How Can EMDR & Trauma Therapy Heal Childhood Trauma | Trauma Therapy Toronto

reclaim your childhood - childhood trauma - emdr therapist toronto - ayan mukherjee - trauma therapy toronto | how can emdr & trauma therapy heal childhood trauma - emdr therapy toronto - ayan mukherjee

EMDR and Trauma Therapy is essential for healing from childhood trauma. A treament plan can be conceptualized in four different modules.

Four key modules to heal from childhood trauma

To heal from childhood trauma, a psychotherapeutic treatment plan may focus on four key modules, which are:

Reprogramming Maladaptive Adaptations and Inner Child Work
Healing from Deficit Trauma Arising from Abandonment, Misattunement & Neglect
Neutralizing and Reprocessing Traumatic Memories
Healing Relational Trauma using the Therapeutic Relationship

Reprogramming Maladaptive Adaptations and Inner Child Work

When a child experiences trauma, be it abuse that is physical, emotional, psychological or sexual, or forms of abandonment, misattunement, and neglect, their mind and nervous system starts to make adaptations to survive those traumatic situations. For example, if your parents were hypercritical, then your mind may adapt to hide your talents and abilities, act small, try to be unseen or unheard, as a way to avoid being criticized. The adaptations are helpful during the worst periods in childhood, but become maladaptive in adulthood. The same “I am not good enough” core belief that kept you safe in childhood, now prevents you from finding a good job, receiving a promotion, or finding a healthy romantic partner.

emdr therapy toronto - internal family systems therapist toronto - how can emdr & trauma therapy heal childhood trauma | trauma therapy toronto - emdr therapy toronto - ayan mukherjee

Using modalities such as Internal Family Systems, or Ego States Therapy, we can conceptualize that these maladaptive patterns and beliefs are being held by various inner child ego states, or “parts”. The inner child parts get activated by present day situations that remind them of situations from childhood and they get triggered. Once triggered, your Adult self may get hijacked, partially or completely, and lose the ability to think and act rationally. The inner child parts then take over and make you think and behave in an almost childlike way.

We use the modalities to achieve the following goals:

Orient the emotional inner child parts to the “here and now”, and Adult Self presence and competence
Unblend the inner child part from Adult Self and depolarize the part from Adult or other parts. Improve collaboration, communication and compassion between all the parts involved. Help them realize that everyone is on the same team
Unburden the child parts from the adaptations that they are carrying, or reassign them new roles that are more positively adapted to current life situations
Unburden the child parts from traumatic memories and help those parts reconnect with their true childlike nature and innocence
Reduce dissociation between parts, if structural dissociation is present and significant

Healing from Childhood Trauma Arising from Abandonment, Misattunement & Neglect

various forms of attachment trauma - emdr therapy toronto - ayan mukherjee - how can emdr & trauma therapy heal childhood trauma | trauma therapy toronto - emdr therapy toronto - ayan mukherjee

Often when we think of childhood trauma, we typically think of trauma of commission: terrible things being done to the child. An essential components that many trauma therapists ignore or miss is the deficit trauma. Deficit trauma is the form of trauma caused by the lack of good memories, attachments and parental attunement. Often the present-day symptoms are more acutely affected by deficit trauma rather than the memories of abuse. When interviewing a trauma therapist, please ask them about their approach to healing deficit trauma.

At EMDR Therapy Toronto, we use adaptations made to EMDR Therapy, to work with deficit trauma. One such adaptation is called Attachment-focused EMDR Therapy and Resource Tapping, formulated by Laurel Parnell.

It involves identifying Ideal Dad, Ideal Mom, Ideal Friend, and other such resource figures from books, movies, shows, Youtube, etc. and installing these figures into your emotional brain using EMDR Therapy. The Ideal Parents exercise is then implemented which involves tapping in new imagery-based narratives of being loved, respected and taken care of by these Ideal Parent figures. We use guided imagery and EMDR to help these narratives sink into the deeper layers of the emotional brain. You will feel the holes and gaps in the emotional tapestry of your childhood getting filled up by these new images. It may also bring up grief and anger and that is all part of the healing process.

Neutralizing and Reprocessing Traumatic Memories

You may experience PTSD-like symptoms stemming from the memories of abuse that you endured in childhood. These can be neutralized and reprocessed using the Standard Protocol of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR). At EMDR Therapy Toronto, we also supplement with additional trauma memory processing techniques such as Deep Brain Reorienting and Somatic Psychotherapy.

Healing Relational Trauma using the Therapeutic Relationship

anatomy of a relational therapist - childhood trauma - emdr therapist toronto - ayan mukherjee - how can emdr & trauma therapy heal childhood trauma | trauma therapy toronto - emdr therapy toronto - ayan mukherjee

A core aspect of childhood trauma is that it is a form of relational and attachment trauma. Those who were supposed to care for you and love you, inflicted trauma and suffering. It can develop into a lack of trust in relationships, or becoming too trusting of toxic relationships. It can cause the person to flip-flop between clingy, anxious attachment and cold, distant avoidant attachment.

Hence in therapy, the therapeutic relationship with the psychotherapist becomes a key piece in the healing puzzle. At EMDR Therapy Toronto, Ayan Mukherjee has a lot of experience working with those who have been in hurt in relationships and knows the importance of consistency and safety, effective attachment repair, apologizing when needed, taking ownership of fault if it arises, and giving the client a new and healthy experience of relationship, within a professional and therapeutic container.

To heal from childhood trauma is not a small task and requires a lot of work, commitment and dedication from you and your psychotherapist. At EMDR Therapy Toronto, we focus on a collaborative, semi-structured, trauma-focused milestones-based approach to healing, rather than aimlessly talking about the past for many sessions. If you would like to know more about how we can help you heal your childhood trauma, then please fill the form below for a free 30-minute phone consultation.

Key Takeways

To heal from childhood trauma can be simplified by breaking up the work into four modules
The first module is about working with inner child parts to reduce dissociation, improve collaboration and communication between parts, using Internal Family Systems, Ego States Therapy, Structural Dissociation, etc.
The second module is about filling in deficit trauma using Attachment-Focused EMDR and Ideal Parents Exercise.
The third module is about neutralizing and reprocessing traumatic memories from childhood using standard protocol EMDR Therapy, Deep Brain Reorienting, Somatic Psychotherapies, etc.
The fourth module is about using a relationally-attuned, attachment focused and repair-oriented therapeutic relationship to help the client heal their relational trauma, here-and-now with the therapist
Ayan Mukherjee considers childhood trauma processing as his primary specialization and brings years of experience and expertise with various modalities to your healing journey

References

Ayan Mukherjee Registered Psychotherapist & Certified EMDR Therapist

Ayan Mukherjee is a Registered Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor, and an EMDRIA-Approved Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant. Ayan has been practicing EMDR and complex trauma therapy since 2016, specializing in the treatment of anxiety, PTSD, Complex-PTSD, childhood trauma, along with Spiritual Psychotherapy.

See Full Bio