Hey, everyone. Welcome to another interview with a therapist. Today I have Neha Mahboob here with me. She is an LPCA with Mindsight Behavioral Group. Today she's going to talk a little bit about EMDR and the training that she received with us. She's gonna let us know a little bit more about what EMDR is and her training experience.
So Neha, I know that a lot of people probably don't know a lot about EMDR. Can you give us a little bit of insight into what EMDR is?
Sure, Tesa. Okay, so EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy. It was founded by Dr. Francine Shapiro in 1989. So this is a therapy approach as integrative in different other approaches like client-centered, behavioral, cognitive, Gestalt, and it helps with trauma, trauma therapy. But as with extensive research, EMDR is also incorporated for helping people with mood disorders, anxiety, panic attacks, grief, helps with our firefighters, police officers, child abuse and neglect, and so many other challenges that people face.
Yeah. Sounds like it covers a lot of different things that can be a wide spectrum of help for our clients.
Yes, but the training is extensive.
I know that you had that training with us just recently, and I'm sure that many therapists receive different kinds of feedback when it comes to the training that you receive. So what was your experience with that training?
It was exhaustive. But let's say those were three days, I'll never forget, it was like a 9 to 5, Thursday and Friday and a 9 to 4:30 on a Saturday. So there goes my Saturday, but I wouldn't change it for the world. I learned so much.
I learned that when we think of trauma, we're thinking of our past memories, and some also just kind of happened. And some move forward, but in some cases, it disrupts our life. Of course, drama disrupts everyone's lives. And it leaves a lasting impression for us, it's how we communicate with people. It's how we go by our day, what our emotions are, how we see ourselves.
And so with EMDR, what I learned is that there are eight phases. And in each one, we learn from that almost like a bottom-up approach. So with trauma, it's like not what's recent right now, it's not like me and you or we're sitting and we're like, okay, what's going on Tesa? Yeah, we're saying kind of like, this is our emotion, this is a trauma, I understand that. But we're going to go to the past first, When was the first time you felt like this negative or maladaptive emotion and thought, and then we kind of process that first. And then we kind of jumped to the next one, the next time you felt like that negative feeling or thought and the next one, the next one, till we get to that present emotion, thought, and behavior, that's basically brought you to therapy for EMDR.
Okay, so you're healing the root of the issue. And then using that as a gateway to work into the more current issues that you might be having.
Yes, exactly. So it's almost like when you would think of a brain that, you know, the first one our neck is a brainstem and that it's kind of like supporting everything else. Yeah. So for us, it's our past that's supporting us.
Yeah. Okay, well, I can definitely see how that would help someone. We often worry about the now and sometimes we forget about what might have led up to the present. So I can see how EMDR relates to that for sure.
Right? And then we'll process that present. And then once we process that present emotion, the feeling the maladaptive behaviors, emotions, thoughts will start making them will go upwards into like a tree. We're gonna think of the future then I'd like to make a future template of, maybe say, this emotion, this feeling this event comes again in the future. Well, we've processed your past and we've processed your present. So now let's see, what-if scenarios, basically, and how would we process and go by that?
Well, I can definitely tell through your training that you have really become passionate about this subject. So in a little sentence, can you tell us how has this training affected you because I can just see it glowing on your face when you talk about EMDR.
We may be sliding here. No, EMDR, it was really great. I will be very honest, I come from a Person-Centered cognitive-behavioral theory approach. So that's, that's how I deal with my clients every time in the first intake session. I tell them like, these are the interventions I use, and this is how we would go by some sessions, it'd be like more cognitive behavior, we'll talk about, you know, your negative thoughts, kind of almost like reprocessing that reframing that. And then the person-centered approach would be like, the empathy, the understanding, like I'm hearing you, and you're just talking, and I'll try to understand what you're saying.
So EMDR was so different. For me. The grammar was I think the biggest thing. When I'm with my clients, I love to talk, I love to understand someone, why are you here? What's going on? EMDR is almost like a hands-off approach, at least to me, like, okay, I kind of in a sense, shut up. I want to help you set this as your safe place, your container, we'll talk about your negative cognitions, those thoughts, try to process them into positive ones. And we'll go forth, you know, trying to, yeah, desensitize those thoughts and process positive ones. And it's kind of like, what are you noticing? What are you noticing? It's not like, what are you feeling? What are you seeing in your mind? What's the body noticing?
