EMDR therapy is getting a lot of press right now, and for good reasons: it works incredibly well for the treatment of trauma. Experts tell us that 70-90% of people have experienced significant trauma, with 8-20% of those people developing PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  There’s a huge gap in the number of people who are living with issues related to trauma and coping with their emotional disturbances, anxiety, and stress, as well as body pain or other physical issues.

Why do we need alternatives to EMDR therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR is a psychotherapy technique that’s used to reduce the negative emotional impact of traumatic events. EMDR is a trauma therapy that works very well, and at the same time, it may not be accessible to everyone.

EMDR may be too intense for some people as it relies on recalling a past traumatic event with a therapist. Not only can that be intense, but many people don’t consciously recognize that they have experienced a traumatic event. We often hear things like “But nothing that bad has ever happened to me.”

Additionally, only licensed psychologists can be certified to use EMDR as trauma therapy. This means many professionals who work with undiagnosed trauma in clients, like the coaches, rehab professionals, and other human development professionals that we train must use alternative trauma-sensitive tools when they encounter clients dealing with various degrees of hidden trauma. Fortunately, there are three alternatives to EMDR therapy that can be used to help heal trauma and PTSD.

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Trauma

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) uses the person’s thoughts and behaviors to look at the relationships that cause them distress. It is a talking treatment that can help people talk about distressing moments or memories, explore their attitudes and beliefs about things around them, and understand how these contribute to problems they may have with anxiety or depression.

Patients are taught ways to cope with the memories of their traumas in a healthy way. CBT is an alternative to EMDR therapy because it focuses on thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and places more attention on how an individual’s perspective affects their reactions. They are given controlled exposure to the traumatic memory, without reliving it, while trying new methods of coping at the same time.

While learning to think differently about a traumatic event can be beneficial, talking about it doesn’t work for everyone. For some people, talking about it brings the trauma to the surface without having effective mechanisms to manage internal and external experiences, and could even make symptoms of PTSD worse.

2. The Cross Mapping Method

The Cross Mapping Method is an alternative to EMDR therapy that involves using a combination of neuroscience, mindfulness, and energy medicine to guide a client in discovering and amplifying hidden strengths within themselves. The goal is to find healthy and productive ways of modifying trauma-related symptoms, and emotions instead of coping with them in unhealthy ways. This approach can help people engage with their own sense of empowerment and gain a sense of partnership with their bodies and sensations.

Gently accepting fears and pain is one of the missing pieces of the puzzle. It allows us to move from reductionism, where we see things as isolated parts, to integration. With integration comes an understanding that every part of our lives affects other parts. Separation no longer makes sense here because in reality there are few absolutes – possibilities are endless and everything is a cycle. Traumas create cycles within cycles – loops of fear, anxiety, and depression that can spiral downwards or upwards without intervention.

Cycles can only be interrupted when we understand them on a somatic level by engaging with our bodies and learning to make different and empowered choices on that somatic level. The body keeps track far better than the brain as Bessel van der Kolk describes in his book, The Body Keeps The Score. 

The Cross Mapping Method interrupts these loops and focuses your mind and thoughts on sensations you are currently experiencing but may not be fully aware of at the moment, and then builds on that awareness to create empowered choice points growth.

3. Somatic Coaching: An Alternative to EMDR Therapy

For other trauma-sensitive approaches like EMDR, somatic coaching can sometimes be a better option or supplement. We use Sensation Based Motivation Coaching, which doesn’t necessarily rely on the person’s memories to activate and process the experience nor relive the trauma. It’s more about reprogramming the physical sensations in the body in order to modify their emotional connection with that pain.

Somatic coaching has been used successfully by treating PTSD-related symptoms in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and sexual assault survivors feeling triggered by recent incidents, but the patient doesn’t necessarily have to have an issue top of mind for this to work.

Sensation Based Motivation Coaching does not require clients to recall past traumatic events – all they need is a desire to grow and experience more inner peace. So even if someone is feeling a manifestation of anxiety, stress, or pain in their body, there is the option to experience something different; helping clients focus on what is happening in their current reality, instead of intrusive thoughts.

A lot of people experience trauma and not all are able to get help. This is because not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD or other diagnosable mental health issues. Common issues like chronic body pain, anxiety, stress, depression, and repeated ineffective behaviors or thought patterns can all be signs that someone is blocked by past trauma.                                                         

By using these 3 alternatives to EMDR therapy, more professionals can help their clients successfully navigate their trauma responses and live more full and self-actualized lives.

