May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and in honor of my advocacy for more open conversation surrounding Mental health, I will be featuring episodes on ways to take care of our mental health so we can better care for ourselves and our children. Therapy is highly beneficial, and various modalities are used. EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is an evidence-based approach that has been shown to help in processing traumatic events and changing negative patterns and helping people with mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and OCD. I personally started EMDR earlier this year, and in honor of Maternal Mental Health Month, I invited Dr. Cassidy Freitas, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist who also does EMDR.

We discuss:

• What EMDR is and the steps of EMDR
• Who would be a good candidate
• Examples of how EMDR helped me and Dr. Cassidy

For more resources on EMDR: EMDR Institute, Psychologytoday.com, and EMDRIA.

You can connect with Dr. Cassidy on Instagram @drcassidy, and for more resources, check out Dr. Cassidy’s website.

If you are dealing with postpartum mental health concerns and need help, visit Postpartum Support International

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on the PedsDocTalk Podcast Sponsors page of the website.

00:00:01:01 – 00:00:27:19
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
The body knows how to heal. It’s geared towards healing. So when we break an arm, basically the doctor’s like, we’re going to put this cast on it so you just don’t move it to the body can do what it needs to do. But when it comes to trauma, when it comes to these experiences, we keep having more experiences like we can’t we can’t put the brain in a cast and be like, we just hold still respect.

00:00:27:22 – 00:00:28:27
Dr. Mona
So,

00:00:28:29 – 00:00:40:07
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
We keep experiencing things and that can get blocked, right? Or the brain can get overwhelmed. It doesn’t get a chance to process and store the memory in a really functional way.

00:00:40:09 – 00:00:58:01
Dr. Mona
Hello PedsDocTalk Podcast listeners, thank you for being here. I know the juggle is real as parents, and even if you’re not a parent, so I’m so appreciative you take the time out of your day to tune in to these awesome conversations that I get to have about child health development, parenting, and parental mental health. Like this episode.

00:00:58:04 – 00:01:19:01
Dr. Mona
This shows a top 50 parenting podcast in the United States, and let’s make it into the top 20. So leave those reviews and update those reviews and share the show with whoever would be interested, so that we can help this podcast continue to grow. Today’s guest is Doctor Cassidy Freitas, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, mom to three and host of the Holding Space podcast.

00:01:19:08 – 00:01:36:29
Dr. Mona
And as a third time guest of mine because she’s kind, compassionate and brilliant in what she does, and I want her to be on my show all the time. And we’re going to be chatting about trauma therapy. Why you may need eMDR. Thank you. So much for joining me today, Doctor Cassidy.

00:01:37:01 – 00:02:01:12
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited. I could talk about eMDR everyday all day. I mean, I spend a lot of my time in the eMDR space. Just yesterday I had five clients and three of them were eMDR sessions. And it is such an incredibly impactful and potent approach to supporting parents and to supporting folks who are struggling.

00:02:01:12 – 00:02:06:03
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I am so excited to demystify it and share it with your listeners today.

00:02:06:05 – 00:02:32:01
Dr. Mona
Well, I share that equal love for it, having gone through it. So I’ve been very vocal with my Instagram followers, and I haven’t talked about it on the podcast yet, but I am in eMDR therapy. I have been in talk therapy for years on and off, but starting January of 2024, I started doing eMDR and IT. We’ll talk about that process, as I talk to you, but it has changed my life in just three weeks, and I know it’s going to continue to change my life.

00:02:32:04 – 00:03:00:29
Dr. Mona
So now I want to, like, get some fliers and just throw it from an airplane, like, hey, if you’re dealing with trauma, here is an option for you. Obviously, we’ll talk about, you know, who who are the candidates? But yes, I share it from the other perspective of the person receiving this type of therapy. And I also want to demystify it and really just get that information out there, because a lot of my listeners are parents, a lot of them are mothers, and a lot of them have gone through trauma or events that they may need to process, and other things are not working.

00:03:00:29 – 00:03:14:22
Dr. Mona
So yes, it’s going to be wonderful. I may cry, I can’t, I don’t know, but because it is just so emotionally involved, I could get into, but it’s so healing and I just feel like more people need to know about it. So grateful for you to be here.

00:03:14:24 – 00:03:35:07
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
That’s what I’m here for and I I’d love to if you’re okay, I’d love to actually start with sharing a little bit about my journey into getting trained to provide EMT, because that absolutely has to do with doing eMDR myself. Right? Like being on, as you’re describing on the other side. And I would love to hear pieces of your story, too, just because I think that that’s a really brings it to life.

