Most Replayed Moment: Can Eye Movements Heal Trauma? Bessel Van Der Kolk Explains EMDR Therapy!
The episode explores how trauma affects the brain, causing constant dread, hypersensitivity, and a distorted sense of time. It highlights Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as an effective therapy, particularly for adult-onset trauma, by helping the brain reprocess past events.
Deep Dive Analysis
7 Topic Outline
Prevalence of Trauma and Brain Imaging Limitations
How Trauma Affects Specific Brain Regions
Brain Activity During Trauma Reliving
Understanding Trauma as Reliving, Not Memory
Introduction to EMDR Therapy
Efficacy and Mechanisms of EMDR
EMDR Demonstration and Its Immediate Effects
6 Key Concepts
Peri-aqueductal Gray (PAG) / "Cockroach Center"
A part of the brain stem, located below the amygdala, that tends to fire constantly in traumatized individuals, creating a persistent, elementary sense of danger or subliminal dread, akin to a dog shaking.
Insula Shutdown in Trauma
The insula, which connects physical sensations with body awareness, often gets shut down in traumatized individuals. This mechanism helps them avoid the visceral experience of heartbreak and gut-wrenching pain, but also diminishes their feeling of being alive.
Amygdala Hypersensitivity / "Smoke Detector"
The amygdala, acting as the brain's smoke detector, becomes hypersensitive in traumatized individuals. This leads to minor things being perceived as significant threats or insults, causing constant 'triggering' and difficulty distinguishing between one's own hypersensitivity and others' actions.
Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (Timekeeper of the Brain)
This part of the brain is responsible for maintaining a sense of time and perspective. During a traumatic reliving experience, it goes offline, making it impossible to distinguish between the past and the present, causing the individual to feel as if the traumatic event is happening right now.
Trauma as Reliving vs. Memory
Trauma is not merely remembering a past event, but rather a visceral reliving of it in the present moment. When triggered, the brain's timekeeper goes offline, making the past feel like the present, complete with all the original feelings and body sensations, without conscious awareness that these feelings belong to a past event.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
A therapeutic technique involving moving the eyes from side to side while activating a traumatic memory. It helps the brain create new associative processes, specifically by activating pathways between the temporal parietal junction (sense of self) and the insula (sense of body), enabling the brain to distinguish that a past event belongs to the past and is not happening in the present.
9 Questions Answered
While not a binary issue, figures suggest a quarter of people experience physical abuse, one in five sexual abuse, and one in eight children witness parental violence, leading to an assumption that at least half of professionals in a room viscerally understand trauma.
Not necessarily for an individual; while patterns of connectivity and activation differences can be observed in populations, current technology is inadequate to fully understand the brain's complexity at an individual trauma level.
Trauma causes the peri-aqueductal gray ("cockroach center") to fire constantly, creating a subliminal sense of dread, and can shut down the insula, reducing body awareness to avoid visceral pain.
The amygdala, the brain's "smoke detector," becomes hypersensitive, causing minor stimuli to be perceived as major threats, leading to an exaggerated emotional response.
The right posterior part of the brain (temporal parietal junction) becomes highly active, indicating strong feelings, while the left side (cognition) and the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (timekeeper) go offline, making the past event feel like it's happening in the present.
Trauma is a reliving; when triggered, the brain's timekeeper goes offline, causing the individual to experience the past event as if it is happening right now, complete with all the original feelings and sensations, without conscious awareness that it's a memory.
Yes, EMDR has been shown to be effective, particularly for adult-onset trauma, by helping the brain create new associative processes that distinguish between past and present, allowing individuals to process and move past traumatic experiences.
Early childhood experiences deeply shape an individual's identity, making the imprint of trauma very deep and more stubborn or resistant to treatments like EMDR compared to adult-onset trauma.
The therapist avoids asking for detailed verbal accounts because language can be an interactive process where individuals might filter or censor themselves due to embarrassment or other reasons, and EMDR aims to circumvent this verbal process to directly reorganize core ways the brain perceives the trauma.
5 Actionable Insights
1. Try EMDR for Trauma
Consider Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy if you’ve experienced trauma, especially adult-onset. This therapy helps your brain reprocess past events by moving your eyes side-to-side while recalling the event, making it feel “over” rather than relived.
2. Understand Trauma’s Brain Impact
Recognize that trauma can cause your brain’s “cockroach center” to constantly fire, creating subliminal dread, and your “smoke detector” (amygdala) to become hypersensitive, leading to being easily triggered. This awareness helps in understanding your reactions and seeking appropriate support.
3. Address Body Disconnection from Trauma
Be aware that trauma can cause the insula, which connects physical sensations and body awareness, to shut down as a protective mechanism. If you feel disconnected from your body or less alive, this could be a trauma response, prompting exploration of therapies that integrate body awareness.
4. Recognize Trauma’s Time Distortion
Understand that during a traumatic experience or trigger, your brain’s “timekeeper” (dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex) can go offline, making it difficult to distinguish past from present. This loss of perspective causes you to relive the trauma as if it’s happening now, rather than remembering it as a past event.
5. EMDR Bypasses Verbal Details
When pursuing EMDR, know that you don’t need to verbally describe the full traumatic event to the therapist. This non-verbal approach can be beneficial as it bypasses the filtering and meaning-making processes that can occur when trying to articulate difficult details.
6 Key Quotes
our brain is like a universe and our technology is very inadequate to really know about all the unbelievably complex connections the brain knows.
Bessel van der Kolk
Trauma is not a memory, it's a reliving.
Bessel van der Kolk
You're telling me that wiggling your fingers in front of people's eyes can help heal their trauma?
Steven
Yeah, that really sucked, but it's over. It belongs to the past, it's not happening right now.
Bessel van der Kolk
It's hard to recall why I was bothered.
Steven
we don't know where the hell the emotional imprint is gone now but it is.
Bessel van der Kolk
1 Protocols
EMDR Demonstration
Bessel van der Kolk- Bring to mind an unpleasant experience, not too long ago.
- Recall what was seen, heard (or any sounds), and felt in the body at that point.
- Recall what was thought during the experience.
- Rate the vividness of the feeling (e.g., 6-7 out of 10).
- Follow the therapist's finger with the eyes as it moves from side to side.
- Take a deep breath.
- Reflect on what comes to mind now and how the original feeling has changed.