Çocuklarda EMDR, çocuklar yaşadığı olumsuz yaşantıları veya travmaları işlemleyip kayıt altına tutarlar. Bu kayıt etme hali; hem beden hem duygu hem de düşünce içeriği şeklinde olabilir.
Çocuk olumsuz yaşantısı veya travması ile kayıt altına aldığı anı ağları ile büyümeye veya gelişmeye başlar. Yaşadığı neredeyse bütün anıların temelini olumsuz düşünceler oluşturabilmektedir. Çocuğun temelde “ben değersizim” veya “ben sevilmeyen biriyim” şeklinde sahip olduğu olumsuz düşünce içeriklerini “ben değerli biriyim” veya “ben sevilen biriyim” şeklinde yeniden yapılandırmak EMDR’nin temelini oluşturmaktadır.
One of the best-known misconceptions about EMDR is that it is only used to work with traumas. In addition to traumas, many problems and negative experiences can be addressed with EMDR. Successful results can be achieved with EMDR in many areas such as test anxiety, phobias, and eating disorders.
How is EMDR Therapy Applied in Children?
The application of EMDR Therapy in children differs from adults. When working with children, various structured techniques are used within play therapy to reduce anxiety and fear. While applying these structured techniques, positive resources are loaded onto the children at the same time. Thus, the child's internal resources are increased and his coping mechanisms are supported.
In younger children, EMDR can be applied together with the mother. Positive thoughts, prepared specifically for the distress experienced by the child and thought to be acquired by the child, are embedded into the story. Thanks to this technique, which is applied while the child is in his mother's lap, both the attachment between the mother and the child is supported and the negative emotions and thoughts contained within the child begin to decrease.
Phobic Reactions in Children and EMDR
A phobia is defined as “an intense, persistent fear created by a specific object, situation, or activity, which is also accepted by the person himself as unwarranted or excessive.” In the context of phobias, even if adults sometimes admit that their fears are absurd and unwarranted, this is not possible for children. For this reason, it is very important that children with phobias receive expert support.
It is possible to divide phobias within themselves as simple phobias and process phobias. Simple phobias can be defined as the feared object being a living creature like a cat or an object. Fear arises with the appearance of the object. The fear of encountering the feared object begins to reduce the quality of daily life. However, process phobias include phenomena such as boarding an airplane and require the active participation of the child or adolescent.
It is possible to work on phobic reactions in children with structured protocols within EMDR. After the initial fear experience, children may begin to fear the fear itself. For this reason; within the basic framework, an attempt is made to ensure the child's self-control. He must be enabled to realize the past events that caused the development of the phobia because children often cannot realize the first memory or can develop phobic reactions through the experiences of others. Along with these; it is also very important for children to realize their own physical reactions.
Indirect Fears in Children and EMDR
Indirect fear is the fears that a child develops without having his own experience or experiment. Children develop these fears through others or can develop them unconsciously towards another situation or phenomenon. The vast majority of children can gain secondary gain due to their indirect fears. Therefore, before starting EMDR, it is very important to take a good history with individual and family therapy.
It is possible to work on the indirect fears that children have with EMDR, but in addition to EMDR, family counseling should also be carried out together. In this way, the solution can be more permanent.
Born as a technique towards the end of the 1980s, EMDR, namely “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing”, has been expressed as “EMDR Therapy” in recent years. EMDR is a separate field of competence and only a competent therapist can decide to proceed through EMDR and establish the treatment protocol through EMDR criteria. We can see that the World Health Organization recommended the use of EMDR and the use of Cognitive Behavioral Technique in the treatment of children, adolescents, young adults, and adults with post-traumatic stress disorder, in the implementation principles guideline it published in 2013.
EMDR is applied by the person moving his eyes systematically, accompanied by finger movements defined as bilateral stimulation. In cases where visual stimulation cannot be worked with, the target memory is started to be worked on by giving auditory or tactile stimulation again in a systematic way. The target memory can often be a photograph frame reflecting the traumatic event experienced. The aim of EMDR is to turn that photograph frame into a fainter, blurrer photograph frame. By ensuring that the client reprocesses the photograph frame that we have in imagery form, the effect of negative life experiences on the person's life, psychological and emotional mood can be reduced.
EMDR is most intensively used in trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma is usually our memories that happen afterwards, rather than the feeling of reliving those moments. In this case, it can be handled in its simplest form as post-traumatic stress disorder and has many symptoms. However, since it is very difficult to remember traumas experienced in early childhood, they cannot appear directly. Traumatic events experienced on average before the age of 3 can appear to us as “I feel bad”. In cases aged 3 and over, remembered events can be worked on through the pictures drawn by the child. Thanks to EMDR, major traumatic memories that have taken place in the child's life can be worked on within the framework of various techniques and specific protocols.
Traumas that are not worked on in the early period can manifest themselves in many ways in later years; such as depression, mood disorders, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, conduct disorder, alcohol and substance abuse, and low academic achievement. Since children encode information by breaking it down into pieces, it can appear to us in very different ways.
Aside from all these negative situations; EMDR can also be applied in situations where there is no trauma history in the life story of the child and adolescent, but there is intense stress. If there is performance anxiety or a negative self-image, if he feels inadequate and worthless, or if there is intense test anxiety, “resource installation”, which is an important step of EMDR, can be done. Resource installation can be defined in its simplest form as reinforcing the good and positive aspects of the person and reinforcing thought contents that are more functional rather than his negative beliefs.