How Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) can help with negative thinking.

As a therapist, I have met lots of people who express feelings of frustration and even at times, hopelessness, about their struggles with low motivation, difficulties with focus and concentration, and reduced productivity whether at work, school, or with day to day tasks.  Many express how they often feel “down” and ruminate on the “negative thoughts” about themselves and how this then leads to a cycle of depressed mood and isolation furthering the decrease in their productivity. Many people are seeking therapy to understand what is “causing this” and are searching for ways to change.

This concern is not uncommon and is sometimes referred to as negative looping. Negative looping occurs when a person gets caught in a cycle of negative thinking that contributes to experiencing negative emotions. More negative emotions then contributes to more negative thoughts. As you can guess, more negative thoughts lead to more or heightened negative emotions which can also lead a person to engage in behaviors like  doomscrolling, isolating,  etc., that will eventually contribute to more negative thoughts and emotions - hence the negative looping cycle.

While there are different strategies to help a person break free from the loop - mindfulness, thought diffusion, grounding exercises like counting down backwards from 100, and engaging the five senses, I have also observed how EMDR and the processing of past memories and the negative cognitions (thoughts) associated with these helps to reduce the occurrence of negative looping and reduces the intensity of the negative emotional experiencing. 

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of therapy that was created in the 1980’s by Dr. Francine Shapiro. As mentioned in another post https://www.dcimettapsychotherapy.com/emdr , EMDR is a treatment modality used to treat symptoms related to PTSD but is found to be helpful in treating various concerns. The treatment involves supporting people with remembering past earlier experiences - some traumatic, others less so, and identifying the negative beliefs they developed as a result and through the use of bilateral stimulation (beeping sounds, hand buzzers, eye movements, or tapping), assist people in processing the experience until their subjective unit of distress (intensity of emotional and physical sensations) reduces and the negative belief is much less believable. Some people might read this and think it sounds simple; I want to clarify that this form of therapy is anything but. It is hard work and involves a willingness for people to remember and revisit earlier experiences - often very emotionally charged memories, and to be able to sit with uncomfortable emotions, while allowing the brain to process the memories until the person develops a clearer understanding of that experience and its impact on them. Eventually what people experience is the ability to minimize the negative belief and create a new more positive one that is not distressing.  

Many people question if it is necessary to remember earlier years or past childhood experiences in order to address negative looping and why they need to dig up the past to deal with the present negative looping concern. From the EMDR perspective, while it may not always be necessary to consider earlier experiences, more often than not, negative looping is often connected to negative cognitions or beliefs that may have started from earlier life experiences. So to help address the current negative thought processes it can be helpful to identify what is keeping this in place. To illustrate this, think of an iceberg. When you think about viewing an iceberg, what is visible to the eye is the part that is above the surface of the water. This viewable part is likened to thoughts and behaviors - easier to identify because they are usually within our awareness. However, common knowledge about icebergs is that the largest part lies beneath the surface of the water outside of our view, and this is what is keeping the part of the iceberg that we see in place. The part of the iceberg that is beneath the surface and outside of our awareness represents the core beliefs and emotions. In other words, if we want to better understand and change the negative thoughts and looping patterns you need to dive a little deeper to uncover the cause.

People often share that EMDR therapy has helped them experience less self doubt, more self compassion, and an ability to break negative looping cycles more quickly. Many report developing more self awareness and an understanding of the impacts of earlier experiences on their self esteem. While using common therapeutic strategies to manage and break out of negative looping is helpful, tracing thoughts back to negative core beliefs and working to address these may be more effective at reducing the frequency of experiencing negative looping and possibly lessen the emotional charge experienced hence, helping people to have fewer experiences of low motivation, and poor productivity or at least be better able to manage these if and when they occur.