Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
We've spent our lives supporting people through the ups and downs, and we want to share these insights with you. Together, we'll unravel the layers of personal growth, healing from trauma, and building healthy relationships. Each week, we'll bring you engaging conversations, expert insights, and practical strategies to help you heal from the past, foster healthy communication, and develop enduring love.
This podcast is your guide to transforming adversity into triumph, healing wounds and past trauma, gaining wisdom and insight, and creating meaningful, fulfilling connections. So if you're here to heal, to better understand yourself or your relationships, you're in the right place. So sit back, get comfortable, bring your trauma into drama, and let's start healing. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Music.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Mr. Mississerapy Podcast. We're so glad that you're here with us today. So we have been in a series where we are discussing different criticisms of EMDR and our rebuttal to those criticisms. So today will be the last episode in this series. And the criticism we're addressing today is accessibility and cost. But before we jump into today's episode, we want to make sure that you guys know that Tim and I are available to work with you personally.
And there are links in the description below where you can sign up for either a 15-minute consultation call. Or if you already know that you want to work with us, then you can go ahead and schedule an appointment time with us. We would love to work with you in coaching and just walk you through some of the things that you are facing. So let's jump into today's episode. So one of the things I'll say about therapy in general is that it can be very expensive.
And it just really kind of depends on the situation and circumstance. So if you could find somebody who takes your insurance, that can help take a lot of the expense off of the top of it. You may have some additional restrictions that go on there. People who accept insurance, a lot of times they are taking on a lot of additional clients in order to kind of recoup the lower cost of reimbursement that therapists normally get when they're on insurance panels.
And so the nice thing is that it's less expensive for you. A little bit of a downside that can come with that, though, is that oftentimes it's harder to get in to see that therapist because they have a lot more clients on their caseload. I remember when I was working for an agency where we took insurance, my clients would have to schedule three or four weeks out sometimes because I had so many people who were on my caseload.
And if a therapist doesn't take insurance, then it's going to be much more expensive. But then the benefit or nice part of that is that they tend to be much more available and much easier to schedule with. Now, whether it's EMDR or some other form of therapy, I think this is the case kind of across the board anyways. And so it's not exclusively different. Now, I do think EMDR requires additional training compared to what most therapists
get in school. So it's generally an additional cost to the therapist. And I remember when we first got trained, we really loved it. But then it was a higher level of expertise that we then had. And we even discussed charging more for that. But then we realized we're like, why would we charge more for that? We prefer to do that. And so we wouldn't want to disincentivize people from doing EMDR. So we charge the same amount for doing any other type of therapy as compared to doing EMDR.
And one of the rebuttals to this criticism really is the cost effectiveness of EMDR over time. So like Tim was saying, for us, whether we do talk therapy, CBT, or EMDR, we charge the same amount. But when you look at it over time, EMDR therapy is known for being relatively short-term compared to other therapeutic approaches. And studies have shown that EMDR often leads to faster symptom reduction, which can mean fewer sessions overall.
And that makes EMDR more cost-effective in the long run, since a lot of times clients may spend less time in therapy compared to other methods that require longer treatment duration. And so I know it can seem like, gosh, it is just so much to find a good EMDR therapist. It just costs so much to find a good therapist. But when you think about it that way, EMDR can help you get to the root faster and to heal from that so that over time, like we just discussed, it'll be significantly shorter.
So the other part that's important to know about EMDR and the cost effectiveness is that EMDR provides greater long-term benefits. And so when you go into therapy and you work on something, and then if three, four, five years down the line, you need to go back in and start working on it again because it helped, but it didn't really fully resolve the issue, then it's an additional cost treating the same problem.
But when you go in for EMDR, and I know I've said this in one of the previous episodes in this series, is that once you get that issue resolved, it should not be an issue again for you in the future. And so it's interesting because I've definitely had people tell me, like friends or other clients, say, well, I've been in therapy working on this for five years or something along those lines. And I'm like, man, you've been working on that five years. That's a very long time.
Now, don't get me wrong, right? If you're in therapy and different things keep coming up, and it's different things and different things and it's different things, and you're in therapy for a long time because it's just a kind of slow cascade of these negative events and experiences, that definitely makes it more understandable.
But if you're going in and let's say you have trauma from your mom and your mom really wounded you as a child and you're in therapy working on that for five years, unfortunately, you're not really getting what you need out of it. And you need to make some type of change or shift in order to get that difference. In my perspective, I'm like, man, if I'm working on a single issue with a person for even a year, that seems very excessive to me, especially thinking about it from an EMDR perspective.
Another consideration to this criticism is that now there really is an increase in accessibility because there are now increasing number of therapists that are being trained and seeking certification. And I think part of that is just the growing awareness and demand for EMDR. And so as more therapists are becoming trained in EMDR, it is going to be more accessible to people. Because when we first got trained in EMDR, it was something that we had to do after we were licensed.
