{"id":26141,"date":"2015-01-08T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=26141"},"modified":"2024-05-08T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T20:41:07","slug":"are-blocking-beliefs-holding-you-back-in-emdr-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/are-blocking-beliefs-holding-you-back-in-emdr-therapy-0108144","title":{"rendered":"Are Blocking Beliefs Holding You Back in EMDR Therapy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GoodTherapyI find myself looking at this person; I feel for him, knowing that he is tormented by his anxiety<\/a> and sense of isolation<\/a>. While he has made amazing strides in therapy, especially through eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)<\/a>, there is something that keeps \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blocking\u00e2\u20ac\u009d him from reaching the point of accepting that the past is truly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153over.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There is something that pulls at him, drags him down into the murky depths of his sadness, telling him that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reach that positive belief that he is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good enough.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

His story is not unique. He is like many of the people I work with in therapy who struggle to loosen themselves from the hold of trauma<\/a>. He is like many who walk into my office wanting to feel free of the past, to fully integrate what they know \u00e2\u20ac\u0153logically\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat they are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OK, lovable, worthy, safe, here now\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith their emotional selves, who are just not buying it.<\/p>\n

As you are reading this, perhaps there is some aspect of your healing work that you feel \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stuck\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a common theme; folks do amazing trauma healing work and perhaps might find that they have hit a wall. They want to feel healed, but on some level it just won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t budge. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a common statement. What we often find is that there is some next layer of the person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience that is revealing itself. In EMDR therapy, we call it a “blocking belief.”<\/p>\n

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Why does this happen? Why is it that, on the one hand, we can know that the past is behind us, and yet there is also a sense that it is not? We can begin to explore this question not only through the perspective of trauma therapy, but specifically EMDR therapy.<\/p>\n

A blocking belief essentially blocks us from shifting our core beliefs about ourselves. For example, in processing deep-rooted trauma through EMDR therapy, the person I described was working through a core belief (EMDR therapists call it a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153negative cognition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not good enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then, right when it was getting to a decreased intensity, found another layer\u00e2\u20ac\u201da blocking belief that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get over this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That same blocking belief kept the trauma from decreasing in intensity from a 10 (most disturbance) to a zero (neutral\/no disturbance). It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until we shifted that blocking belief\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get over this\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat the core belief of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not good enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d could release its hold as the trauma was processed.<\/p>\n

Blocking beliefs can come up often in EMDR therapy when we ask about the SUDs (subjective units of disturbance scale). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a scale we use to find out how the person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s distress about the event has shifted. Keep in mind that it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that the event is not disturbing. That it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disturbing doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change. It will be a disturbing event as a trauma, by its nature of being a trauma. But the person doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to continue to feel disturbed by it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When we start to explore our core beliefs about ourselves, and the traumas that have driven them, be sure to explore any blocking beliefs that may show up. It may just mean that you are that much closer to healing those traumas than you may have thought. It may just be that deepest layer waiting for you to discover it.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, it is <\/em>possible to get to a neutral or zero about traumatic events and the disturbance we feel about them, even for the most upsetting and distressing experiences. But there may be some reason we hold on. Unconsciously, perhaps we think we need to keep some fear<\/a>, just enough<\/em>, to help us feel safe and prepared for next<\/em> time. Perhaps we think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153impossible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to heal from those experiences. Perhaps there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mistaken, unconscious belief that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153something we should get over,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not OK that we heal this <\/em>event: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too painful; if I feel neutral or no disturbance, then I am not honoring the experience(s) and the impact on my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The fact is, and this comes up a lot for folks when they do EMDR, it is possible to heal trauma.<\/p>\n

It is possible to feel differently about our lives, whether it be to feel safe, calm, or even feel and know that the past is over. Yes, it can change; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen it. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also experienced it. That said, it can take time, even with EMDR therapy, especially with multiple of types of traumas, and when traumas span across the developmental stages of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commonly in EMDR therapy to heal trauma, efforts to shift a person’s core beliefs about themselves bring to light pesky mental roadblocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":43320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,255,226,25,27],"class_list":["post-26141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-eye-movement-desensitization-reprocessing","tag-posttraumatic-stress","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-psychotherapy-models"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}