C h a n g e i s P o s s i b l e
R e c o v e r F a s t e r w i t h E M D R
Hi, I’m patrick!
I'm Patrick Walden, LICSW. I’m a psychotherapist and EMDR Practitioner based in Philadelphia. I help adults from all over the US heal from trauma with weekly talk therapy and EMDR as well as EMDR intensives. If you’ve experienced trauma, you’ll know just how much hold it can have over your life. As a trauma survivor myself, I not only get it, it’s my life’s purpose to help others heal. With EMDR, I've seen amazing results with my clients. I’d love to take this healing journey with you. Read on to learn more.
If you’ve experienced trauma, you’ll know just how much hold it can have over your life. Daily flashbacks, isolation, anxiety, nervousness, nightmares, and insomnia can bring life to a halt. Sometimes, it can be difficult to leave your home at all. EMDR can help.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, initially developed in the late 1980s by Francine Shapiro. Today, it is one of the most powerful ways of helping individuals heal from trauma. EMDR focuses on traumatic memories, reducing the vividness of these memories, as well as fixed negative thoughts, not by removing these things, but by
changing the way they’re stored in the brain, allowing you to adequately process the information. Fundamental components include grounding exercises, visualization, resource building, thought replacement and bilateral stimulation (such as rhythmic tapping or eye movement).
Just like when we get a cut, our body has a built in natural response to heal it. The same is true with our brains. Because the brain can be a complicated place of information storage, things sometimes can get stuck. EMDR helps to move things from stuck to processed.
We’re not just talking about what’s wrong,
we’re actually healing it.
EMDR can also benefit people with a wide range of issues, including:
LOW SELF ESTEEM
GRIEF AND LOSS
ISOLATION AND LONELINESS
SEXUAL AND GENDER IDENTITY
UNRESOLVED CHILDHOOD TRAUMA
PEOPLE PLEASING
ABUSE
CODEPENDENCY
IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME
CHRONIC PAIN
BREAKUPS
IMPROVING SELF ADVOCACY
ADDICTION
DEPRESSION
Anxiety
FLASHBACKS
NIGHTMARES
LEAVING CULTS
FAMILY REJECTION
FATIGUE
INSOMNIA
MOLESTATION
RAPE
SCHOOL
SHOOTINGS
ACCIDENTS
TERRORISM
NATURAL
DISASTERS
VIOLENT CRIMES
WAR VETERANS
OTHER DISTRESSING LIFE EVENTS
According to the EMDR International Association,
“EMDR therapy has even been superior to Prozac in trauma treatment (Van der Kolk et al., 2007). Shapiro and Forrest (2016) share that more than
7 million people have been treated successfully by 110,000 therapists in 130 countries since 2016.”
EMDR is internationally recognized and endorsed for its effectiveness for treating trauma by:
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA)
United States National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
The American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychological Association
The World Health Organization (WHO)
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
The U.S. Department of Defense
The Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews