Inevitably, at some point in our lives, we have all found ourselves immersed in situations of stress, witnessing the uncomfortable manifestations it produces in our body. When activated in unwanted situations, our pulse quickens, our mind goes blank, our mouth dries up, and adrenaline rushes manifest as uncomfortable tremors in our limbs; our organism prepares to fight, flee, or freeze, and there seems to be nothing we can think or do to prevent it.
But these reactions do not occur by chance; we know they have an evolutionary purpose: they are responses that have been useful for our survival as a species and, certainly, were ideal, but only against the threats posed by predators that stalked us in the past. Unfortunately, this “threat mode” also blocks our more rational side, becoming, in today’s society, more of a nuisance and playing tricks on us in moments of special relevance. Thus, neutral situations such as job interviews or public speaking, situations where our life is not in real danger and where, undoubtedly, we would wish to remain calm to develop our maximum potential, can be experienced as tense and unpleasant.
In addition to the physical consequences of activating this “threat mode” too often, there is another consequence that can perpetuate, in an unusual way, the discomfort experienced. I am referring to psychic trauma, to which we are more susceptible during these periods of stress. It is interesting to note that, although trauma has received great attention from psychology and psychiatry practically since their origins, these disciplines focused primarily on seeking theoretical explanations. And it was not until the arrival of cognitive behavioral psychology that validated treatments for its management began to be instituted, such as systematic desensitization (SD) and stress inoculation. These therapies, however, were long and, at times, ineffective with certain subjects; it was necessary to go further and treat trauma more deeply, which seemed to remain fixed at both cognitive and somatic levels in those affected.
Fortunately, today we can resort to EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which is recommended as an effective treatment by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). This therapy was created and developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro, a neurologist and psychologist who began her research in 1987, focusing on war veterans diagnosed with PTSD who did not benefit from exposure therapy or support groups of the time. Her method offers a much broader view of trauma: it addresses it systematically, with an 8-phase therapy and contributions from other approaches. It is approved in independent studies and, today, continues to develop promising research and incorporate protocols for people affected by multiple conditions, such as anxiety, grief, substance abuse, and phobias, among many others.
EMDR is based on the idea that unwanted symptomatology is produced by unprocessed traumas, the consequences of which can involve bothersome manifestations, such as recurrent nightmares, hypervigilance, hyperarousal, psychological distress, re-experiencing of the event (flashbacks), detachment, marked avoidance of trauma-associated stimuli, or even affective restriction, along with profound effects on physical health derived from all this wear and tear, which is sometimes sought to be compensated by the intake of stimulating or narcotic substances. The symptomatology generally occurs after a very stressful and identifiable event in the client’s history (accidents, physical assaults, death of a significant family member, etc.), although at other times it may respond to small accumulated harmful events, which precipitate into one symptomatology or another. Naturally, many of these must have a neurological correlate; apparently, they focus on the brainstem and limbic system, which remain in a state of hyperarousal, producing sensations and emotions that are in stark contradiction with one’s own attitudes and beliefs, as Shapiro maintains (NY APA press 2002). Likewise, the effects produced by the therapy should also be observable, which is precisely what Bessel Van der Kolk argues, who found changes in prefrontal lobe metabolism in brain scans after EMDR treatment (Levin, Lazrove, Van der Kolk 1999).
Apparently, our subcortical areas, the more primitive areas that had such a good function in the past (responsible for emotion and survival), are not under total conscious control and can be marked by our distorted reconstruction or by our limited attention to threat-related stimuli. Traumas become fixed by events we were not prepared to face, either because they happened in our childhood when we could not fend for ourselves or because we accepted a conclusion or judgment that did not belong to us and harmed us, still feeling, to this day, the full disturbing emotional impact of the experience, with the same force as if it were still happening in the present moment.
In other cases, however, people report being unable to remember what happened. This generally occurs because the event in question has immersed our mind in situations of such an extreme level that we can hardly assume them, due to the brutal rupture they represented with respect to the normal conditions of safety in which we usually live. It is on these occasions when our brain, to protect us, usually resorts to dissociating the memory of the event.
Finally, we can apply this knowledge to the field of psychotherapy. It is known that psychology professionals deal, day by day, with people suffering from unwanted reactions, panic attacks, anxiety, irrational fears, and addictions, among many other things, reactions that cannot be avoided no matter how much rationalization and willpower our clients put into them. It is precisely in these cases where the application of EMDR is especially attractive, since from the current paradigm, primarily based on the cognitive behavioral model, we commonly perform work aimed at modifying thoughts and behaviors. That is correct and helps in many occasions, but with the incorporation of this therapy into the psychologist’s arsenal of techniques, it is possible for us to go a step further. We will help modify the neural networks that store the memory of trauma, molding the rigidity of the unprocessed experience that proves so resistant to cognitive modification and giving our clients the possibility of freeing themselves from those cyclical reactions, which are activated again and again, reliving the same responses, the same unwanted symptoms, the blockages, and the dysfunctional behavior patterns they wish to get rid of.