There’s no doubt about it that employees, leaders, managers, and even our Zoom video conferencing systems are feeling STRESSED!  Over a year ago, we never could have predicted the state that we’d be in now; and even if we did, I wonder if we would have done anything different to prepare.  Throughout time it has become pretty obvious that as humans we typically don’t take action, especially expensive action until we have to; and by “have to”, I mean until the pain of not taking action far surpasses the pain of doing something about it.

Stress isn’t new, and while organizations have dabbled in stress management programs for decades, they haven’t become a staple of business to the degree that they deserve perhaps because the whole premise behind them is flawed and misunderstood. I’m not suggesting that addressing stress is flawed, but rather than stress is not something that was ever meant to be “managed”.

 

#1 Stress Was Never Meant to be “Managed”

At its roots, stress is an evolutionary process that is designed to help creatures survive, and without it, humans would have gone extinct a long time ago.  As we’ve noted in past MBM Blogs, on one hand, stress is pretty simple when defined as “the result of a person’s perceived physiological and psychological inability to cope with their current view of reality.”  Millions of years ago our ancient ancestors were confronted with various environmental threats including things like predators, dangerous weather, and tribal conflicts.  In many ways, our ancestors who possessed the most effective stress responses became the ones who coped best with those challenges and outcompeted other early humans and animals for resources.  Robust stress responses gave early peoples’ an evolutionary advantage that could be passed down to their offspring.  We are collectively the lineage of folks who were exceptionally effective at becoming stressed!  So when it comes to stress management, in truth our stress responses were designed evolutionarily to operate more like wild stallions than trust funds; one is meant to run free and the other, well…. managed.

 

#2 Stress Is Subconscious

If we look again at the current definition of stress, we’ll notice that it is ultimately the result of someone’s perception.  Perception is a construct of our subconscious, not conscious, mind.  Our perceptions are primarily formed in our early lives and while they can change over time, our perceptions form the foundations of how we experience reality.  No two people perceive the world the same way, so no two people will experience a potentially stressful event the same way.  What one person perceives as stressful may be thoroughly enjoyable to another.  The bottom line is that our perceptions run us, not the other way around, so the whole idea of “managing” them doesn’t make much sense.

 

#3 Stress Isn’t the Problem

One key difference between our ancient forbearers and modern selves is that after stress-inducing experiences our early relatives automatically did certain things to return their physiology to a state of relative balance, whereas in modern times we have tended to chronically push past our body’s warning signs and stay in stress responses longer to the point that we develop physiological and psychological imbalances, which we call disease.  In other words, modern humans with our “superior intellect” have developed the capacity to consciously override our instinctual responses for recovery following stressful experiences; much to our demise.

What most of us think of as being stressed is our body’s chronic adaptations to low and moderate-grade stressors; think tight muscles, high blood pressure, irritability, emotional volatility, fatigue, and anxiety.  Over time these continuous low and moderate grade stressors just start to feel like “life” and we keep piling on the work and responsibilities because we’ve become used to feeling terrible.  Even in modern times, if we experience a highly stressful experience like a car accident our bodies will force us to shut down and rebalance, however with lower grade stressors we build an unhealthy capacity over time to tolerate more and more stress.  Many stress management programs teach people to relax, breathe deeply, and talk about what is stressful, and while these are all of the great value if a person takes these actions and the stress responses persist then there is something deeper driving the process.

Stress is a response remember, to a perceived inability to cope with a current view of reality.  If someone is experiencing chronic stress then it must mean that they are chronically perceiving that they can’t cope with the demands of their current reality, regardless of what those demands are.  Stress isn’t the problem, stress is a symptom of the problem.  The real problem is whatever is feeding the perception of threat.  Focusing on managing stress, therefore, is akin to training the crew of the Titanic to be more efficient bailers!

 

If Not Now, When?

We, humans, are social beings, and therefore both need one another while at the same time often feel subconsciously threatened by one another.  Right now, our social systems and constructs are being pushed past the point where most garden variety stress management strategies are effective, even for short-term relief.  It’s time for us to shift our thinking and approach to address the source of stress where it lives, in our perceptions.  This isn’t as complicated or mysterious as it sounds, but the real question is, “Are we in enough pain now to do something different, or are going to keep trying to bail out this sinking ship the same way we always have?”

 

It’s no secret that the COVID pandemic has, and continues to take its toll on nearly every facet of our lives. Pervasive social inequities, childcare, and homeschooling demands are just a few of the things that have created even greater pressure on our already stress-filled work lives. While many companies and organizations have attempted to rise to the occasion by offering stress reduction programs and additional leadership training there continues to be a sense of unrelenting pressure as employees across all industries have hit the pandemic wall. 

