How EMDR Can Help You Heal from Narcissistic Abuse
A lot of people struggle with the idea that their narcissistic parent or partner might have caused them trauma…
“It wasn’t THAT bad, right?” My clients often ask, after telling the story of dad punching a hole in the wall, mom wondering aloud where she went wrong as a parent, and their ex driving recklessly after a recent argument.
The short answer is it was that bad. Trauma isn’t limited to wars and houses burning down. Emotional and verbal abuse occur all too often in narcissistic relationships. For more on that, read my blog: How Do I Know If I’ve Experienced Narcissistic Trauma.
If you’ve been in a narcissistic relationship, then you should look for a therapist who uses an approach specifically tailored to the treatment of traumatic experiences. The approach I use is called EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing. It is the quickest and most helpful treatment I’ve encountered in my career for alleviating symptoms of trauma.
Let’s break it down:
Eye Movement - this refers to your eyes actually following a light that moves from side to side while you bring a traumatic memory to your mind. It’s like a moving meditation for your eyes. Researchers think it stimulates the same kind of processing that happens in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when we dream about what happened during our day. During REM, our brains are trying to process the information from the previous day. In EMDR, we use those same eye movements to process events that happened further in the past.
Desensitization - This is where EMDR kind of looks like an exposure exercise. In exposure therapy, the more you are exposed to something frightening , the less afraid you become of that thing. The same process happens in EMDR. We are exposing you to the traumatic event, and the more time you spend with this memory, the less triggering it will feel.
Reprocessing - Once you are no longer triggered by the traumatic event, you can reflect on your limiting beliefs that derive from that event. The reprocessing part of EMDR allows us to build insight about those limiting beliefs and decrease the power they hold over us. Eventually this leads to people being able to move on with a new, more healthy perspective about themselves. For example, moving from the belief “I am unloveable” to “I am worthy of love.”
People who have been through narcissistic relationships typically experience symptoms of PTSD or complex-PTSD. The flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, etc. become less severe as individuals process through traumatic memories with EMDR. I’ve seen the lights turn on for clients who started out saying “I don’t think I’ll ever really get over this memory” and ended up saying “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I don’t feel anything when I think of that memory.”
I am passionate about working with trauma survivors and individuals who have been through narcissistic abuse. I offer EMDR therapy to clients in Massachusetts. Reach out for a free intro call!