Why EMDR Early Intervention Is So Important
EMDR Early Intervention can be viewed as having two arms: treatment and prevention.
Why is early intervention important? In our society (unfortunately), seeking help for mental health issues is often seen in a negative light. However, many capable individuals need this support to cope with difficult situations and imbalances in their brain. Early intervention can help break the stigma and promote mental well-being for everyone.
Getting help sooner means having to go through less intense treatment. Some people hope their symptoms will go away on their own, but mental illness tends to worsen over time. By seeking help early, individuals can learn coping mechanisms while they are still able to use them. This can even prevent the need for medication in some cases, and reduce the dosage and frequency for those who do need it. Early intervention also helps prevent harmful behaviors like substance abuse, self-harm, and suicide.
Mental Health can affect many areas of a person's life. Relationships suffer, and performance at school or work declines. This can lead to losing friends, break-ups, family conflicts, unemployment, or dropping out of college (to name a few).
EMDR Early Interventions are based on EMDR therapy and help individuals and/or groups who have recently experienced a traumatic event. The goal is to address the scattered memories before they become a cohesive memory. These interventions are usually short-term and can be done in intensive group or individual therapy. Early Interventions have been widely used and shown to bring relief and resolution to many people worldwide. Some studies suggest that the Early Intervention treatments reduce traumatic stress and may even promote resilience. The most common and well-researched interventions were developed by Ignacio Jarero and the Amame team in Mexico, as well as Elan Shapiro and Brurit Laub in Israel.
The Cost of Trauma:
Trauma comes with various costs, including physical health issues like constant tiredness, weight changes, lack of energy, and headaches. It can also cause sleep problems, such as daytime sleepiness and struggles with productivity. Trauma may lead to anxiety, with symptoms like panic attacks, being easily distracted, and difficulty paying attention to details. Depression is another common result, causing low mood, thoughts of suicide, and excessive alcohol consumption. Additionally, trauma can lead to emotional numbness, avoidance, flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and memory loss. Chronic pain and dependence on opioids may also occur. Research shows that up to 20% of individuals who initially experience subthreshold traumatic stress symptoms continue to experience significant symptoms three years later.
Where PTSD Comes in:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is part of a complex psychobiological process that leads to the emergence of the disorder in the weeks, months, or years after the event(s). Exposure to traumatic stress leads to a general disruption of an individual’s underlying homeostasis.
The delayed effects of traumatic stress and their cumulative impact on psychological and physical health (including hypertension, obesity and cardio-vascular problems, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel, chronic fatigue, and various pain syndromes) has been well established by the groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences study (Felitti, 1998). I am sure you’ve heard of the ACE Study.
Following a traumatic event, predicting who will develop symptoms is difficult and uncertain.
PTSD is often preceded by sub-clinical symptoms that place individuals at risk for delayed onset PTSD in the months and even years following exposure. This is a phenomenon called kindling, where patterns of negative information are more easily activated, produces an accumulation of stressors causing sensitization.
This can lead to progressively greater responses over time from repeated exposures. Even in the absence of clinically significant symptoms, the risk of onset of PTSD remains with time. If accumulated traumatic exposures sensitize later disorders, and dysfunctionally stored memories underlie many disorders, as hypothesized by the adaptive information processing theory (AIP) (F. Shapiro, 2001), then there is a promising and compelling reason to intervene early (E. Shapiro, 2018).
It has been proposed that people exposed to significant adverse events should be offered “AIP checkups” as a strategy to prevent this kind of accumulation (E. Shapiro, 2018).
EMDR Early Intervention:
This is where EMDR Early Intervention for both prevention and the promotion of resilience/fortitude is handy. EMDR early intervention, or EEI, is important to so many people in the world who are facing traumas such as fires, critical incidents, chronic stress, earthquakes, war, political and personal violence, and personal loss.
There are several protocols for EEI including versions in group and individual.
Some examples are listed here:
Individual Interventions:
ASSYST©: Acute Stress Syndrome Stabilization ISP© is Immediate Stabilization Procedure PRECI©: Protocol for Critical Incidents and Ongoing Traumatic Stress RTEP©
Group EMDR for Early Intervention.
Recent Traumatic Events Protocol Group Interventions: GTEP©: Group Traumatic Episode Protocol IGTP©: Integrative Group Treatment Protocol ASSYST-Group©: Acute Stress Syndrome Stabilization – Group format G-REP© (Group Resource Enhancement Protocol)
EMDR early intervention can provide immediate relief and reaching out for support immediately may prevent further trauma-related complications.
Email me if you’re interested in more information.