There are schools now that as you are going through your counseling program, they're including that as part of the schooling. And I love seeing that because it is so valuable. And I do think that the more therapists that there are out there, not even as their first modality of treatment that they do, but even that they're trained in it, when they see the need for a certain client to have EMDR done, they can also use that.
And I know that for me personally, and even for you, Tim, that we feel the quality of our work and our ability to help people has greatly increased once we were trained in EMDR. Now, I remember very vividly that confidence being instilled where when I'd be talking to new prospective clients on the phone and they'd be telling me about some of their issues and I very confidently could be able to start telling them like, yeah, I'm going to be able to help you with that.
We're going to be able to help you get resolution on that and help that not to be an issue for you anymore. Where before I had gone through the EMDR training, I'm like, oh, yeah, definitely. We've got some skills and some things we can work on that could definitely help that out or we could help you get going in the right direction.
But the verbiage or the way that I would phrase it, I would hedge my bets a lot more with how I'd say things versus after I got trained in EMDR and started having lots of success with my clients in it. Then I started to just talk more confidently about, oh, for sure, we're going to be able to go this direction. Oh, yeah, we're going to be able to fix that for you. Let's come on in. Let's get you set up and we'll get you going. And it's not this arrogance around our ability with EMDR.
It really is a confidence in the process as well as our passion for it. And so as a lot more people are being trained in EMDR, many community mental health programs, many organizations. Veteran services, nonprofit organizations are now able to offer EMDR because the therapists that they're hiring are either already trained or they see the value in it and they are training their staff to offer EMDR, which make it more available to individuals that can't afford maybe a private practice therapist.
And so EMDR is no longer just for those who can afford their own private therapist. It really is so accessible in a lot of these other organizations as well. And a lot of these organizations also accept insurance. And so it is becoming more available. And actually, I think that's another interesting point about EMDR is that I think when we first started doing EMDR, Ruth, I don't think it was accepted by a lot of insurance companies.
I think there were a lot more restrictions on it because the insurance companies weren't certain that this was a good or helpful method. But as time has gone along, I don't believe that there's any restriction from insurance companies on EMDR. And I think ultimately, if you look at the insurance companies now accepting it, they realize that, OK, for our bottom line, people going through EMDR treatment is actually very good.
Oh, for sure. And as EMDR becomes more recognized as an evidence-based treatment for trauma, there's less gaps in that coverage. And more and more professional organizations are endorsing EMDR, like the APA or the American Psychological Association, as well as the World Health Organization, both recognize EMDR as an effective treatment for PTSD. And those are just two of them. There are a ton of organizations that I think are seeing the benefit of it and the science behind it.
Another rebuttal to this criticism of accessibility and costs is the ability to use telehealth for EMDR sessions. And so this really does help with accessibility as well. And I think the rise of telehealth really accelerated during the COVID pandemic. And it caused people to scramble and to get online to do telehealth. And I think initially it was chaotic and people were doing it out of necessity because everything was kind of closed down.
But there was a shift and people began to see the benefits of telehealth and began to see how helpful it was to meet virtually. And I think sometimes some people can feel uncomfortable with that virtual experience because they're used to the idea of being in the office. But there really is a lot of benefit to it. As far as it's very convenient for you, wherever you are, you can join the session.
So if you forget to go, a lot of times this happens to me. And then I'll text my clients and it'll be like, hey, were you going to hop on the session? And then they're able to get on. But if I do that same thing, when I had a physical office, oftentimes they're not able to make it in or they miss a significant portion of the time because then they have to drive in.
And even for those who are trying to get in during their lunch hour, they don't have to take that time to leave the office, go to the therapist's office, have their session, and then run back to work. They can just pop online. And so I think there is a lot of benefits. There certainly is still a need for in-person therapy. I think there's so much value in that. So much of our life now is online that we need as a community, as individuals, we need to have that in-person contact with people.
But when we're talking about telehealth, there are so many benefits to it. And even for those with health issues who it's difficult to get out of their house, or maybe they had a surgery recently and they cannot leave their home. But oftentimes, that's when they need therapy the most and that's when they need that support. or a lot of times postpartum mothers.
It's a lot to pack up a newborn and to get to a session and need to maybe nurse in that time and time it right so that the baby's not screaming on the way home. I've had new moms who have come to session with their babies and their newborns and then they either nurse the car after or I encourage them just to stay in my office and they can use one of the other rooms to nurse. But then that takes another, you know, hour or two out of their day and then they have to drive back home.
And it takes a lot of juggling and timing. But for that new mom to be able to jump on and really seek the support that they need at that time is so helpful. And I think that's therapy in general, right? Being able to do telehealth. And a lot of that came from that time after the pandemic. But then people are like, well, how do you do EMDR on telehealth?