So it was very different for me. That training, that part one training, I felt like I stumbled a lot. But at the end of the day, I'm like those stumbling that stuttering that aided me, and hopefully, once I do this with my clients, I've learned I would be better in the conversations, I would know what to do and how to do it. And then I learned a lot about myself because with that training, we were broken up into groups and we would talk about our own past because you can't do EMDR or learn EMDR if you're not going to practice it yourself.
That's true.
So personally, I brought a few things that were, I guess, negative or maybe a bit traumatic. I brought them through my experience of my own anxiety issues. I'll be very brief and say I had a lot of surgeries in the past. So I brought one of the most recent surgeries. Well, eight years, not that recent. But I brought those up because I wanted to process those. And those were the things that my anxiety came from. So it was tiring, I would be very honest. I think I told you, there were a lot of Mindsight people there. So I was telling them that I cried. I'd have you feeling and I cried after the first session. Yeah, I guess process it. Um, but for me, after all those three days, I felt I felt, I guess relieved, in a sense.
Okay, well, you so then you kind of got to see from your side, that, hey, this really does work. And if it's happening to me in just this short period of time, I'm sure that it kind of gave you an idea of Oh, my gosh, what this can do for the clients that I see. So speak a little bit about that. How do you see this going further in the future? So now that you have all the knowledge that you have, you know, experiencing? what you experienced while going through the training? How do you see yourself in the future with EMDR and putting that with your therapy techniques?
Well, I wouldn't say I'm totally knowledgeable yet, we still have a part two training in May. But yes, I would say I've got some skills out of it. I'm still learning. I'm still processing all the knowledge and skills I've got right now. And my goal for EMDR is to, this is why I'm in counseling, I'll say is to help people. I'm here to bring really bring understanding, bring coping skills and strategies for people to feel good about themselves, to help them kind of add to their toolkit in a sense on how to go by their day when things get too tough too much for them.
And EMDR is just an extra thing. Another amazing thing that, you know, we can use as clinicians can use to aid these people in need. As I said, EMDR is integrative. So we have all these different orientations. You know, as I said, client-centered, cognitive, behavioral, Gestalt. So, it's adding to what we already know, we're just doing it in a different way. We're doing it in a different way in how to no
tice your body how to process your past emotions, your current triggers. Your future template. And I feel like that's just a different direction we'll take with therapy too, for those who I see would be a good candidate for EMDR.
From everything that I'm hearing it sounds like you would definitely recommend this.
I would. It's different. It's totally different. EMDR it's not a quick solution. Yeah, it's just like anything. It takes time. For example, medicines, it's not a magic pill, you have to take it, you know, daily or two times or three times to feel the effect. So EMDR people think, oh, we're going to process our emotions, we're going to talk about our trauma by you know, some can process it faster or better, some only time. Time is the key word. EMDR is it's one of those therapies, I feel like it's, it's all based on time, you know, you're talking about past, that's your time. And that's where all those emotions and thoughts come from. It's a core, it's those memories, those core memories, that's kind of triggering you for your present once right now. And those present triggers, we're going to talk about and make a future template for the future.
Yeah, well, it sounds like that, it's really a good technique to use. And for clinicians to put that in, like you said, your toolbox of different things that you can pull out that might be able to help the clients that you are seeing. So that was really great, Neha, and I really appreciate all the information that you provided us today about EMDR.
And for anyone who's watching, if you need any kind of resources or want to reach out to us, we will have our website link in there, and also a phone number that you can use to contact us. Neha, again it was just so awesome to talk to you. And thank you so much for all the information.
Granted, keep in mind, I gave a very general base of EMDR. And in general, like, definition of an example. EMDR is very extensive. There are highly high definitions to it. And so I just generalized it, of course, from my own memory and what I think of it, but yes, just as Tesa said, you know, we have resources. There are other resources online for EMDR. We'll have our Mindsight link down below if you ever want to get in contact with us. And yeah, I think I think that's it. I think hopefully I did justice to EMDR.
Well, I think that you have and again, everyone we really just want to thank you for tuning in with us. And again, if you need any more information, feel free to reach out to us.
Neha Mahboob
"I help individuals find their inner-peace by giving them tools/techniques to utilize."
— Neha Mahboob
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