Summary
Pediatrician and podcast host Dr. Mona Amin sits down with licensed marriage and family therapist Dr. Cassidy Freitas to explore EMDR therapy from both the clinician and patient perspective. Dr. Freitas shares her own journey into EMDR after a traumatic birth experience, describing how the therapy helped her process not only that event but also a childhood touchstone memory that had been silently driving shame and fear for decades. The conversation covers the eight phases of EMDR, the role of bilateral stimulation in reprocessing traumatic memories, and how the brain naturally wants to move toward healing when given the right conditions. They discuss who EMDR is appropriate for, including children and parents dealing with birth trauma, phobias, anxiety, and mood disorders. Dr. Freitas explains the adaptive information processing model, comparing trauma to a wound that never fully healed, and describes how EMDR helps the brain finally store distressing memories in a functional way.
Key Points
- EMDR is an evidence-based therapy recognized by the National Registry for treating trauma, supported by randomized controlled trials
- The therapy works through bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones) that helps the brain reprocess traumatic memories
- Trauma gets stored in a dysfunctional way in the brain, and EMDR helps move it into adaptive long-term memory storage
- EMDR uses eight distinct phases including history taking, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and reevaluation
- The brain naturally gravitates toward healing during EMDR, often connecting seemingly unrelated memories through shared emotional themes
- EMDR is effective for phobias, anxiety, mood disorders, eating disorders, panic disorder, and birth trauma
- Both big-T and small-t traumas can be processed through EMDR, as the brain stores distressing experiences similarly regardless of severity
Key Moments
The body knows how to heal but trauma prevents it
Dr. Freitas explains that while the body is naturally geared toward healing, trauma keeps accumulating because we cannot pause the brain the way we cast a broken arm. The brain gets overwhelmed and cannot process and store memories functionally.
"The body knows how to heal. It's geared towards healing. So when we break an arm, basically, the doctor is like, We're going to put this cast on it so you just don't move it. So the body can do what it needs to do. But when it comes to trauma, when it comes to these experiences, we keep having more experiences. Like we can't put the brain in a cast and be like, wait, just hold still for a second."
EMDR as evidence-based trauma therapy supported by RCTs
Dr. Freitas describes EMDR as an evidence-based approach recognized by the National Registry for treating trauma, effective for phobias, anxiety, mood disorders, eating disorders, and panic disorder. She addresses common misconceptions about it being woo-woo or similar to hypnosis.
"And I knew that there have been randomized controlled trial studies. I knew that it was really effective for things like phobias and anxiety and mood disorders. And that I also was beginning to understand how it could support eating disorders and panic disorder and how effective it was."
Personal EMDR experience connecting birth trauma to childhood memory
Dr. Freitas shares how EMDR processing of her traumatic birth experience led to a childhood touchstone memory involving body shame. The therapy revealed how the brain connects seemingly unrelated experiences through shared emotional themes like shame and loss of control.
"And then it brought me to these memories and these other childhood experiences where I was like, whoa, this is impacting so many different areas of my life. And so while we started with, okay, the recent events that were coming up related to the traumatic birth experience, when we floated back to other times that I had felt emotionally some of the same things."