00:03:35:07 – 00:03:53:19
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right? Like I could and I can share, like, here’s a protocol here, the different steps. But I think there really is something about the narrative of an experience that just really helps someone feel like what it might be like to be in that space and doing this work. And so I was a therapist and I knew about eMDR.

00:03:53:19 – 00:04:20:24
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I knew it was an evidence based approach. It has been named by the National Registry here in the US as an evidence based approach to treating trauma. And I knew that there have been randomized controlled trial studies. I knew that it was really effective for things like phobias and anxiety and mood disorders, and that I also was beginning to understand how it could support eating disorders and panic disorder and how effective it was.

00:04:20:26 – 00:04:39:04
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And yeah, I hadn’t done the training myself yet. And you know what I think it really was, is I just couldn’t picture myself telling a client to follow my fingers. Right. Like there was, I think, still. And I think there are some myths around eMDR like, oh, it still just feels a little woo woo, even though the definition of woowoo is like not evidence based.

00:04:39:04 – 00:05:01:26
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. And this is obviously evidence based. It also I think some folks are like, is it like hypnosis because there’s like this eye movement component. It stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing. And I was just like, I just can’t picture myself doing it. But I didn’t know when I was feeling blocked with certain clients that, I think that eMDR could help them move through this block.

00:05:01:26 – 00:05:26:27
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. And so I would refer them out. And then I had a traumatic birth experience. And I had, following that experience, a lot of triggers that were showing up in parenting that I was like, you know what? I feel like I’m feeling really blocks from this really intense experience. I think eMDR could be supportive for me.

00:05:27:00 – 00:05:42:12
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I went and I did eMDR for myself, and it was through that healing process. But I was like, I have to have this in my toolbelt for clients. It is, as you said, it’s been what you said three weeks.

00:05:42:14 – 00:05:44:06
Dr. Mona
Yeah. Like I yeah.

00:05:44:09 – 00:06:23:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah. So as you say, it takes us there deep quickly, but it also is so potent and effective that what you could accomplish potentially in, you know, three months of talk therapy or, gosh, three years of talk therapy, sometimes you can move through it really quickly. And so that was remarkable to me, but not just how potent and effective it was that how it brought me to other experiences that I were just lingering there for me, or getting triggered in parenting in my day to day life that I really it was happening at this, like, subconscious level.

00:06:23:21 – 00:06:55:24
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then it brought me to these memories, these other childhood experiences where I was like, whoa, this is impacting so many different areas of my life. And so while we started with, okay, the recent events that were coming up related to the traumatic birth experience, when we floated back to other times that I had felt emotionally some of the same things, you know, in my body, some of the same things, some of the similar beliefs of like, there’s something wrong with my body, I’m not safe.

00:06:55:24 – 00:07:22:04
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I don’t have control. It brought me to I can talk about it now without feeling so triggered, but at the time, it was really difficult memory to land on a memory of an adult in my life, being in the car with them. And I was really thin as a child and this adult in my life saying to me, with like disgust, you’re so skinny, you’re so skinny, I should just throw you in a graveyard because you’re like a skeleton.

00:07:22:06 – 00:07:35:07
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I was like six at the time. And when you’re six, when an adult says something like that to you, I felt shame. I felt fear because to me, the idea of being put into a graveyard. Right?

00:07:35:07 – 00:07:41:28
Dr. Mona
Like alone. Yes. And be shamed about your body too. Yeah. My body.

00:07:42:00 – 00:08:26:09
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And here’s the thing, is that in my birth, I felt like my body is broken. I felt shame for, you know, what my body had experienced. And I felt like I had failed my daughter. I also felt like, you know, a fear in many moments, like I don’t have control. And what I was able to accomplish in the eMDR work was not only processing the birth, but this what we call eMDR, this touchstone memory, where my brain had an experience that was really intense, connected to these negative beliefs about myself, connected to these emotions of shame and fear with this like pit in my stomach sensation that I was able to process and all of

00:08:26:09 – 00:08:45:18
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
a sudden begin to build other insights around that moment, like the fact that my grandmother, a Hispanic woman that was my grandmother, you know, based on her contacts, to be able to kind of make this connection to this wasn’t about me, right? Like I couldn’t control my body and the size of it, and I was a healthy child.

00:08:45:18 – 00:09:10:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
But for her, in her context, thinness had represented, not having the food. It represented not being healthy. It represented potential death based on her childhood experiences. And so that was her trigger. Also, to be able to connect in that moment that my little brother was there, I like I remember hiding my face into his car seat and then remembering that he’s actually like my safe space.

