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 and your drama, and let's start healing. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy podcast. We're so glad that you're here with us today. In the last couple episodes, as we started the new year, we were talking about using the year-end wrap-up to identify unresolved trauma and different triggers that we might experience.
And we also talked about how EMDR can really help you to heal those traumas and to help you move into this year in a whole new place and really being able to find the root of these issues and get rid of it and find true healing. And in the last episode, we talked about the specific process what EMDR actually looks like in session.
So today and the next couple episodes, we're actually going to walk through some typical scenarios where EMDR can help, ranging from childhood trauma to codependent relationships to single trauma events to complex PTSD. And in each episode, we'll just give you a scenario and we'll walk you through the different negative beliefs that they're experiencing, how it affects different parts of their lives, and how healing that trauma can impact so much more of your life than you think.
So let's jump into today's episode. So let's start off with a brief refresher on what EMDR does. So EMDR, differently than just talking about your problems, really helps your brain to manage and work through that issue in a way that it integrates it from being in your emotional processing centers into your logical processing centers. And so it can help something that can feel hyper-emotionally charged to move to a place where it's not disturbing or uncomfortable at all.
And this is accomplished through some form of bilateral stimulation while you're thinking about or working through that trauma, either tapping on your knees or tapping on your shoulders with a butterfly hug, or you might be following your therapist's fingers with your eyes going back and forth, or even just listening to a beeping sound that beeps back and forth.
And so instead of being stuck with a traumatized response from this event, when you go through the EMDR process, it really helps your brain to come to a positive resolution on it, where it's no longer something that is causing any type of negative response. And this is something that is useful for more than just major trauma events, but everyday events that we might go through in our lives that may actually be having a much larger impact on us than what we realize.
So that was just a quick refresher on EMDR. But we do have episodes where we go even deeper into the EMDR process. And so that may be helpful to go and listen to those as well. Now let's look at how that might look in practical everyday scenarios. And EMDR doesn't just help with big T trauma, but it does help with little t traumas or even disturbing events. Because healing trauma can be a game changer in areas that you might not even associate with trauma.
So with my clients, a lot of times we'll talk about trauma, but we'll also look at disturbing events. So let's start with a classic example. Let's look at Sarah. Sarah grew up in a household where she was constantly criticized or belittled by a parent. And as an adult, she finds herself consistently thinking about that negative belief of, I'm not good enough, that inner voice that just repeats that to her. And she avoids opportunities because she feels that she'll fail.
So in EMDR sessions, Sarah might recall a specific memory, maybe being told at age eight that she'd never amount to anything. And then she'll follow the therapist's direction to focus on that memory while doing bilateral stimulation, whether through eye movements or taps or beeping sounds. And then during the EMDR process, memories and emotions can come up in surprising ways.
I think it's always surprising for the client when different memories come up and they don't necessarily see the connection. And oftentimes they're like, this has nothing to do with it. But this is what I thought of. But let me tell you, if your mind is bringing it up, that's one of the main things with EMDR is that you don't want to censor anything because your mind is bringing it up for a reason. And so Sarah might recall other incidents of ridicule or times that she felt powerless.
And then gradually the brain will begin to reprocess these memories. So instead of feeling overwhelming shame, Sarah can look at those events and not feel so close to them. I know sometimes we explain it as if you are zoomed in on one specific portion of the event, but what EMDR does is help you to zoom out and see the fuller picture, and it gives you that healthier distance.
And one of the things I always like to tell my clients, and this is a major problem, is that you have intellectual knowledge and then you have emotional knowledge. And so when you have a trauma point, whether it's a big T trauma or a small T trauma, you're going to emotionally believe that negative statement that Sarah has here. You're going to believe I'm not good enough.
And you could tell yourself, I am good enough. And your therapist can point out, here's areas where you've proven you're good enough. Or you can have friends or family say you are good enough. And you might know that in your head, but when it comes to your heart emotionally, that doesn't feel true. It falls flat for you. And ultimately, how we feel about the thing is more about how we react or respond to it. And so if that emotional belief system hasn't been addressed,
that logical belief system is not going to be your motivating factor. The emotional one is. And so this example of Sarah here, where she was belittled and criticized by her parents and she developed that negative belief of I'm not good enough, this is going to follow her for the rest of her life. It's going to follow her into areas, for example, dating, where she might accept people who don't treat her as good because she doesn't believe she deserves better.
Again, intellectually, she may know there's appropriate ways to be treated and I'm not being treated that way. But emotionally, she believes I'm not good enough. And so I'm lucky to be getting whatever I am getting. Or it may come out at work where if there's a task that's difficult, then she might feel hopeless and not really want to put in extra effort to try to get over that hump because she doesn't feel like she's ever really going to make it anyways.
And this can also translate over into friendships, where she might not feel like her friends ever care about her because she's not good enough and she always has to pour in more and more and more. And oftentimes people with a negative belief system like this end up in toxic relationships with friends where they are pouring so much in, but then their friends never pour back into them. And so then they end up feeling kind of used and abused in those friendships as well.
And then what happens is it just perpetuates that cycle because it confirms to that person, see, I am not good enough. They don't think I'm good enough. My work doesn't think I'm good enough. And in all of these different scenarios, she feels like, well, I'm the common denominator, so it must be me. I really must not be worth it. And when you have a negative belief system like this, what's going to happen is anything that agrees with it, your brain is going to highlight.
And anything that disagrees with it, your brain is going to automatically discard and want to throw that away without actually taking that into consideration. Right. It'll minimize or justify why that isn't true. So if you end up doing well, you'll make an excuse on why it wasn't because of what you did or who you are. Or, oh, my boss was just feeling really generous or they just didn't have anyone else. So they had to pick me for the position.
