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Although they are four times as likely as women to die of suicide and two or three times more likely to use drugs and alcohol, men are slow to seek help for their mental health problems. Psychologists know very well why. Men who do not respect the norms of traditional masculinity – protect and provide without complaining – feel emasculated and tend to think that talking about this feeling is even more emasculating. Because psychoanalysis traditionally requires the voice of an emotion, it remains less popular among men, who currently represent only one-third of patients in therapy. That's why a growing number of therapists looking to expand or resize the male patient basemovement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, which could offer the benefits of traditional therapy without requiring the same amount of disclosure.
"EMDR is not your traditional psychotherapy experience and may even be ideal for a man who is not comfortable speaking," says Tara Bulin, a psychotherapist. Bullin, who has been practicing EMDR with men since 2005, describes her as a solution-focused therapy that goes on silently. "We do not talk much because the work really deals with the internal treatment of trauma. There is also no pressure to talk about thoughts and feelings, which could be more uncomfortable for men at first. "
What is EMDR?
EMDR was developed by the psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, when she realized that quick eye movements alleviated her own psychological distress. Even after decades of case studies to perfect and demonstrate the technique, EMDR struggled to legitimize itself beyond "pseudoscience", mainly because it sounded too good to be true. However, afterwards studies highlight a number of biases in research that refute EMDR, and evidence this effectiveness may be hampered by the lack of adequate training and skepticism of the clinicians facilitating the session. Despite criticism, the effectiveness of EMDR has been demonstrated by more than 30 randomized clinical trials with remission rates of PTSD ranging from 77 to 100 percentdepending on the type of trauma and the number of sessions.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the American Psychiatric Association all recommend EMDR as a viable treatment option for PTSD. In 2017, the American Psychological Association also recommended EMDR for brief use in their Clinical Practice Guide for the Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Adults. Used since the early 2000s, it has revolutionized the game for veterans and survivors of sexual assault. The question now is whether EMDR can work for people who have not had a deep trauma. The EMDR can bring relief to those who can identify their psychological distress. What about those who can not?
How does the EMDR work?
TRaumatic experiments map the brain, causing the amygdala and the limbic system to react to memories as if they were a threat. This means that once triggered, traumatized people lose access to reason. This is the underlying dynamics of PTSD, that is, how post-traumatic stress disorder develops. For a person with PTSD, it does not matter if they understand rationally that they are not attacked, because their amygdala is paramount for the executive function. They remain under constant neurological fire.
The EMDR attacks psychological distress by treating neurological sources of confusion in the same way that physical therapy treats the sources of physical pain. Specifically, the technique uses bilateral stimulation, often in the form of rapid right-to-left eye movements, to repair the brain's treatment system and mitigate the psychological effects of the trauma.
Imagining a painful memory while practicing bilateral stimulation has sufficiently reduced the psychological arousal and anxiety so that traumatized people can regain access to inaccessible coping mechanisms. fight or flight. Therapists can not suppress trauma, but they can reduce the intensity of memories to make them more manageable. Scientists suspect it to be so effective because it essentially combines exposure therapy with rapid eye movements associated with sleep. During REM sleep, the brain eliminates unnecessary information as part of a process called inverted learning, which could also help mitigate intrusive thoughts.
"This analytic approach can eliminate the stigma of weakness or hypersensitivity, which is usually associated with psychotherapy," says Jessica Jefferson, a psychotherapist.
Why men need it
Trauma comes in many forms. Esther Perel, psychotherapist, podcaster and author, recently identified trauma as one of the five pillars of male identity in her keynote speech at the conference "The Paradox of Masculinity". According to Perel, most men experience a rejection just shaping who they are. Men are told that they are not strong, competent or manly enough on the part of their peers or their father. It sounds like an individual experience that would not be described as traumatic, but is actually incredibly common, because it creates the same irrational reaction to memory.
What EMDR stands for men can be an opportunity to come out of the memory of exclusion and isolation to overcome harmful masculinity. And men do not need to consider the effort to do it as a trauma. It is much more about putting in bed specific and unwanted feelings. It's a targeted attack. This can allow many men to feel better without giving up a sense of self-control or putting a lot of money back into psychotherapy.
"There is tremendous misinformation about what is described as a traumatic event and how individuals should or should not be affected," said Bulin, pointing out that trauma is any event that affects the cognitive ability of a person. A person to cope. "Exposure to injury often occurs more discreetly in men: communication difficulties, marital or relationship difficulties, employment difficulties, anger and self-medication with drugs and alcohol. There is extra pressure to be strong and not to be influenced by the events of their lives. "
What can patients expect?
The EMDR begins with an introductory meeting where a person discusses what brought her into therapy and what is bothering her right now. Unlike standard consumption, patients should not go into details of disruptive events. They just need to be able to identify what happened, how it made them feel and what they would like to feel instead, with the help of their therapist.
Before the start of bilateral stimulation, patients are trained in relaxation techniques, which may vary depending on the individual and the clinician. Jefferson guides his patients through breathing exercises and asks them to visualize safe spaces with specific sounds, smells and sensory details, as well as a container in which they can hold anything of any kind. understood their emotions. These images may seem trivial but serve as a line of defense against more primitive parts of the brain trying to neutralize it.
Patients then identify a scene or image that bothers them (this can range from a traumatic childhood event to a spousal feud earlier in the day). From there, they make a simple statement about how they felt, for example "I am weak", "I am not lovable" or "I am less man. Alternatively, they may express a sense of imminent threat, saying something like "I'm in danger" or "I can not protect my family" and noting how much they feel about the present moment. Ten. Finally, they choose a positive affirmation that they prefer to believe, such as "I control," "I am a good person," or "I am safe now," and they evaluate how much they believe that a scale of one to seven. The clinicians then guide them through quick eye movements as they reproduce the disruption in their brain like a movie, before discussing the feelings that have arisen and giving back their scores of SUD and VOCs.
When people do not treat isolated trauma, other related disorders often occur during this period, which can be noted and treated the same way in future sessions, lasting between 45 and 90 minutes. The goal is to reduce the SUD score to zero and the VOC score up to seven, but this may vary depending on the severity of the trauma. Before the end of the session, patients reflect on their feelings before and after the appointment and analyze relaxation techniques when they are disturbed. And with a minimum of three sessions, the goal is that positive cognition eventually replaces negative cognition with habit.
Decomposing emotions in numbers may also interest men more comfortable expressing their emotions in a more concrete way. And while EMDR may be more effective than more traditional forms of psychotherapy, their common point is that patients must be honest with themselves and their therapists for this therapy to be effective – which they share. their memories the most painful detail, or simply the number seven.
But for men who really want to feel better but are less willing to talk about therapy or have tried it without success, EMDR could offer them another way. Just as some psychotropic medications relieve psychological symptoms in some people, there are many types of therapies that may be more effective than personalities. EMDR could be that of men who are otherwise resistant to treatment, not because it is a miracle solution that requires little discussion, but because it is a viable option that allows patients to maintain a sense of control.
"EMDR gives men the opportunity to remove their Superman capes without feeling vulnerable or powerless," says Jefferson. "By cutting years spent in ignoring or disguising traumatic experiences, men can have an objective view of their past, present and future, and identify opportunities to learn, heal and strengthen themselves in their lives. all their roles.
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