But really once I started doing EMDR with clients online I noticed that there really wasn't any different in the outcomes that we were getting and sometimes they were even better because they felt more comfortable at home and they opened up a lot more from their own home and so we do shift some ways of how we do EMDR in person versus online but I have loved working with clients online. And sometimes it offers more flexibility and hours.
I can work with a client for a double session online so we can really go at it and complete that target quicker. Whereas maybe they aren't able to get out of the house for that long or they're not able to physically be in session that long. So I've seen such great success with telehealth EMDR. And actually, just to take a little second to brag on you, Ruth. Ruth was a pioneer for virtual EMDR. Actually, she had started doing EMDR before the pandemic had started.
And just about a month before the pandemic happened, the governing body of EMDR had sent out a tweet and said, if you're doing EMDR virtually, you're not doing EMDR. And so essentially, they were saying you can't do it virtually. But then a month after the pandemic had happened, then they kind of backtracked and they kind of reframed themselves a little bit and then they said hey please tell us how you're doing EMDR virtually.
Credit to them, they kind of were a little bit nervous about people moving that direction, but then they were willing to shift their perspective when they realized like, oh, this is probably going to be a major thing moving forward. We better figure out how we can help and support therapists doing this. And I remember you were working with patients and I was very curious about this because I had probably before the pandemic, I think I had only seen two or three patients virtually.
Meaning like just doing phone calls with them and not even using any kind of like virtual platform where if they couldn't make it in, we just would talk on the phone or somebody had moved further away who had been seeing for a while. So then we were just doing phone sessions and it was a very uncommon thing up until the pandemic had happened.
And then after that, then especially with EMDR, you were really kind of pioneering that and you were finding, hey, I'm getting just as fine results, whether we're doing it in person or virtually. So the last criticism that we're going to be addressing both today and for the rest of the series is that when you go in and you get EMDR done, you're helping to offset the cost of comorbidities.
And essentially what we're talking about here is that when you have untreated traumas, those oftentimes end up developing into other disorders or they develop into disorders later on. Actually, this is something that I talk to a lot about parents when they want to bring their kids into therapy.
Said, hey, one of the great things about bringing your kids into therapy after maybe they've gone through a trauma or you're recognizing they're having some unhealthy pattern is that when a kid comes in, they tend to process through more quickly than adults do. And they tend to get the benefits with a lot less sessions than an adult does. And so the reason why I think it is, is because their brain is less complex and their experiences tend to be less complex.
And so their brain just more quickly goes through and is able to resolve it than when you're older and then your experiences and then what is actually causing you to feel uncomfortable gets more convoluted because of time and distance away from the original traumatic event.
And so if you're able to come in, and whether you're a child or whether you're an adult and something has just recently happened and you get more immediate access and work on them more quickly, then it oftentimes prevents you from developing something like PTSD or generalized anxiety disorder or falling into a major depressive disorder.
And it's not to say, again, we can't treat you once those things have happened, but it tends to take a little bit more time in order for the treatment to take effect. And so a lot of times people even think like, well, I think I'm functioning well, I'm doing fine, even though maybe I have these major issues that have happened in the past, I'm coping fine now.
And that's true. And that's great for now. But there is a danger that if you don't address those, that it can turn into a deeper or more significant issue later that can then take more time to treat. if you treat it beforehand. And this is something we even say for marriage counseling. If you come in for marriage counseling earlier than you think you need to earlier than this is our last stop before divorce, oftentimes the process goes much more smoothly.
And then you get the same result with a lot less sessions because there's not the streak of damage through your life that you have to work on. It's just, oh, there's just a little bit. And then you fix that little bit. And then it prevents a lot of issues from happening later. And same thing with EMDR. If you get in earlier, even before a major issue arises, then it can oftentimes help to circumvent those major issues from coming up at all.
All right, guys, that's about all the time that we have for today. We really appreciate you guys listening to this series on the criticisms and our rebuttal to the criticisms of EMDR. We hope that we've been able to convince you that EMDR is a very helpful and effective technique towards helping you have general mental health, but then also helping you to address major emotional struggles. And as always, we want you to remember that your mind is a powerful thing.
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend? Also, we'd love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It lights us up to know that this podcast is helping you. If you have any questions or a topic you'd like discussed in future episodes, visit our Facebook group. Just click the link in the description below.
Although we are mental health providers, this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide diagnosis or treatment. If you are struggling with persistent mental health issues, chronic marital issues, or feeling hopeless or suicidal, you are not alone. Help is available. Please seek professional help or call the National Suicide Hotline at 988. Thank you again for joining us on Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Remember, there's always hope and there's always help. Music.