The employee mental wellness crisis isn’t coming sometime off in the future, it’s here now. The Harvard Business Review’s current series on employee burnout has highlighted continually alarming trends, including that 89% of their survey respondents say that their work lives are getting worse and 85% report that their well-being has declined. According to a recent survey conducted by the Global Leadership Forecast, 86% of high-potential employees feel “used up” at the end of the workday. 66% of Human Resources professionals feel the same and about 44% of those leaders are considering changing companies.

Burnout Isn’t a Single Source Issue.

Burnout isn’t a single source issue but rather a confluence of circumstances flowing from both organizational demands as well as employee’s own mental wellness levels. To be clear, it doesn’t matter how “well” an employee’s mental capacities are if the organization in which they are employed creates unsustainable workloads and doesn’t recognize them as being valuable. In turn, what is an employee’s responsibility in making their own needs known and taking care of themselves? In effect, an organization and the people who work within it create a system in which they are interdependent on one another, and the mental wellness levels of the one becomes the mental wellness levels of them both. 

What is Mental Wellness?

What is mental wellness? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health “as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”

Whereas mental health is defined as “a state”, at Motivation Beyond Measure we see mental wellness as more dynamic including those things that we might be, do, and have that promote the state of well-being defined as mental health. From the statistics cited above, it is now obvious that the majority of employees are likely feeling neither fully mentally healthy or well. 

The Very First Thing to Do

In the case of any crisis, the very first thing to do is to get to safety. In many cases, the single act of finding safety physically, psychologically, and emotionally will not only relieve the immediate trauma but also provide room to more efficiently assess the severity of the problem. This is more than just stress reduction and employee wellness programs; safety is the foundation of everything else we do, and how we do it. A perception of psychological safety is foundational not only to team performance but to a person’s capacity to simply attend and be present. 

Behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory highlights that while our lower brain centers are constantly recognizing threats in the environment our higher brain centers are working to either validate or refute those environmental cues. Just to be clear, we seek signs of the threat first unless refuted by signals of safety. What might those signals of safety be? And how can leaders and managers benefit from relating such signals?

Two Key Issues Compounding the Mental Wellness Crisis

Along with the whole pandemic, there have been two key issues compounding this mental wellness crisis. The first is masks. Hang on… yes, masks are vitally important in minimizing the spread of the coronavirus, and the double-edged sword is that they cover our faces.

Let’s return to the Polyvagal Theory. According to Stephen Porges, an important function of the Vagus Nerve is to slow down our nervous systems, helping us feel calmer and more centered, in other words, safe. Part of the Vagus nerve connects to our face, throat, heart, and middle ear making it a key player in our facial expressions and vocal tones. As humans, when we feel threatened, which we do the majority of the time, the first place we will look to potentially invalidate that threat is at other people’s faces. If we are met with a supportive and caring expression then the threat is minimized. If we are met with a blank or unreceptive expression then the threat is validated and a stress response is activated in our bodies. To this point, wearing masks has been shown to alter the way that people perceive other’s emotions. 

The second issue contributing to a perceived safety gap is the widespread remote working situation, including social distancing. This is a large and complex topic that can’t be easily distilled down, however, let’s focus again on the fact that as humans we are constantly scanning for subtle cues from others that relate, we are safe, and not in fact in danger as our lower brain centers would default to. Similar to masks, while video conferencing has afforded us a layer of safety by not transmitting coronavirus it has also created environments in which we are less likely to pick up on those reassuring subtle cues, like a quickly turned up mouth or flash of concern in the eyes. In addition, increased use of email and text, without the corresponding physical signs of intent tend to contribute to more misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

While they are necessary, the workplace shifts to mask-wearing, video conferencing, as well as increased email and text communication are seriously compounding the mental wellness of people working in organizations by disadvantaging our evolutionary strategy for validating safety. So, what can leaders and managers do short of breaking all the public health guidelines?

Leaders Must Find Their Voices

If leaders are serious about promoting psychologically safe work environments then they must learn to find their voices. One last look at Polyvagal Theory reminds us that the Vagus nerve connects to the throat and middle ear, effectively giving us an additional method of validating a look of safety in someone’s face with vocal changes that match. In the absence of clear facial expressions, vocal tones that project empathy and support can be highly effective. Imagine how you may vocally express concern for a loved one or even a child. The words themselves may be different, but the tones behind the words validate safety. It’s also important to consider that the video medium dampens normal emotion expression to subtle and subtle to non-existent. When conveying supportive emotions and gestures via video it pays extra dividends to slightly exaggerate your smiles, nods, and vocal tones. By implementing these simple tips, leaders and managers may not win an Oscar, but will certainly bring a bit of safety into what feels to many like an unsafe world. 

-Brian Trzaskos, President and Director of Education, Motivation Beyond Measure