A Rarely Used Therapy May Help Trauma Survivors

Talk therapy can cause trauma victims to relive terrible events, but EMDR can help alleviate this problem

EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is gaining more credibility as a viable therapy as research findings verify its efficacy.Dean Drobot/Shutterstock

Awareness of the effects of trauma in veterans, survivors of natural disasters, wars, terrorism, accidents, crimes, and child abuse is growing. Regardless of when the terrifying events occurred or what form they took, trauma-related conditions often include flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, depression, insomnia, preoccupation with frightening thoughts, alcohol and drug addiction, difficulty with jobs and interpersonal relationships, and problems living in the present.

Sadly, because trauma conditions are often characterized by repressed memories that someone cannot consciously “handle,” traditional talk therapy often fails to help. “Therapists have an undying faith in the capacity of talk to resolve trauma,” says Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of “The Body Keeps The Score; Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,” a bestseller since its 2015 publication. “Unfortunately, it’s not so simple: Traumatic events are almost impossible to put into words ... bodies re-experience terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to fight or flee, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate.”