00:09:10:15 – 00:09:28:01
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
He’s like a person in my life I feel really safe with like, oh yeah, he was there and he was a baby. It wasn’t his job to keep me safe, but just to make that connection. And then, and, you know, it looped it right back to my birth. Is that one of the things I felt the most shame around in my birth was that when they finally took her out via birth.

00:09:28:04 – 00:09:44:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah, I couldn’t look at her. I actually turned my face away from her, and that was like the image that was the most intensely distressing is that I turned away from her and closed my eyes and couldn’t look at her. And in that moment, in that car, as my grandmother, I had my face turned away into.

00:09:44:21 – 00:09:45:09
Dr. Mona
My.

00:09:45:12 – 00:10:05:05
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Brother’s car seat. And then you know what I recalled is that when my daughter, that child that I burst in that moment that I couldn’t look at when she feels sad or scared, she burrows into me with her head, the same sort of emotion in that moment. And it was this like release of.

00:10:05:05 – 00:10:06:05
Dr. Mona
Like, oh my God.

00:10:06:06 – 00:10:26:11
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I was like, yeah, but like I couldn’t turn towards her in that moment because so much had happened. I was so exhausted. And for the rest of our life, we get to have these experiences where we connect and we build this relationship and this trust in this safety. And that is like there was so much else that went into it, and there’s so much more I can say about that process of how I got there.

00:10:26:11 – 00:10:41:05
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
But I just wanted to share that story because this was the lake, then the muse and the like, the catapult for me to get this training and do this work because I was like, everybody deserves to have this moment of healing.

00:10:41:07 – 00:11:00:13
Dr. Mona
Now let’s take a break to hear from our sponsors. I am so grateful you shared your story, and I’m actually teary eyed because what you just said is exactly what I’m going through. And it’s fresh. I mean, I’m literally only, you know, you’re in. We’ll go through it, we’ll go through the steps. There’s obviously the intake and then there’s the all the things going through the listing of the memories.

00:11:00:13 – 00:11:19:26
Dr. Mona
And so we just started the actual eMDR work in terms of the after the intake in February. But the intake took a while because of just having a baby in life. And I’ll share an example later. And so, you know, you mentioned what eMDR stands for. And then we’ll kind of get into the steps and a little bit of, you know, what you’re describing with the eye, you know, like the tapping in the eyes.

00:11:19:26 – 00:11:27:01
Dr. Mona
But yes, I would be a good candidate for it. I guess a lot of the questions I get asked on my social is, how do I know if I may need eMDR?

00:11:27:03 – 00:11:53:26
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah, yeah. So I mentioned before several things that it’s, you know, there’s been a ton of research to showcase that eMDR is highly effective for us. So it originated with Francine Shapiro, who is the originator of eMDR and was initially created. And the initial studies are all really focused on PTSD. So post traumatic stress disorder now a traumatic birth experience can someone can experience PTSD from that.

00:11:53:26 – 00:12:27:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
It can also be experienced from childhood traumas. It can be experienced from also, you know, an acute event like a car accident or an assault. Right. And now they’ve also done some research to look at its effectiveness with anxiety disorders such as OCD, generalized anxiety, panic disorder. We’ve also seen its effectiveness with eating disorders, phobias, mood disorders like depression.

00:12:27:23 – 00:12:49:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And, you know, it’s been really interesting, though, for folks that come in, people don’t always have that like diagnosis. Right? Or they don’t always get this box, but they come in and I just think that’s because we’re human beings. We don’t always fit into a box that like, matches all the criteria for our diagnosis. And so sometimes I have folks come in and they are maybe struggling with triggers related to parenting.

00:12:49:21 – 00:13:12:11
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. Like, I know for me that becoming a parent like I, I came into parenting having these major protector parts. I had anxiety, which was always on the lookout for the threats. And then I have my perfectionism and my people pleasing, mature, like my protector parts that were like, okay, this is how we’ll deal with this. We’ll have control over everything, will be perfect, will be scheduled.

00:13:12:11 – 00:13:39:18
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
We will I will make sure that we meet the needs of everyone around us, and then we’ll be safe. And then giving birth and having a newborn and then having a toddler. And they come into this world with all of these feelings that, like I had learned, was something I should shut down and myself. And it was like this walking, breathing, like representation of these parts of me that I felt like I needed to protect from others seem right.

00:13:39:26 – 00:14:04:07
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I couldn’t be perfect because hello, that’s not realistic. Yeah. And I had so much more going on in my life, right? With the sleep deprivation and just so many more tabs open in my brain and sensory overload, that’s something that you and I have talked about on one of our other conversations and episodes that I could no longer maintain what I had been maintaining thus far, which still wasn’t working for me.

