schools, and women's gatherings. And many more. My talks focus on following and acting on our intuition, setting healthy boundaries and using self-defense as a tool for empowerment. Helping victims and survivors gain their power back with actionable strategies and real resources. If your organization is looking for a speaker who brings both inspiration and transformation visit. Aware and prepared life, or message me on Instagram or LinkedIn. You'll find the links in the show notes. Let's live safer with more peace for brighter futures. 

And there's two types of information processing. There's explicit, which just means facts, general knowledge, and then there's implicit, which means emotional responses and body sensations. And extreme stress disrupts this processing. The implicit memory network, right, that's the emotional responses and body sensations, gets activated without the explicit, the facts side catching up. And the key reframe is that time does not heal all wounds, right? If we don't address the trauma, it doesn't go away on its own, and PTSD is a brain thing. The brain is actually working exactly as it should under these circumstances. So exposure to trauma leads to escalating stress, which leads to neurological and chemical changes, and survival mode kicks in, just as it should, right? Information doesn't get processed, and memories get triggered instead of remembered and worked through, right? 

And I remember somebody else, a therapist, describing EMDR to me as it's a way of filing away those memories, but taking out the emotions from it. So it's like you're separating out the emotion from the circumstance, and that way you can have it filed away better without all those triggers connected to it So there are three types of trauma that they were talking about. Shock trauma, which is life-threatening events. Chronic trauma, which is repeated bullying and microaggressions. And the last one, the third one, is secondary trauma, which is what therapists themselves experience and why they need support too. So the mechanism is the EMDR reprocesses those memories by giving the brain another opportunity to digest what got stuck. 

And the actual developer of EMDR was Francine Shapiro, and Francine had said, quote, "The goal of EMDR therapy is to achieve the most profound and comprehensive treatment effects in the shortest period of time while maintaining client stability within a balanced system." And I just wanted to quickly mention what Claire and Viviana also talked about, the Austin EMDR project. So Claire helped run the program through the Austin Police Department that trained local therapists in EMDR in exchange for pro bono sessions for crime victims. 

So they would train some of the therapists who applied, and there was a ton that applied, but they could take in like thirty-eight, and then these therapists would be trained on how to provide EMDR, and then they had crime victims and their families and then witnesses who wanted to go through this for free, um, applied for that as well, and then they screened them. So, so far there have been three hundred therapists in that area trained, and over six hundred clients served, and more than two thousand free sessions delivered to victims each year. 

And so they were sharing about the success of their program and how it operated on a small budget and how they did it. So it was really amazing. So I will be sure to try to put in their contact information in case you wanna contact them about that. Or I'm sure you could just reach out to the Austin Police Department and ask who heads that up, which I believe is Claire Godfrey. So I hope that you guys found that helpful. So that's one modality that people find very helpful to assist with, uh, PTSD. 

As I mentioned, I saw my best friend go through EMDR and completely transform from being so angry and emotionally distraught from that hit-and-run incident to being, like, completely at peace with it. It was wild. So just wanted to share that and to encourage all of you, and for those of you who maybe haven't addressed trauma in your past, I just hope that you might consider this. I sure wish I did a few decades ago. So again, that we recapped, you know, just what EMDR is, why the brain gets stuck, and why healing is possible. 

This is good news, you know. Those of us who have experienced severe trauma, there is hope 'cause your brain is pliable. The brain changes, so that means you can work through that. So shout out to Claire and Viviana and the Austin PD program as a model of what's possible when cities invest in survivor care And I just want to remind you all of the different things that I offer you for free. 

As a trauma survivor, I have done a lot of work on my nervous system and really pay attention to my senses, and I made a pretty one-page PDF that shares at least ten different things I do to help calm my nervous system just in my day to day. So that's available for you to download if you would like that. It's at awareandprepared.life, L-I-F-E, /calm, and I will be sure to put that into the show notes. And don't forget that you can talk to me. This is not a one-way street. Um, if you go to the show notes and you scroll all the way to the bottom, it says, "Send me a text message," so you can literally just send me a message right there, and I will read it. It might take me a few days, but I'll read it. 

And please know that I have a weekly newsletter that always provides for you the link to that week's podcast, so you make sure that you don't miss it. Or if you're super busy like me, I'll forget, so I definitely need a reminder. So that way, it doesn't get lost, and the free help available to you gets sent right to you. So stay tuned because next week I'm gonna share another modality that helps with trauma. So make sure that you're subscribed. I think it's top right-hand corner for Apple, and then Spotify's a little bit different. So thank you for listening. Remember, you are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk to you next week.