
EMDR Therapy
EMDR Therapy Helps Improve Your Confidence And Self Esteem
Sometimes, the painful experiences you’ve gone through in the past deeply influence how you live your life today. It can seem like no matter how hard you try to change, you keep falling into the same deep-rooted patterns that affect how you think, behave, or react to certain situations.
And who can blame you? With all of the pressures in life, it’s easy to get caught up in waves of overwhelming emotions, self-doubt, and anxiety. You may feel frustrated because even though you may know in your heart that you’re good enough, intrusive thoughts may hinder you from living as the best, most authentic version of yourself.
If you’re struggling with overcoming negative beliefs—like being too much or not enough—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy can help you gain confidence and reconnect with your self-worth.
At Creative Therapies, we provide EMDR therapy services that can help you move past painful memories, trauma and limiting beliefs. An EMDR therapist can equip you with the tools you need to reprocess trauma so that it no longer weighs as heavily on you.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR therapy works by using gentle eye movements, auditory tones, or tapping—known as bilateral stimulation—to help your brain recover from emotionally-charged memories that remain stuck in your body and mind. This therapeutic model was founded in the 1980s by renowned psychologist Francine Shapiro as a means to heal those who suffered from complex trauma or PTSD.
Today, EMDR is used to treat a wide range of challenges—including low mood, low self-esteem, emotional abuse, depression, or social anxiety, to name a few. And recent studies have shown that the majority—over 60 percent—of individuals who’ve tried EMDR therapy have gone on to report a significant reduction in their psychiatric symptoms, improvement in their self-esteem, and an increase in quality social interactions.*
What makes this approach different from traditional talk therapy is that it gets right to the root of the issue without the need to explain every detail of what you’ve gone through. We’re not here to make you relive your trauma but to rewire the negative beliefs that have formed because of your adverse experiences.
At Creative Therapies, we want to provide an atmosphere where we can get to know you, understand what’s going on, and help you build the grounding tools to feel safe and supported throughout the healing process. We will work together to figure out how to change certain negative beliefs—such as “I don’t deserve love,” or “I should have done better,”—to more positive, empowering beliefs—like “I deserve unconditional love,” or “I did the best I could.”
How EMDR With Creative Therapies Works
Often, clients reach out to us specifically requesting EMDR after struggling to find the relief they’re looking for through more traditional talk therapy approaches. Other times, EMDR might be recommended as a next step in the therapy journey if a client shares the need to feel unburdened by past trauma or feels stuck in patterns of negative self-talk. We understand that these issues hold you back from living your ideal life and are confident that EMDR is a tool that can help you break free from that.
We’ll take some time to understand your path to this point and outline your goals moving forward. Then together, we’ll explore and map out various targets for EMDR treatment. These could be specific traumas and core negative beliefs about the self, but it’s often a combination of both.
First, we’ll use a process known as “resourcing” to equip you with tools to navigate EMDR at your own comfort level. Resourcing helps prepare you to begin the reprocessing work by amplifying your inner strengths, enhancing your abilities to visualize, notice and name your feelings and provides you and your therapist with an awareness of your window of tolerance. It’s important to us that you feel safe and always supported during the next phase of sessions—reprocessing.
That’s why with Creative Therapies, EMDR treatment sessions will always advance at a pace that feels comfortable and safe to you. Our therapists take your personality into account when creating a treatment plan. And if you’ve tried traditional therapy and it hasn’t brought the relief you’ve been hoping for, we aim to offer an alternative path to healing.
What To Expect In EMDR Therapy Sessions
Each phase of EMDR shares a common goal of helping your nervous system stay grounded and secure. We begin by providing education about the EMDR process and answering questions about the therapeutic approach.
It’s important that you have an idea what to expect and alleviate any anxieties about EMDR before beginning. If you’re skeptical about the potential benefits of EMDR, we want to talk to you about that too! Many clients who had doubts coming in are amazed at how profound the positive impact can be.
When you feel ready to start the prep work, we’ll guide you through some mindfulness exercises. This can be through guided imagery, breath work, highlighting your support system and tapping into your inner strengths. The security we build in those sessions can be accessed at any time after moving into the reprocessing stages to keep your nervous system balanced as old experiences or thoughts emerge.
Once both you and your therapist feel you are ready to start reprocessing, we’ll re-visit the targets we’ve identified and select the most appropriate place to begin. After briefly establishing your baseline, we’ll use bilateral stimulation (either through sensory taps or eye movements—whichever is your preference) to help you move forward through the painful experiences or thoughts to a place and outlook that feels lighter and more in control.
It's not uncommon to experience an immediate sense of relief even after your first EMDR session. We’ve had clients make statements like, “I feel like I can breathe again” or share that they never knew how much was holding them back until it wasn’t.
And maybe that’s what makes EMDR therapy such a game-changer. It helps bridge the gap between what you know and what you feel—boosting your self-esteem and outlook on life so that you’re not just surviving but thriving.

Are You Ready To Try A Different Approach To Healing?
EMDR therapy offers an opportunity to finally start living in alignment with who you really are. You don’t have to carry the weight of your pain alone anymore. We want to work with you to explore what healing could look like—together. If you’re ready to try a different approach to healing, connect with one of our EMDR therapists by using the contact form.
Creative Therapies offers in-person services in Raleigh, NC, with online services available throughout the state of North Carolina. We’re looking forward to working with you!
*https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5682328/