00:14:04:07 – 00:14:33:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right? Like perfectionism, people pleasing, it wasn’t allowing me to get support. It was keeping people at a distance. It was contributing to my anxiety. But now I couldn’t control it anymore and it was coming out as like irritability and rage. And that’s our other episode that we’ve talked about, your podcast. And so it’s all connected. Right. And so I have parents come into my practice and they’re like, I feel like becoming a parent has made me fall apart.

00:14:34:00 – 00:14:57:04
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I feel like I can’t control things anymore, or I’m feeling super triggered by my kids behavior. And it doesn’t just automatically mean, oh, I think injuries can be a great fit for you, but it does lead me to explore. Okay, there’s this approach, right? It’s called eMDR. Have you heard of it? I’ll explain it to them and we’ll potentially explore it as an option, as a tool in my therapeutic tool belt.

00:14:57:10 – 00:15:06:27
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I have had folks who have found eMDR to be so supportive and just them understanding their triggers and being able to not.

00:15:06:27 – 00:15:07:11
Dr. Mona
Feel.

00:15:07:11 – 00:15:32:10
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So triggered in these moments, or feel like they have tools and insights to be able to actually create more space between a trigger and their response, to make a choice of how they’re going to respond. Right. And like, I think eMDR and the work and the insight that gets built through that and the healing, I think that there’s so much healing, like so much compassion, that we can begin to have for ourselves when we understand more of our context.

00:15:32:10 – 00:15:52:03
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And I think that eMDR has a way of going into our brain, like pulling out files and experiences that we’ve had that do affect us, and being like, look at this. And to be like, wow, gosh, this makes sense. And with that compassion, we can bridge to so much healing, to so much more present in these moments. Right?

00:15:52:03 – 00:16:16:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And to not just react out of this part of us. It’s just trying to keep us safe. Right? This old guard in our brain that’s like, oof, this feels like this feels familiar. And we get triggered and we react right. And our brains is doing its job. EMDR is really about like memory storage. It’s about going back into some of these memories and being able to reprocess them right.

00:16:16:00 – 00:16:37:28
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
That’s the reprocessing part of eMDR to desensitize, right, to be able to go back to them and then to not feel so activated and triggered around these sort of memories, and then to store it now in a more functional way, in a way that feels more aligned with our values and that is more like with this memory thing, grandmother, more comprehensive of what was also real.

00:16:37:28 – 00:16:38:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right? That like.

00:16:38:25 – 00:16:39:06
Dr. Mona
Yeah.

00:16:39:08 – 00:17:00:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
My daughter and I, even though I turned away from her, we turned towards each other. Now I’m able to now we’re connected, right. Like that one instance didn’t define our relationship. Yep. That also that my grandmother, that wasn’t about me. That was her own contact. So I can actually have some compassion for her now too. Yeah. So it’s just it’s so remarkably healing.

00:17:00:01 – 00:17:00:10
Dr. Mona
Yeah.

00:17:00:11 – 00:17:01:25
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So great.

00:17:01:27 – 00:17:16:20
Dr. Mona
Oh, I want to talk before I share my story is because it really released and I, and I haven’t talked to anybody who’s done eMDR because I’m the only one. Well, sorry. My husband does eMDR. So every time I finish a session, I talk to him about what I learned and I’m like, look. And it’s fun for me.

00:17:16:20 – 00:17:31:28
Dr. Mona
I’m like, hey, so I did this and guess what? This is the memory I started with and guess where it ended up? It ended up here. And that makes sense. That’s why I got upset at you. That’s why I’m mad at my father. That’s why I it literally. And we’ll talk about the steps. But I love that he’s doing eMDR.

00:17:31:28 – 00:17:55:19
Dr. Mona
He’s been doing eMDR for a year now. And I just started this year, in 2024. But he was the reason I started doing it, because he I saw him struggle with severe depression, severe anxiety and talk therapy wasn’t working, anxiety meds weren’t working. He was maxing out. Oh, and I’m like, something needs to change. And he found a therapist and his therapist talked to him about eMDR and he has not looked back.

00:17:55:19 – 00:18:20:15
Dr. Mona
He’s like, listen, I’m going to continue doing this now. They don’t nearly have to do as much eMDR work, but it’s it’s changed his life and it’s also changed our marriage, like in so many different ways. Like you said, we’re better couple because we are handling the triggers and the trauma that show up from the past and all the examples I have, it’s going to be you’re going to be like, well, that sounds about right, because it literally takes you through this whole memory.

