Improving your focus through EMDR Therapy

How EMDR therapy helps increase concentration, productivity and creativity.

“My wife says I have ADHD.”

I hear this all the time. Adults come in to see me because they think they have attention deficit disorder. They lose their concentration and fade out as they try to read. They forget appointments. They lose track of bills and documents.

They feel stupid. They wish they had tried harder in school. They wish they could harness their innermost abilities, but they feel hopeless about doing so.

“I’m a failure. I have failed myself.”

What is EMDR Therapy? 

You may know about EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing) as a treatment for anxiety and trauma. If you read my blog, you know that eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing helps people recover from anxiety and PTSD. It integrates memory material stored in various locations throughout the brain. It calms the sympathetic nervous system and allows accelerated information processing to occur.

Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing flips a neurological switch, letting old memory weave together with new data. This changes our body sensations, emotions, and beliefs (such as, “I can’t handle it.). It frees us from old feelings (like the sluggishness that makes us feel like we’re wasting our day).

But you may not know that Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing leads to better concentration. Through its action on the attentional networks of the brain, eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing wipes away intruding thoughts and sensory signals that interfere with our focus. It sharpens our ability to notice, remember, and understand.

If you need to think more clearly or sustain your attention to a task, you know how huge this is. Attention to visual, auditory, and other information in our environment makes the difference between a passive, zoned-out you – and a you that grasps, utilizes, and synthesizes all the relevant bits of material in your world…

…A You that at finishes projects.

A You that sees problems clearly, holds onto creative ideas, and forms novel solutions.

A You that speaks well under pressure.

A You that gets more accomplished in an hour than most people do in a day.

This outline shows how I use Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy to help people get more focused, more productive………and smarter.

1. First, we define what you want to be doing better. Designing video games? Selling insurance? Learning calculus? Painting houses?
2. Then, we identify what gets in the way, and what old memories surround the problem. Perhaps a grade school incident that made you feel defective?
3. Next, we use Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing to target that problem. This combines your imagination with bilateral stimulation (eye movements, gentle pulses, or auditory signals).
4. Finally, we build resources for a whole new way of concentrating. We use EMDR to tap these resources right into your nervous system, replacing tired old beliefs with brand new shiny ones…like, “I deserve good things.”

My patients tell me the results feel like having windshield wipers clear away the rain or having light in a previously darkened room. They say it’s like being able to breathe fully and absorb all the details, as if for the first time. They compare it to a runner’s high. They learn. They get stuff done. They change their lives.

The following are similar blog posts I’ve written that help couples understand how EMDR therapy in Springfield, MO can help them:

• Write. Heal. Create.
• Creativity = Rest: Survival for the Innie

If you have questions about my pathway for helping you, please contact me or call me today at 417-886-8262.

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