LILLIAN BENRUBI PSYCHOTHERAPY MSW, RSW
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what is emdr

3/1/2025

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​EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Processing.  It is a structured therapy that encourages the patient to focus briefly on the trauma memory while the therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements or tones or taps) desensitizing trauma or emotionally charged past experiences, which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. EMDR therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method, is currently one of the most researched methods of contemporary psychotherapy, proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD symptoms. Diagnostic imaging research has documented positive changes in the brain during these sessions.  Ongoing research supports positive clinical outcomes, showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and other distressing life experiences (Maxfield, 2019). EMDR therapy has even been superior to some medications in trauma treatment (Van der Kolk et al., 2007). Shapiro and Forrest (2016) share that EMDR therapists in 130 countries have successfully treated millions.

EMDR is based on a model called the AIP, Adaptive Information Processing Model which posits that the development of symptoms and conditions related to traumatic experiences, such as OCD, anxiety, depression, addictions, etc, are a result of maladaptive encoding,  and incomplete processing of traumatic events.  What this means is your experience(s) has been stored in your brain in such a way that it causes at the very least, discomfort if not suffering.  A combination of our genetic predisposition and our experiences create memory networks that are stored in our minds and bodies.  These memory networks dictate how we experience the world - our relationship to others and ourselves, in the present.  They are the basis of our beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions.  Most memories are stored "functionally" - they help or support us., but intense or traumatic memories tend to be stored without a coherent sense of time.  This can lead us to feel like the past traumatic event is about to happen again at any moment, or is currently happening in the present or is uncomfortably close by.  As a result, you can have strong reactions to  present "stimuli" - feeling triggered, with hyperarousal and/or somatic symptoms (body reactions) because the memory network has not been stored "functionally", in a way that serves you.

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Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic memories and events. This process involves communication between the amygdala (the alarm signal for stressful events), the hippocampus (which assists with learning, including memories about safety and danger), and the prefrontal cortex (which analyzes and controls behavior and emotion).While many times traumatic experiences can be managed and resolved spontaneously, they may not be processed without help.
EMDR helps you process the "unprocessed" memory so that you can know and feel that the traumatic event or intense experience is in the past and you are safe in the present.  The triggers of the present no longer have the same emotional charge or effect.  You can react to what is happening "now" instead of having strong reactions due to past events.

Unlike other therapies, EMDR does not ask you to go into the details of the past traumatic event - you do not have to relive it from the present moment, yet EMDR has the impact of releasing the emotional charge connected to it, leaving you empowered, feeling in control, improving the quality of your relationships to others, yourself and the world at large.  Essentially, clients report feeling a sense of freedom and lightness and find themselves more fully engaged in the parts of the world that support them.

what happens when you have experienced trauma

Most of the time your body routinely manages new information and experiences without you being aware of it. However, when something out of the ordinary occurs and you are traumatised by an overwhelming event (e.g. a car accident) or by being repeatedly subjected to distress (e.g. childhood neglect), your natural coping mechanism can become overloaded. This overloading can result in disturbing experiences remaining frozen in your brain or being "unprocessed". Such unprocessed memories and feelings are stored in the limbic system of your brain in a "raw" and emotional form, rather than in a verbal “story” mode. This limbic system maintains traumatic memories in an isolated memory network that is associated with emotions and physical sensations, and which are disconnected from the brain’s cortex where we use language to store memories. The limbic system’s traumatic memories can be continually triggered when you experience events in the present that are similar to the difficult experiences you have been through. Often the memory itself is long forgotten, but the painful feelings such as anxiety, panic, anger or despair are continually triggered in the present. Your ability to live in the present and learn from new experiences can therefore become inhibited. EMDR helps create the connections between your brain’s memory networks, enabling your brain to process the traumatic memory in a very natural and healing way.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM EMDR

​EMDR therapy helps children and adults of all ages. Therapists use EMDR therapy to address a wide range of challenges:
  • Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias
  • Chronic Illness and medical issues
  • Depression and bipolar disorders
  • Dissociative disorders
  • Eating disorders
  • Grief and loss
  • Pain
  • Performance anxiety
  • Personality disorders
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other trauma and stress-related issues
  • Sexual assault
  • Sleep disturbance
  • Substance abuse and addiction
  • Violence and abuse
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what is an emdr session like

EMDR utilizes the natural healing ability of your body. After a thorough assessment, you will be asked specific questions about a particular disturbing memory. Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated simply by asking you to watch the therapist's finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field. Sometimes, a bar of moving lights or headphones is used instead. The eye movements will last for a short while and then stop. You will then be asked to report back on the experiences you have had during each of these sets of eye movements. Experiences during a session may include changes in thoughts, images and feelings. With repeated sets of eye movements, the memory tends to change in such a way that it loses its painful intensity and simply becomes a neutral memory of an event in the past. Other associated memories may also heal at the same time. This linking of related memories can lead to a dramatic and rapid improvement in many aspects of your life.
EXAMPLE OF EMDR SESSION
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September is here.....