00:18:20:17 – 00:18:37:06
Dr. Mona
I describe it as like a, a train passing fast or if you’re a Harry Potter, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, I see the pensive, you know, when they’re going and getting the memories and all of a sudden he’s seeing Snape and then he’s seeing his dad, and then he’s seeing this. That’s literally how I describe it.

00:18:37:10 – 00:19:00:16
Dr. Mona
When I’m going through the memory recall. Okay, where are you now? I’m here and now I’m here, and now I see my father, and now I see Ryan, and now I see this. And now I’m alone in a room. And it’s so fascinating where the brain goes to heal. And it’s exciting. Like it’s. I say the word that I look forward to it, the sessions, because I look at it as exciting, you know, like it looks to me it looks like something’s going to change here.

00:19:00:16 – 00:19:17:12
Dr. Mona
And I feel it. I feel the change. So now let’s go over the phases of eMDR. Obviously it’s not just, you know, we’re talking about the results that we’re seeing, but where do people begin with it? Where does it go? And maybe even an example of what a session may look like when they’re actually, actually going through it.

00:19:17:14 – 00:19:39:06
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yes. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. So it is a protocol therapy model, right. Which was also kind of tricky for me when I first was like shifting gears and including this tool in my tool belt is I was like, okay, this is evidence based because there’s a protocol to it. There are different phases and really specific steps that we take in the eMDR process.

00:19:39:09 – 00:20:08:29
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And it actually, I think creates a really like safe environment for the client to because you kind of it’s like you’re being held, you’re being held by these phases in these steps and this protocol. So the first phase is history taking. So at this point in time we are doing an intake. We’re assessing the client in terms of, you know, their presenting issues and also their resources.

00:20:08:29 – 00:20:29:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And so tools that they have, you know, in terms of when they get triggered and are they able to kind of come back and feel like rounded. Do they have those resources? Do we need to do some resourcing work where we support them in getting resources? And yeah, so we’re kind of just doing like a history taking and just kind of getting to know the client.

00:20:29:15 – 00:20:53:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And we’re looking for yeah, the presenting issues as well as their resources. And then phase two is the preparation. And so at this phase we are explaining eMDR. One of the ways that I love to explain it is when we experience something really intense, right? Our brains job is to try to keep us safe at all costs.

00:20:53:23 – 00:21:13:06
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So, you know, like that’s its number one job. So we experience something intense. And this could be an intense moment. When I was a child and I was in this car and my grandmother said this thing and my brain takes that information. And the way that our brain stores memory and information tends to be through an image, a belief.

00:21:13:06 – 00:21:38:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right? So cognition, emotion and physical sensations. And if something’s really intense, our brain is going to kind of store that in a way that, you know, keeps it almost like at the forefront. Or another way of looking at it is like with a little guard that’s like kind of stationed in front, like looking for anything else that’s related to that emotion or that physical sensation or that belief, because it’s like, ooh, that was really intense.

00:21:38:15 – 00:22:01:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So that was really scary. So let’s be on the lookout for other things that might be similar to this, so that we can wire those together and be on the lookout for threats, for danger. And our brain wants to heal, just like when somebody, when a child, you know, breaks an arm, or when we get a cut on our body and, and, you know, you see these, you know, this more than anything.

00:22:01:23 – 00:22:23:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Like the body knows how to heal. It’s geared towards healing. So when we break an arm, basically the doctor’s like, we’re going to put this cast on it. So you just don’t move it to the body can do what it needs to do. But when it comes to trauma, when it comes to these experiences, we keep having more experiences.

00:22:23:00 – 00:22:28:06
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Like we can’t like we can’t put the brain in a cast and be like, wait, just hold still for us.

00:22:28:08 – 00:22:29:20
Dr. Mona
So.

00:22:29:22 – 00:22:48:26
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
We keep experiencing things and that can get blocked, right? Or the brain can get overwhelmed. It doesn’t get a chance to process and store the memory in a really functional way. Right. To process the experience, to learn from it, to heal, and then to store in a way that doesn’t keep it with that little guard in front for forever.

00:22:48:26 – 00:23:17:28
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. And so what they found during with eye movement or this bilateral stimulation. So the eyes going left to right or bilateral stimulation. So taps back and forth or tones in your ears back and forth. What they found was that when that happens, which is also something that happens during REM sleep, right. Rapid eye movement time of our sleep, which is kind of our body brain’s way of kind of holding space, right to be like, okay, now we’re going to kind of process what we experience throughout the day.

