In typical “talk-only” therapy, the focus is on generating insight into the client’s issues and understanding the situation rationally and realistically and then transforming the client’s behaviours, as the thinking pattern becomes more rational and balanced. Talk-only therapies, like CBT, deal primarily with the conscious, rational part of the brain.
But studies in neurobiology show that our feelings, defense mechanisms and gut reactions to situations arise from more primitive parts, such as the emotional (mid-brain) and the survival (brain stem) sections of the brain. These parts are often outside the direct control of the rational part of the brain. So you may rationally understand your issues and have a lot of insight, but that may not help you heal from your symptoms.
Therapies such as EMDR and body-based psychotherapies work more directly with these primitive parts of the brain that are responsible for fight, flight, freeze, submit and other dissociative defense mechanisms. These defenses when out of balance can cause anxiety, panic attacks, depression, depersonalization, derealisation, etc. This is what I mean when I say that the therapies I practice go beyond “talk-only”, rational therapy.