9/4/2024

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YOU ARE THE BLOSSOMING BUD

5/19/2020

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And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud, was more painful than the risk to bloom.
-Anais Nin
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We all face this turning point repeatedly:  when resisting the flow of inner events suddenly feels more hurtful than leaping toward the unknown.  Yet no one can tell us when to leap.  There is no authority to bless our need to enter life but God within.

​-Mark Nepo
The above quotes, from The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have, speaks to the many ways and times throughout our life time, when we have resisted the inner stirrings that lie within.  It could be saying “Go North”, but that might take us too far from the comforts of famiiar people in our lives, it could say SouthWest, but then our employment and financial security is in the North East.  It could even just say take 10 steps in that direction, just taste, dip a toe, but we may fear that we will like it more than the familiar life we have.
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We all have enormous worlds within.  Just lay down for 10 minutes in the course of your day and notice where your mind goes.  Do something that is centering, that brings you back to you, and feel the feelings - perhaps the aches and pains that need tending to, the rumbling in your stomach asking you to nourish it…..the tightness in your shoulders asking to go for that swim that always seems to stretch out the kinks.


I know that life has at times, asked me to be outwardly focused, and then, softened or slowed down just enough to direct me inwardly.  During these times, I tend to have paper and pen with me everywhere I am, or use my Notes App on my phone to document things like complaints, joys, inspiration, wisdom, humorous moments parts of my body needing attention…….whatever shows up, so that I can be present to the inner rumblings.  I will share them with people in my life, and they will give me feedback or simply express what shows up for them in the context of sharing.


In this way, I make alive what would otherwise be silent, missed, unnoticed, hidden behind the curtains of what is visible to others..and myself.   I learn the art of honoring and respecting the “spirit”, the “soul” that lives deeply within, that can easily be ignored, misunderstood and forgotten, should I only give my attention to the tasks, responsibilities, and commitments that, to no end, call me outward.
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I also become much more in tune with and clear about who I am……for myself, others and the world at large.  I hone the skill and develop the practice of valuing myself and my life.  In sharing my inner stirrings with admired and respected friends, there are themes of feedback over a lifetime that confirm who I already know myself to be (and noteworthy, as a young woman who I wanted to be).  I could share them with you here, but this email is more about you, and the life that is yours, a precious unfolding and blooming of who you are in the world.


Mark Nepo asks:


  1. Try to identify what scares you most about being who you are in the world.
  2. As you meditate, imagine the God in you, warming your fears open.
  3. Note what it feels like t have your centre safely exposed, even for a moment.
  4. Without telling anyone, imagine this opening of sometime during your day:  at your desk, on the bus, in line at the supermarket
  5. Note what it feels like to have your centre safely exposed, even for a moment, in the presence of others.
  6. Repeat this meditation whenever you start to feel your sense of things tighten.


The key to this meditation is “safely”…..when you are exposing yourself in this visualization, everything and everyone is safe.  They are kind, generous, understanding, charitable, forgiving and non-judgmental.  They are waiting for you to open up your centre, because they already know that you are good and enough, and want to witness the sparkle that bursts forth.


Like magic to a yummy 5 year old, icing on the already delicious cake, the bernaise sauce to a perfectly cooked steak.


Here is to having a week of self-wonder, self-kindness and magic.
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your brain is not designed to see your best

5/12/2020

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​Hi there,

​Your brain is designed to anticipate the future in the worst possible way.  It is not designed to wake up in the morning and say “you are amazing, you are beautiful, you are the best….” At least not without a lot of training and practice.  And even then, we will have days where our brain does not want us to get out of bed.
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The brain is going to do what it’s going do, think what it’s gonna think, and I could just say “thank you brain for sharing” or “i hear you, but we are going to get up together and walk through our day........ feeling what it feels like to be amazing, beautiful and the best today”.  