00:23:18:00 – 00:23:43:18
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
What they found is that that supports our brain in these moments of holding a memory or processing a memory to tune into the mind, the body, the emotions, and to kind of what we’re doing. EMDR is holding the space for you to do this work that your brain has just so desperately been wanting this space to process, that in our busy day to day lives, we don’t have that space to do that.

00:23:43:20 – 00:24:10:25
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And in addition to that rapid eye movement or that by stimulation supporting the processing, it has this other benefit of this dual attention. So while I’m having to also move my eyes as I’m thinking about something that might be really intense or was really traumatic, that dual attention supports me in getting retraumatized right. Like I’m holding this memory or and flowing through like a different memories while also focusing on something else.

00:24:10:25 – 00:24:32:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And that dual attention can support that kind of regulation and that groundedness. While you’re kind of going there with something really intense. So I’ll explain eMDR to them in this way. I’ll sort of showcase, you know, if I’m in person, I’ll showcase this is like I would be sitting this close to you. We would be moving your eyes at this pace.

00:24:32:21 – 00:24:56:05
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I might show them some of the different methods of bilateral stimulation so we can use buzzers that you hold in your hand, that buzz back and forth. We could use headphones that do these tones in your ears, back and forth. We could do this, tapping on your hands. You know, if I’m doing it virtually, because this can be done virtually, I’ll open up the software that on the computer where they will be doing the eye movement.

00:24:56:05 – 00:25:16:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I might show them how the eye movement can go back and forth horizontally. It might shift to diagonally. There’s also the butterfly hug. I know that the listener can’t see me, but I’m giving myself a hug with my arms crossed and I could tap my shoulders back and forth. So this could be your sort of self bilateral stimulation with the tapping.

00:25:16:00 – 00:25:33:29
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then we’re also going to talk at that point in time about having a stop signals. If at any point in time they feel like I’m feeling too distressed, too dysregulated, like I just feels like I’m too stuck in this memory and feeling kind of retraumatized, right? Like they have like a stop signal because we want to make sure that they have that as well.

00:25:34:03 – 00:26:02:02
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah. And that we are also, you know, doing some resourcing here. And so we might walk through some tools and exercises. So the client has resources that they can in session and then outside of session. Right. Because once you open it your brain might say, oh we’re doing this now finally. And then like, you know, in between sessions you might have other memories or thoughts come up, or you might notice that your dreams, you know, your brain’s like, oh, we’re doing this.

00:26:02:02 – 00:26:24:14
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So like, even the dreams might get a little bit more intense, right? Yeah. And so just sort of, preparing people for those sort of things and giving them resources like the calm place, a safe place exercise is, is one there’s also, containment exercises so that at the end of a session you can contain, the experience to that session.

00:26:24:20 – 00:26:41:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then in between sessions, if it starts to feel like it’s coming up and you’re like, oof, this feels like too much, you have containment tools to be able to say, okay, I’m going to contain this in this way with this tool, and now I’ll bring it back up in session. I’m reminding my body that I have a safe space that I can do this work.

00:26:41:23 – 00:26:54:29
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And right now, while I’m sitting down with my kid playing like is not the time, right? To kind of yeah, it’s wrapped up in that. So we’re making sure that folks feel really resourced before we before we dive in. Right.

00:26:55:01 – 00:27:18:02
Dr. Mona
Yeah. How do your clients feel like what would you say you wish people knew? Like, how do your clients report back how they felt after that session, like that day? I know for me, I under schedule my day when I have a eMDR session because I am so emotionally drained from the experience and also, in a weird way, that day I can be a little more like jumpy.

00:27:18:02 – 00:27:26:17
Dr. Mona
Like it’s almost like your brain was working out so much and reliving all of it. But I’m curious what you would want to share with people who, about the day or day after the session.

00:27:26:20 – 00:27:49:19
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I like to tell my clients that it’s almost like physical therapy for your brain. So not always right, but for some folks afterwards they can feel really tired, right? They can feel kind of drained. They can feel like some folks might get some headaches, right? Like they might have some, you know, different dreams at night and they might notice their dreams a little bit more.

00:27:49:22 – 00:28:07:02
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So I do ask them to just be aware of that, to really take good care of themself afterwards. If they can create like have that be a day where there’s some margins and some space right for them, and have it maybe be a day that they are not so overscheduled or that they don’t have like a big work meeting right after.

00:28:07:02 – 00:28:26:25
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right? Yeah. And then I usually recommend that for the first session and then for some folks. So they’re like, you know what? I actually do feel okay afterwards. I don’t have those experiences. And and that doesn’t mean anything is wrong to like, that’s just our bodies respond differently and then they’ll kind of schedule themselves accordingly. But yeah, I think that that’s that’s a really important piece of it too.

