Trauma & Faith: EMDR for the Christian Client
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2
Trauma has impacted almost all of us since the COVID-19 pandemic. If you had never suffered from a traumatic experience before the spring of 2020, the once- in-a-century pandemic exposed most of us to some degree of traumatic stress. As people of faith, we had access to resources and resilience through the power of God’s truth and His ever present grace. The presence of God’s grace and His word did not make us immune to the stress of the moment, just like it didn’t necessarily make us immune to the virus. We are living in a complicated time in history and as Bessel Van Der Kolk describes in his famous book, our bodies are keeping score.
Anyone who has suffered a traumatic experience could benefit from trauma reprocessing therapy such as EMDR. As Christians, we sometimes falsely think that we should have enough faith to heal from traumatic experiences on our own without professional help. I believe in miracles in the medical realm; I also believe that miracles are possible in mental health. However, if I had a medical crisis, I would not just pray and read the Scriptures while asking God for a miracle—I would do this— but I would also consult with a trained medical professional in my area of need. I would pray, but I would also seek the most up to date medical care from a doctor. As Christians we must take this same approach in treating our mental health as we would with our physical health.
EMDR is one of the most significant contributions to trauma therapy ever discovered. Research has shown for decades now that it is highly effective in decreasing the distress associated with traumatic experiences. It is considered religiously neutral in its conception, and some have called EMDR a “common grace”–it was not designed by and for people of the Christian faith, but people of faith can still benefit from its effectiveness, just like they can benefit from so many medical developments and discoveries.
One of the theories behind EMDR is that we were designed to adaptively process information and experiences. If you burn your hand on a stove, your brain stores that information adaptively so that next time you use the stove, you will remember to protect your hand. When the mind encounters trauma, that adaptive processing system is overwhelmed and traumatic memories are not processed adaptively but rather get “stuck” in the nervous system only to be re-experienced repeatedly through sensations and emotions. The traumatic memory becomes almost like a wound on the brain that the brain is then tender towards. Because this memory is stored as trauma, your brain is hyper aware of things that remind you of the traumatic experience. Imagine you sprained your ankle. You might walk with a limp for some time and may even need support in order to walk. Bearing weight on the ankle would only be done with caution and care. You would not go and immediately run a 5K. It is the same with our mind and the trauma we experience. Over time, the brain compensates for the wound that trauma created and is either very sensitive towards things that remind the brain of the traumatic experience or tries to anxiously avoid these triggers altogether. The consequences of this in terms of how a person experiences life are profound and are further complicated by compounding traumas. Christians are not immune to this happening in the brain anymore than they are immune to spraining their ankle.
Because of the way traumatic memories are stored, trauma changes the way a person sees themselves and the world over time. These negative and toxic perspectives in the aftermath of trauma can disrupt the way we see ourselves as well as the way we relate to others and to God. If the trauma is “stuck” in the brain almost like a drain can be clogged, EMDR seeks to unclog that drain and bring that memory into the adaptive storage systems. The mind already has an adaptive system for storing information and uses this system on a daily basis to store your experiences and use the information collected throughout your day to inform later actions. EMDR does not make you forget your story or trauma. It simply helps you to store the memory of the trauma in an adaptive way, just like you store other kinds of information.
When the trauma is stored appropriately in your mind, this leaves room for you to interpret the events of your traumatic experience through the lens of your faith and the truth of God’s word. Instead of feeling like your past has become your present anytime you are triggered, EMDR helps you to be fully present in the moment you’re actually in–able to interpret your situation and circumstances with the holy perspective of Scripture instead of a fearful and defensive one. EMDR is an incredible tool for the faith-based therapist to use with our Christian clients to help decrease the distress associated with traumatic memories and to “unclog the drain” of trauma, making a clear path for truth, goodness and beauty to flood into the present moment.