You see, when we focus on on our “being” - who or how we are being in the course of a day, within a particular relationship, or in the world, we now have access to our happiness.  Now this isn’t more of the old “law of attraction” approach…..it’s not like “not” taking action and just “being” kind, or generous, or excited will suddenly and miraculously produce what we are looking for.  Sitting and meditating on being a millionaire is not going to get us millions without the practices to get there.  Being patient, generous, present and joyful will not land us with our soul mate if we are not making ourselves available to the population we want to date.  But…..if we are being “excited”, “curious”, appropriately “vulnerable” and “open” to the prospect of dating….then maybe that will propel us, with little effort and expended energy, to take the actions needed to be taken.
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Being “inspired” by our emotional state is what gets us moving in the directions we wish to take.  So…….if I'm being angry, hurt, cynical and skeptical about the dating world, the outcome will likely be an experience of dating .......that will confirm the beliefs (eg. there are no good women/men out there) that inform the way I am being (skeptical and careful).  And here is the next part….our beliefs and being inform our behavior.  How excited or exciting do you think the angry, hurt, cynical and skeptical person will be, when out looking to date?  What kind of feel will they have to their body language, their facial expressions?


So, really, all this to say that we have a brain.  We have had this brain since the beginning of time…..the brain that is not designed toward dropping its' guard, and taking on the day without thinking about possible hazards, challenges, demands and potential threats to our safety and security.  


Have you ever heard the saying “Our brain is Teflon for the positive and Velcro for the negative”?  It's just what it's designed to do….but we don’t have to give ALL OF US up to it.  There are other parts.  The parts that are moved and inspired by a good movie or video, parts that are or have been excited about your life, parts that are wise and know that there is something more or out there for you, parts that can laugh at life or to something funny……We do not have to give our power to this part of our brain and let it run with it.

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What would be possible if we stopped trying to change or fix that?  Fix that part of ourselves?  We’d certainly stop beating our heads against the wall…..cause that’s what we will be doing for the rest of our lives if we try to fix something that has been programmed to protect us from real threat.  This is our survival instinct.  But since most of us in the first world do not have to deal with issues of “survival”…….ahhhh….we can now relax enough to contemplate growth, thriving, becoming and living into our full potential…….
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But we have this part of our brain that has evolved and strengthened over thousands of years and has a voice like a TRAINED TENOR…..a voice that we have been trained to hear quite well…..and trained to give our energy.  The tell-tale sign will be how and what your body does..... and how it feels at any given moment, after you give this voice the front row seat to your day.

What to do…..

Well……the first step to transforming our way of being is to notice it.  Create the intention to be aware of this pre-programmed strategy to anticipate the worst…..and listen to it like you would a good friend needing your attention over a cup of coffee, giving it space to be expressed, perhaps even contemplating the possibility that “this” worst could happen.  After all…anything could.  But then, you wouldn't likely indulge your friend and give her or him all the fine examples in the world, or in her life, to cement this belief.  You might gently challenge him a little, providing other evidence, supporting the belief that life has been good to him at times.

What works best is when you only challenge these beliefs after you’ve listened to them and given the voice space to speak.  And limit its time…..say 10 minutes maximum when it comes to your own voice.  If you are finding that this voice still wants to express more…..give it another short time limit AND NEGOTIATE some time to provide it with the hope, inspiration, examples of kindness, accomplishments….acknowledge efforts made in your life to meet challenges........ every day…..

This is the practice of self compassion…..of acknowledging your humanity…..that THIS IS what it means to be human……that you ARE doing humanity…..

And that there is nothing to fix.  Just BE in it, navigating through it, developing muscle, learning more about yourself in the world, unfolding, developing, strengthening.

All the best to your day and your week.   May it be filled with love and wonder.
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1 Comment

Self Compassion Now?  Really?

4/20/2020

1 Comment

 
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Does Self compassion have a place in these times of high anxiety?
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Absolutely……..

As you know in your everyday life, you will from time to time be hard on yourself.  Or at the very least, forget to be REALLY GOOD to yourself.  Its pretty natural, pretty normal……truth is, your next door neighbour, your boss, your cousin, sibling, and even your spiritual mentor will need to have practices in place to keep self-compassion at the forefront…and in effect, reduce or prevent the strategy of anxiety to show up.  And during times of high anxiety....we need these practices in place that much more.


Strategy?  Anxiety is a strategy?  You mean it’s not here to torture me?


​Yes, Anxiety is a biologically, pre-programmed survival strategy.  No, it's not here to torture you.
  We need it.  It’s necessary for our survival.  

It's a great strategy when a car or lion is leaping toward us.  The fight, flight, freeze response gets us desired results.

It becomes problematic when we think or believe we are in danger or are in survival mode ALL the time.  Then all of the mechanisms of our body involved in this strategy, overrun, burnout, have us on edge, in fear, perhaps numb and listless……feeling powerless and helpless.  

