Psychotherapy & Medication Management
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
(EMDR)
"The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes."
EMDR Institute
EMDR therapy is noteworthy because, when applied, it provides rapid resolution of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress that once took years to heal from or that could not be healed.
Experiencing severe trauma may result in the brain's inability to properly process and store information about the traumatic event. An unprocessed trauma can lead to a number of distressing symptoms including nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks, avoidance of people or places that remind you of the traumatic event, irritability, anxiety, and hypervigilance. EMDR uses a multifaceted, comprehensive approach, including the application of bilateral stimulation (BLS), to guide the brain to "metabolize" and "digest" traumatic memories so that the trauma is filed properly and permanently in our memory, thereby no longer causing distress.
EMDR therapy is ideal for treating single-incident traumatic events (e.g. natural disaster, assault, or a major accident). Often, however, many who come to therapy have experienced repeated adverse events in childhood (e.g. physical or sexual abuse) or adulthood (e.g. military combat, domestic violence) leading to 'complex trauma'.
Complex trauma requires a more sophisticated method to achieve successful healing. In those instances, EMDR can be paired with DNMS to attain the best outcomes.
EMDR can be used to treat the following conditions:
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Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias
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Depression and bipolar disorders
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Dissociative disorders
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Eating disorders
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Grief and loss
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Pain (physical)
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Performance anxiety
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PTSD and other trauma and stress-related issues
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Sexual assault trauma
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Sleep disturbance
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Violence and abuse trauma
Please contact Ryan if you wish to to discuss EMDR further.
At Gently Heal Me we use EMDR & DNMS for one simple reason: they work.
"Effective therapy saves clients from unnecessary suffering and excessive expenditure of time and financial resources. It can also save clients from being improperly medicated or overmedicated due to a misunderstanding about how to most effectively help them heal"
Ryan R. Gorman, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
Developmental Needs Meetings Strategy
(DNMS)
Complex trauma can be difficult to recover from. While some of this difficulty is due to the severity or repetitive nature of the traumatic event(s), it is also attributable to the missing ingredients (such as adaptive information) that our brains need in order to process distressing experiences and successfully heal. Much of that adaptive information is naturally provided to us in childhood when developmental needs are well met by attuned, nurturing, and protective caregivers. For various reasons, many children's needs are not adequately met by their caregivers, leaving them more vulnerable to experiencing unwanted behaviors, beliefs, and emotions in adulthood with little knowledge of how to free themselves from painful and repetitive patterns.
DNMS provides a comprehensive method for self-reparenting and getting unstuck from painful states that originated due to childhood wounds. DNMS is gentle, thorough, and empowers you, the client, to take control of your healing process.
DNMS can be used to treat the following conditions:
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Depression
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Anxiety
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Panic disorder
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Social phobias
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Complex PTSD
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Relationship problems
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Obsessions/compulsions
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Sexual abuse trauma
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Eating disorders
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Dissociative disorders
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Borderline personality disorder
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Sexual addiction
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Self-injurious behaviors
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Complicated grief
Please contact Ryan if you wish to to discuss DNMS further.
"Many unwanted behaviors, beliefs, emotions, and urges originate with childhood wounding. When a child endures a significant physical or emotional injury, that’s not followed by needed comfort, reassurance, and support, that child could get stuck in that painful moment. Being stuck in the past means that childhood state of mind can get triggered in adulthood. For example, a person who feels confident one moment can get triggered by something upsetting – and suddenly see the world through the eyes of a sad, angry, or fearful child, who feels as if a wounding event from long ago is actually happening right now."
dnmsinstitute.com
What are Attachment wounds and why do
they occur?
We may be more likely to suffer from trauma and attachment wounds if during childhood our parents/caregivers were regularly unable to provide a safe and secure environment and meet ongoing emotional needs. When developmental needs go unmet, a child's brain can get "stuck in time" and become triggered in adulthood when circumstances simply feel similar to the original wounding event. Examples of how emotional and developmental needs can go unmet include:
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Parent(s) abused substances or engaged in other addictions and were emotionally and/or physically unavailable
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Growing up with a sibling who had a major medical or psychiatric illness. Parents’ attention was focused on the ill child and our needs were overlooked.
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Parent with a mental illness that contributed to unpredictable or erratic behavior.
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Early death of a parent due to illness or suicide.
Indications we may be suffering from childhood trauma and attachment wounds:
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We have engaged in extensive therapy but feel “stuck.” We find ourselves repeating harmful patterns of behavior despite “knowing better” and/or are unable to shed painful beliefs about ourselves, the world, or others.
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Difficulty tolerating painful emotions. Rely on food, work, exercise, self-harm, or other addictions/behaviors to numb or avoid painful feelings.
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Chronic relational difficulties with partners, colleagues, bosses, friends, and family members.
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Chronic depression or dysthymia (low mood) that does not respond to medication or therapy.
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Chronic physical symptoms that do not have a discernible medical cause.
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Low self-esteem regardless of accomplishments or achievements.
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Social anxiety or extreme difficulty cultivating friendships.
"You’d expect someone raised by abusive or neglectful parents to be stuck in childhood, but even caring parents can raise a child who’s stuck in time. This can happen when well-meaning parents fail to meet emotional needs because they simply don’t know how to, they’re chronically misattuned, they have their own unresolved wounds, they’re under extreme stress, and/or situational hardships (like illness, disaster, war) make it impossible to meet the needs they would otherwise be able to meet."
dnmsinstitute.com