By: Teresa Bertoncin, LPCC, LMFT
Two Pacific Quest team members recently co-presented at the 2017 Independent Educational Consultant Association conference in Denver. Teresa Bertoncin, Primary Therapist, and Dr. Robert Voloshin, Integrative Psychiatrist, presented “Breaking through Trauma: EMDR in Outdoor Behavioral Health”. It began by engaging the audience in an experiential sensory integration resourcing exercise using elements of sight, sound and smell which are abundant in the natural environment at PQ. This instillation of a calming effect, with dual attention stimuli offered a brief example of the immediate impact of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and how resourcing tools can be utilized to self-regulate.
Teresa Bertoncin, Primary Therapist
Teresa shared that EMDR psychotherapy is recommended as an evidence-based effective treatment for trauma by the American Psychiatric Association, The Department of Defense, and the World Health Organization, and that it interfaces comfortably with all other psychotherapies. At Pacific Quest, EMDR has proven to be tremendously helpful for multiple adverse life experiences, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and addictions. Teresa explained how maladaptive “undigested” memories and the negative beliefs we maintain about ourselves as a result of those incidents, keep us ‘stuck.’ She comments, “Our brain is a very natural healing mechanism, and just like the rest of our body it wants to heal. EMDR can help us go back to when a root was laid down for a negative belief system, and replace that negative belief system with a positive one.”
Dr. Voloshin integrated the relevance of trauma and memory, and the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and how these untreated experiences directly correlate to a decline in social, emotional cognitive impairment, later life health and well-being; particularly depression and substance abuse, disease, and early death.
Dr. Voloshin went on to explain the neurobiology of the formation of memory and how our experiences shape us, as well as how the process of EMDR reshapes and creates adaptive newly ‘digested’ memories.
“When we are able to ‘look back’ at a traumatic memory from an empowered stance, the recollection can be updated as though this agency had been available and fully functional at the time of the original trauma. This newly reconsolidated experience then becomes the new updated memory where the empowered present somatic experience profoundly alters the past memory. These emerging resources become the bridging of past and present, the remembered present. The memory updating in no way takes away from the truth that a particular traumatizing event really did happen, that it caused harm, and that grief and outrage may be significant components to restoring dignity and a deep honoring of self. From this present-based platform of self compassion, the memories can gradually be softened, reshaped, and rewoven into the fabric of one’s identity.”
Several attendees remarked about their interest in the psychotherapeutic and neurobiological aspects of the presentation, and how it reflects the unique integrative approach that Pacific Quest embodies, as well as the mind-body-nature connection in the importance of overall healing.