Most Replayed Moment: Can Eye Movements Heal Trauma? Bessel Van Der Kolk Explains EMDR Therapy!

Sep 19, 2025 20m 24s 5 insights
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.
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.