But even in those positive scenarios, there's always a reason why that's not true so that they can throw away this thing that is kind of hitting up against what they've believed so much of their life.
And actually, this is really an interesting thing. I ran into this earlier this week where I was working with a client and they wanted to make sure we were going to get to EMDR at the end because they had noticed that when we just talk about the problems, and even though we're talking about solutions or we're working on reframing, they noticed that a lot of times when we just have a straight talk session and we don't do EMDR, even though we've done productive things in that talk session,
they actually feel worse. But then when we go through the EMDR process, they feel more resolved. And again, it's not that The things that we were talking about or working on weren't helpful when it was just the talk therapy portion. But when you do the EMDR process, it helps to adjust that emotional imbalance. It helps to bring it more into healthy parameters. Whereas before we were just addressing, here's logically and intellectually, here's how you can understand that.
But really, that's not the problem. The problem is emotionally. And if those emotions are dealt with, you're going to be constantly kind of just limping along, just trying to do your best to cope with those negative beliefs, as opposed to actually fully overcoming those negative beliefs. Oh, for sure. There's a huge difference between that cognitive understanding and then that experiential belief.
Because I could have someone all day on the couch and give them a great pep talk and tell them how they are worth it and they can even maybe give me examples of why they are worth it and they are good enough and they feel great and we've talked the whole time and set up this plan and instilled in them why this is true but that's all cognitively so then they're hyped up they're ready to go They go out into the world for
that week and they get into a situation where maybe their friends all went out but didn't invite them. And immediately they feel, see, I'm not good enough. And so even though in their mind they understood and knew and had this pep talk and they're ready to go, there wasn't that connection that EMDR can make to be able to really rewire this belief. And so it's just another thought. it doesn't convey to their everyday life.
And I think that happens a lot where people will have great insight in therapy and then they go back to their family or their friends and they experience that same thing and they feel like a failure because it was the same situation again and again. And now the inverse can happen when you go through that EMDR process and you finish off that target memory and belief system that you're working on. So for example, Sarah's negative belief system is I'm not good enough.
And then at the end, once we have kind of squeezed out all the negative emotions that are left with that, then you start installing the new positive belief system. And a good example of the alternative I'm not good enough would be I am good enough. Pretty simple, right? And so what happens is when you start installing this positive belief system, it starts to address and correct your negative belief system from I'm not good enough to I am good enough.
And that translates to how you feel about your everyday interactions with people in a much different way. So, for example, now Sarah's at work and she's confronted with a very difficult task, but now she's filled with a sense of confidence. I can do this. I am good enough. I will be able to figure this out. I don't know how now, but I know that at the end of the day, I'm going to figure this out.
Or with her friends, then all of a sudden in her relationships, she's able to feel the benefit of all the great that she's put into that relationship. And then also recognize, hey, I don't need to keep putting in. I'm kind of tired. I'm going to take a little bit of a break right now. They're not going to leave me just because I'm not killing myself to try to benefit them.
Or in romantic relationships, automatically what's going to start happening is she's going to reject more unhealthy interactions and then move away from people who are going to treat her poorly because internally she's going to believe, I do deserve to be treated better than this. And then she's going to look for people who are then going to treat her in a
more healthy way. And when you see the shift, it's so interesting to watch people as they go through this shift, and then they go from this place where it's like, man, there's nothing I can say to get them to change this behavior. And then boom, once that new positive belief is starting to get installed, then all of a sudden, just naturally, they're doing all these different actions and behaviors, and they're starting to act in much healthier ways.
So it's not magic, but it definitely can seem like magic. But what's happening is it's a very structured process with results that can feel almost magical. Many of our clients, after experiencing EMDR from childhood trauma, say they feel like a weight is lifted, or they feel like, I'm looking at this memory, and before it would bother me so much, but now I'm looking at it almost like this is something that didn't actually happen to me.
I remember that it did, but it doesn't feel like it actually happened to me. And so what happens is you no longer carry this sense of dread or discomfort or fear of these negative experiences. It's I have this logical memory of this event happening, but it no longer has any hold or negative effect on me. Oh, for sure. I've had clients where they explain kind of that same thing, where maybe initially it was so vivid, that picture and that image that they had.
But as we get closer and closer to the end of the process, it's actually hard for them to bring it up. Or maybe the lighting on the image changes and it doesn't seem as dark or it's blurry and they can't really pull up the image. We're like for you, Tim, I know we talked about one of the EMDR sessions that we did with you, where you really did zoom into this portion in elementary school where you experienced some bullying, but that's all you were zoomed into.
That period of time really felt. That's all encompassing. Right. All encompassing. And so it felt like that's what was going on at that time. But after the EMDR process for you, it really zoomed out and it gave you that bigger picture. And I remember you saying, oh, actually, I was on the swim team and I did have friends at that time. And you began to notice different pieces of the picture that really got left out or overshadowed by just zooming into this negative and traumatic portion.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was totally able to zoom out. And so what had happened is at the point of trauma, I had a hyper focus and fixation when I was thinking back to that time on the trauma. But then as the emotion from the trauma waned and then were eliminated, then I was able to see more of a whole picture of my life at that time. And it was not nearly as hopeless as it felt prior to getting EMDR done.
But then afterwards, I was filled with a lot of hope and it made me feel a lot more confident after that. All right, guys. Unfortunately, we're out of time for today. In our next episode, we're going to give an example of codependency and how EMDR can really help you break the bonds of codependency. All right, thank you so much for listening. And remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs.
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