Some call it negative thoughts, others “the voice in their head.” Yet for many people, negative cognitions have become so embedded, that they unconsciously and actively live out their beliefs every day.
At the start of our therapeutic work, clients are often frustrated. There is some behavior, response, or habit they are hoping to change. Since we specialize in advanced, brain and body-based therapies, we often apply nonverbal therapies to help them achieve the results they are hoping for.
Last month, I shared a conversation with our EMDR-trained clinician, Hannah Braune-Friedman. We delved into the role of negative cognition in EMDR and how transformation stems from addressing these deeply held beliefs, not avoiding them.
The Role of EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), is a brain-based modality that significantly reduces feelings of distress related to past experiences. Our clinicians use EMDR with our clients to help them heal from traumatic experiences and enhance quality of life in their present-day.
“EMDR allows clients to view the areas of life where they’re struggling through a different lens than they’ve applied with talk therapy,” Hannah shared. “This is what makes it so powerful.”
While some forms of therapy view a presenting symptom as the target, EMDR accesses and addresses the belief beneath the behavior. We help clients identify the deeply held belief that leads to a certain action. In doing so, we meet the struggle at its source and can heal it from there as well.
Where We Start
It is a humbling and inspiring process to be invited into our clients’ healing. By tapping into implicit memory, EMDR engages the full body and nervous system to facilitate healing. Because of this, building trust with our clients is where we begin.
“Building therapeutic alliance with my clients always comes first,” Friedman shared. “It is my responsibility to create a safe container for them.”
In therapy, individuals bring memories to the surface, reckon with the feelings that meet them there, and discover new parts of themselves. It takes courage to engage with this process. We know this and prioritize our clients’ safety throughout it.
Establishing trust, following the client’s pace, and providing them with resources to use outside of sessions are some methods.
The Role of Negative Cognition
Identifying the negative cognition that fuels an undesired behavior is also an early step of EMDR work. “A negative cognition is a belief that one has that is maladaptive,” Hannah offers. “One that is getting in the way of a quality of life someone hopes to know.”
We work with many high-functioning, successful and personable individuals. Still, their interior worlds and experience of themselves are not congruent with what the world knows. The same energy that fuels their success and determination, can get in the way of their personal wellbeing and healing. “In EMDR, we call this ‘The Answer’ or ‘Defense.’”
There are many tools we apply to help clients work through the cognitions that hinder their healing. Because brain- and body-based work often occurs over a span of multiple sessions, tools to support their system outside of sessions is essential.
Containers
Towards the close of our time, I will ask clients “What is something you would like to have go away in between sessions?” Often their core negative thought or some derivative of it is shared. “Then I invite them to envision a container that is strong enough to hold this thought,” shared Friedman.
“Once they have closed and sealed the container, I invite them to place a lock on it. I offer validation that the container they have chosen is strong enough to hold the thought. That they do not have to listen to it anymore.”
Securely disposing of negative cognitions is a pivotal step. Sometimes it takes many sessions to reach a place where this can happen. However, once identified, addressed, and contained, re-wiring can occur.
Rewriting the Narrative
This blog post covers the cognitive components of EMDR. Bilateral stimulation, the science behind it, and other components can be found here. These evidence-based methods are used to decrease physiological symptoms that accompany negative cognitions.
Once these negative components have been contained, installing the positive belief that offsets it can occur. It is important that newly-held beliefs are felt as viscerally as the negatives were. The process and repetition of bilateral stimulation help this happen.
Not-So-Positive
The use of negative and positive may paint a more black-and-white picture than we know to be true. The belief that counteracts a negative cognition has to be believable. For many clients, saying the direct opposite of a long-held, limiting belief does not feel true to their system.
“I matter,” is one simple and effective positive cognition that Hannah shared with me. The healing that can result from those two words being physiologically felt and systematically integrated is immense.
If the concept of firmly held beliefs that hold oneself in a positive regard sounds far-fetched, you are not alone. This is the mindset many of our clients are in when we begin our work.
But time and time again, we witness transformative healing in our clients alongside EMDR work. We are grateful to be in the business of sharing and applying these good and true healing sciences.
Do you want to know more about EMDR? Or work with a clinician who can facilitate healing using it? Contact us to learn more. In addition, you can find a wealth of free resources for support via the Resilient Brain Project.
