WORKING INTENSIVELY IS DIFFERENT
This is an effective, gentle process and does not need to take months or years.
Weekly talk therapy primarily offers strategies for coping, habit reversal, cognitive behavioural change and personal coaching, which can result in better symptom management and some improvement in your sense of well-being. The focus may also be on developing insight and working towards personal growth. The root causes of the behaviour that keep you locked into a cycle of picking, pulling and biting are not adequately targeted here. It is these that need to be processed completely so that you are able to uncouple from the behaviour.
The conventional approach does work but it has limited efficiency, can take a long time and be very upsetting and costly. Because so little time within the session is actually being spent on doing the work you need to be doing, the results of week after week of traditional talk therapy often do not give you the results that you need in the time you want. Even when weekly therapy includes EMDR there is often not enough time, or specialist BFRB focus, to work to resolve all the elements that keep your behaviour in place.
Working intensively, using an EMDR based approach, we quickly find the root causes driving and maintaining your body focused repetitive behaviour and identify patterns and triggers that keep it so powerfully in place in your life. These, and related symptoms, can then be processed and resolved and you are able to leave behind negative thoughts, feelings, and unwanted behaviors, and have the space to grow and build the life you want for yourself.
Clients have described the following benefits after our work:
“It completely transformed the way I think about myself and my BFRB.”
“I’ve pulled my hair since early childhood. I thought it was too late and that I’d never find a solution.”
“I battled my skin-picking for decades and couldn’t stop. Now, I just don’t feel like I need it any more and I’m concentrating on watching my body heal. I feel like I’m finally moving forward.”
“I am so much more myself now, without always battling the urge to pick.”
“I simply don’t suffer from the symptoms of my BFRB anymore.”
So, if you want to break the hold your BFRB has on you, and you want to do it quickly and effectively, an EMDR based intensive could be just what you need.
It could be as simple as working in ninety minute sessions, instead of the standard hour, or it could be working at an intense pace for up to four days at a time. Paradoxically, working in this way is significantly gentler on your nervous system and avoids you having to re-inhabit difficult memories and emotions over and over again. Working this way enables you to heal quickly from your body focused repetitive behaviours by uncoupling the behaviours from the mechanisms that drive them.
This process is deep and extremely powerful and leads to lasting change.
The approach I use is unique and combines three vital elements:
The primary use of trauma informed Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) to reprocess maladaptive elements that are keeping your BFRB in place.
Working Intensively to make the most of the therapeutic momentum and to reduce distress - getting you to where you want to be gently and quickly.
Working with a practitioner who has specialist knowledge and training to work with Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours.
EMDR is a highly potent, gentle and effective therapeutic approach. It is research-supported, efficient and well tolerated.
Working intensively using EMDR gets faster long term results than conventional hour-per-week therapy.
EMDR intensives are also clinically proven and efficient, with clients experiencing very substantial symptom relief and improved overall long term functioning.
EMDR based intensives are designed for those who want or need results quickly and are a good fit for those with busy schedules who are looking for faster healing.