What If You Can't Remember Trauma In EMDR Therapy?
Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) has become increasingly popular over the last few years. It’s a safe, effective, and unique form of therapy that can be especially helpful for people who have experienced trauma.
EMDR works by having you recall the traumatic event you’ve been through while your therapist guides you to rapidly move your eyes back and forth. The goal of the treatment is to help you reprocess those traumatic experiences, turn the volume down on distress, and turn the volume up on feeling resourced about it.
That doesn’t mean you forget your life or experiences. It simply means you’re able to look at it from a different perspective so it doesn’t control you and reduce the symptoms associated with it.
But, what happens if you can’t remember your trauma in the first place?
Why Can’t You Remember Trauma?
Trauma never really leaves the mind or body. Our systems are very wise at self-protection so we will not always remember clear pictures or details of what we’ve been through.
This is especially true when you experienced trauma as a child. Not remembering something traumatic can be a defense mechanism your brain is using to protect you. You’ve likely heard of people repressing bad childhood memories, and that’s exactly why.
Unfortunately, again, trauma doesn’t really leave. It gets put into different compartments in the brain so you’re not thinking about it all of the time.
Childhood trauma can be lost in your memories when the hippocampus, the area responsible for such things, doesn’t work to consolidate those memories the way it should. This is your brain protecting you. But, no matter when you experience trauma, the effects of it are likely to manifest in one way or another.
Is Trauma Repression Healthy?
On the surface, it may seem like not remembering a traumatic experience is a good thing. For a short time, that can be the case. When your brain represses these memories to protect you, you can end up living a relatively normal, happy life.
But, again, the effects of repressed stress takes a toll. When you’re not coping with it in healthy ways and you don’t work through it properly, unprocessed trauma can have a negative impact on your mental, emotional, and physical health. Many medical doctors are now speaking out about the true impact of our emotional and psychological health and how it connects to physiological health. The reality is, our nervous / endocrine / immune systems are deeply intertwined with one another and our life experiences can manifest in unique and wild ways if they continue to go untouched.
How Can EMDR Help?
One of the reasons many people like EMDR is that it’s not quite like traditional forms of talk therapy. There is some talking involved, but it is an intensive and experiential modality. The best type of EMDR, in my opinion, is the type that also includes the somatic and bodily oriented experience.
We begin by gathering some background information and setting some structure / goals together. After that, for the most part, the desensitization and reprocessing steps do the work. When done correctly, with proper foundation and therapeutic rapport set first, EMDR can be highly efficient and offer surprising relief. You’ll still know it happened, but your brain will find a new kind of home, so it doesn’t feel as overwhelming or controlling.
If you’re worried that you can’t remember your trauma, take a deep breath. The structure of memory is one of the most controversial topics in the therapeutic field, and how to work with memory is a delicate process with no right answers. A perfect recollection of what happened to you isn’t required for EMDR to be successful. Maybe you went through a traumatic experience in childhood and can’t remember the details. Or, maybe you’ve worked to block out certain things and can’t bring them up again. EMDR can be utilized to create more softness, cohesion, and a sense of acceptance even if you are unsure of “the truth” or details.
Thankfully, even a blurred recollection of what happened to you is usually enough to suffice for EMDR. You might find that when you initially open up about your trauma, you’ll start to remember more details that you want to share with your therapist. Some clients have powerful dreams between sessions. Ideally, you have more access to deep connection with yourself and others. One of my most powerful and favorite experiences with a client was seeing her move from a deep sense of disconnection / anxiety / overwhelm / numbess, into more clarity / organization and eventually feeling deep joy in connecting with her toddler. This work can even disrupt inter-generational patterns and create a whole new dynamic in a family, a gift so pure to the next generation who is developing in real time. Sometimes throughout the desensitization phase, you might remember more than when you started.
And if you don’t, that’s okay. Your neural pathways and nervous system will be directly impacted by EMDR, even if you don’t have what you imagine as a perfectly organized memory process (that is just not how memory works, and many people don’t have that crystal clear picture). If you’ve experienced trauma at any point in your life but have trouble remembering the details, EMDR could be the perfect solution. Even those who say “I don’t have any trauma in my life”, due to living in this world and what humans have navigated, there’s usually some type of “Little T” or “Big T” trauma in a person’s life or family history. Sometimes, for example, the trauma of our parents feels close or tender in our system, even if it wasn’t “my life”. I believe in the inter-generational nature and epigenetics research proving that our cells hold our ancestors’ memories. If you’re interested to pull the thread, feel free to reach out for more information or to set up an appointment soon for EMDR therapy. I also combine brainspotting and polyvagal theory tools (wonderful somatic practices) with the EMDR process to make sure it stays palatable and tolerable.