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Furthermore, if we are resisting this strategy, our physical, emotional, and psychological messengers of distress, we add another layer of suffering and pain to the already uncomfortable dis-ease of anxiety.  Not like its enough that we are feeling anxious a lot of the time, but now we might make it all wrong, make ourselves wrong, minimize it, distract from it, etc.  At different points in our lives, we just want to give up when we don't know how to get out of this vicious feedback loop.
Do you ever notice the more you resist something, the more it pushes you to pay attention?  Aren't we just amazing mechanisms of resolution?
Its in the practice of self-compassion, that the anxiety will soften and calm down.  Being kind to oneself is not some gift relegated to a few.  As the practice of self-criticism was once learned, self-compassion can and is a learned practice as well.
How does it apply here?

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Allowing yourself to feel what you feel, to be with it, find ways to soothe that part of yourself……the scared part, the sad or angry part…..whatever part is expressing itself……find ways to soothe it as you would a dear pet, child, or loved one…… it too will calm down, feel protected and taken care of.  It is only in the “being with these feelings”, listening to what it's asking for, giving it that which it seeks (soothing), that you will find ground, peace and comfort.  How do you figure out what it wants?

​Imagine a beloved child or pet whimpering for something.  They don’t have the language to articulate what they need, and if they did, they don’t really know what they need.  What could you offer them? Would it be a hug, a cup of soothing liquid, an activity that they enjoy or gets them into their body and out of their spiraling thoughts?  Would you give up in 2, 5, 10 minutes and walk away from them, frustrated that you could not find the solution, or would you persevere and keep trying to find that action that would make a difference?  You see {!firstname_fix}, these parts of ourselves often present themselves as the child that wants the "knowing" adult (we all have this adult) to show up.


This is how you want to approach your own anxiety.  It’s asking you to find the soothing action it needs.  It needs to be comforted, seen, heard, to know that you have its back, that it can rely on you to in fact take action, when action is what is needed.


Some findings of Self-Compassion research:
  • Being Self Compassionate can fuel the motivation to try new things, to be in the unknown.  Beating ourselves up just tells us that the consequences to trying is painful.
  • Self Compassion reduces anxiety around the unknown, because failure is seen as a means to success, as providing valuable information as to how one wants to proceed,  and not a reflection of one’s worth.
  • Self compassion in fact helps us build confidence in the face of failure, as it always recognizes our worth, our efforts, strengths and qualities in our endeavors.
  • Self compassion releases us from performance anxiety.
  • Self compassion helps us see projects through, despite failures.

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What to do:
  • Treat yourself like you would someone you love.
  • If you are struggling, could you look at that “part” of yourself and ask that “part” what it needs in that moment, like you would a child or relative.
  • Remind yourself of all the times you have heard other people’s imperfections and feel relieved and proud that you are part of the community called Humanity, join in and be embraced by this crowd.
  • Mistakes and failures “ARE’ supposed to happen, this IS what life looks like when its working!!!
  • Connecting with others during these times is what in fact has us feel less alone and part of a community of people who make it ok to make mistakes


Most importantly when you are starting something new and you don't know how:

ITS NOT IMPORTANT TO KNOW HOW.......BEFORE YOU DO IT!!!  ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING NEW........WITHOUT LEARNING HOW TO DO IT.  AND DOING IT, NOT GETTING IT RIGHT PERHAPS SEVERAL TIMES, IS PART OF LEARNING.  AND LEARNING IS PART OF DOING SOMETHING NEW.  IN ESSENCE, NOT KNOWING HOW and NOT GETTING IT RIGHT IS WHATS NEEDED TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW.

I hope you give yourself permission to not know what you don't know this week, to be awkward, vulnerable, and kind to yourself if you are afraid, unsure, feeling unsupported or without direction.........and for that matter, wherever you are during this time of your life and this global crisis.


I hope you take the time to learn some new strategies that will have you arrive exactly where you want to be when all these unknowns lift.

I hope you have a wonderful week......and if you want to explore your situation further, I am just a CLICK away.

Till next time and with warmest regards,

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  • Home
  • About
    • Lillian Benrubi
    • Psychotherapy
    • Individual Counselling
    • Couples Counselling
    • Family Counselling
    • Child and Youth Counselling
    • Online/Phone Counselling
    • Rates
  • Request an Appointment
  • Newsletter
  • Contact
  • Resources
  • What is EMDR
  • PERINATAL/TRYING TO CONCIEVE COUNSELING