00:28:26:28 – 00:28:46:28
Dr. Mona
Yeah I agree with that over scheduling piece because you just never know. Like some days I feel great. After some days I’m just so emotionally charged. And it’s, you know, it’s fascinating because I never expect it, like going in, you know, we’ll go through all of our different memories. She’s like, oh, on your timeline, are you okay that we talk about this?

00:28:47:04 – 00:29:03:20
Dr. Mona
And in my head, you know, she’ll say, my therapist is when I say she, she’ll say, on a scale of 1 to 7, how triggering or how charged is this right now, at this moment? And I’m like, oh, like a 3 or 4. And then by the end of it I’m a blubbering. Yeah. It’s just like, you never know.

00:29:03:22 – 00:29:05:22
Dr. Mona
You just never know where that memory is going to go.

00:29:05:28 – 00:29:23:27
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yes. And like and we’ll get to these scaling questions, which I think are so great because they help us track progress. Right. And for some folks like going in there, it opens it up more. And you might feel like, yes, a little more of that distress. Right. And then we have tools to support you, to feel regulated and contained before we end the session.

00:29:23:27 – 00:29:40:27
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. Like there’s all that is part of the protocol. And for some folks, and the goal is to get to a place where you might be at like on a scale of 1 to 10 of distress, like a 9 or 10. And then, you know, we’re moving towards. Right, like a 0 or 1, right, in terms of that distress.

00:29:40:27 – 00:30:06:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And so that’s the goal and that’s what we’re going to. And so in this phase, what we’re also doing is identifying the target that we’re going to open the eMDR work with. And so how we usually start that is with what we call a slow pack exercise. And so there’s different protocols. There’s also a recent event protocol that happened more recently where we’re looking at it more in terms of like scenes or chapters of an experience.

00:30:06:00 – 00:30:22:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
But that’s it’s like it happened in the past, like maybe say three months, that for most folks were doing maybe this more slow back exercise to identify just the memory that were going to open up eMDR with, even if it doesn’t stay in that memory, because we’re going to, yeah, trust the brain to really take us where it needs to go.

00:30:22:18 – 00:30:44:06
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
But we’ll start with having them. Tell me about a recent specific incident where the thing that they’re trying to kind of work through came up right where they got triggered. Right. And we’ll start with identifying, you know, the picture that represents the worst part of that recent incident. It might be something they see or a symbol or just, you know, the worst part.

00:30:44:08 – 00:31:09:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then we’re going to identify the negative cognition or the negative belief about themself that goes best with that picture. Okay. And so it’s perhaps an I am statement. So I am unlovable. I am broken, I am not safe. I am not in control. Right. These are these are some examples. And I’ll oftentimes share a list of these negative beliefs that are more common.

00:31:09:06 – 00:31:25:03
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And they tend to fall under different categories around rate control or safety. And that list can be helpful for folks because some folks are like, you know, I don’t know what you’re looking for here, or like, you know, I’ll just say, well, let’s just let’s just start like, what are some thoughts that are coming to mind and that can kind of help us get there.

00:31:25:06 – 00:31:45:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And also the list can be helpful for them to kind of identify which one a few might resonate like which one, like really hits them in like the gut or like the chest or whatever shows up for them in their body. And then we’ll identify the emotions that come up for them. Now as they bring up that memory or that image and where they feel it in their body.

00:31:45:24 – 00:32:11:29
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And what’s so cool is because the brain stores memories in this way with an image, with it, with cognition or belief, with emotion, with physical sensation. It’s almost like it’s going into the brain and turning on the lights around the part of the brain that houses like that storage unit right in that file. And what we’ll then ask is say, okay, I’m going to ask you to have your mind just now float around or float back to other times.

00:32:11:29 – 00:32:34:22
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
You may have felt these things right. And I’ll share. It might be super obvious why it’s connected, like why your brain goes there to this memory and or it might not be, but whatever shows up like just share me a quick piece about it and then like when it happened or how old you were. And so it’s like going into the brain to the place that houses these memories and like opening up the file, you know?

00:32:34:22 – 00:32:59:02
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah. And the brain will show us things. Right. Like, I could start with a recent experience with my kid and then go to, like, oh, a recent experience, like an expense with my job or like, oh, just call it memory came up or I don’t know why, but I’m thinking about this one time when I was nine and like this person said this thing to me, or I was six and this thing happened and like, you know, nobody around me noticed, right?

00:32:59:02 – 00:33:24:28
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Or my parent had this tone or it could be little TS, lowercase t’s and or Big T’s the cabinet. Right? Like they all matter. They all count as part of your lived experience. And you get to heal from these experiences right. And so what we’re looking for is either the one that’s most distressing or the earliest, which we would call like the touchstone memory that like that memory.

00:33:24:28 – 00:33:49:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
For me, when I was six in that car with my grandmother and then like, you know, I’m sure I had experiences before that that my body might remember, even though I might not have a physical, actual image or memory of it, but that touchstone, you know, around six now, everything I’ve experienced since then where I felt like my body was broken or I and I felt this shame, or I felt this like tightness in my chest or this like sensation in my stomach.

00:33:49:15 – 00:34:16:21
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
My brain’s going to connect them together because that little guard is on high alert for anything to keep me safe. So you know, we’ll also kind of explore like a future, hypothetical, desired future, like what would be the opposite of this, like negative belly for this emotion or sensation? Or would you like, prefer to believe about yourself and just supporting folks to imagine, not just like where they’re stuck, but where they would like to go?

00:34:16:24 – 00:34:35:13
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So that might happen in one or 2 or 3 sessions, right? Like just that work. Sometimes more, depending on how much resourcing we want to do. And then we’re going to in a session where we’re going to open up the eMDR and start the reprocessing. We’re going to take that. And this is phase three. So the target assessment.

00:34:35:13 – 00:35:03:09
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Right. So really basically in session beginning we’re about to do the eMDR reprocessing. And we’re going to open up that file in your brain. We’re going to do that by having folks identify the image that comes to mind with that. Now maybe touch your memory or the most distressing one that we identified the image, identify the negative cognition, the negative belief about themselves connected to that memory, what they would prefer to believe about themselves.

00:35:03:09 – 00:35:05:10
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So the positive cognition.

00:35:05:12 – 00:35:05:22
Dr. Mona
Yeah.

00:35:05:27 – 00:35:24:18
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
When they think about that memory now how valid does that positive cognition feel. And this is when we start scaling questions like on a scale of 1 to 7, how true does that positive belief feel. And these scaling questions are great because it helps us track progress. Right. Like you could start at a like one. It doesn’t feel true at all.

00:35:24:18 – 00:35:43:17
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
This positive belief and at the end will be at a seven. Right. Like and then we’re also going to ask another scaling question around a stress like how disturbing is a memory on a scale of zero which is no disturbance, neutral to ten, highest disturbance. And we’re tracking those numbers as well. And then where do you feel it?

00:35:43:17 – 00:35:44:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
In your body.

00:35:44:25 – 00:35:45:03
Dr. Mona
Yeah.

00:35:45:09 – 00:36:13:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Then we move to phase four which is the desensitization rate. And so this is when we ask them to bring up that picture, those negative words, noticing where they’re feeling it in their body. And then we engage in the bilateral stimulation, whether it’s the eye movement, the tapping, the tones. And then this is what happens. So I’ll start, we’ll say, okay, you’re noticing this memory, the physical sensations, the negative belief, the emotion.

00:36:13:17 – 00:36:29:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And now follow my fingers. Right. Or follow this to follow the light. Listen to them and we’ll do that for a period of time. And during that time, what your job is as a client is to literally just notice where your mind goes.

00:36:29:15 – 00:36:30:17
Dr. Mona
Yes.

00:36:30:19 – 00:36:51:02
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
The brain is so wise, is so brilliant. It knows where it needs to go for us to heal. It might stay in that memory. It might notice in that memory just, a certain image of the memory. You might feel like you’re in the memory. You might notice a certain voice, you might just notice something in your body, or it might jump to like a different memory.

00:36:51:08 – 00:37:15:25
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
You might start thinking about like, is this working? Am I doing this right? And then after a period of time, the therapist will say, okay, let’s go ahead and pause, take a breath, let it go. What did you notice? And we literally just mean what did you notice in terms of where your mind went. Right? And then from there, let’s will say it was I was thinking, am I doing this right now?

00:37:15:25 – 00:37:31:09
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I might say in response to that in most often, actually, a therapist will say, okay, I actually just want you to notice that. Go with that. Let’s keep going because, gosh, I know for me that I remember having that thought. And then she said, just go with that. I’m like, okay, you’re not going to tell me if I’m doing this right?

00:37:31:12 – 00:37:33:03
Dr. Mona
Yeah. And then some. Hello?

00:37:33:05 – 00:37:52:27
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then they realize like, oh, why do I need, why do I need her to tell me I’m doing this right. Just relax. Okay? And then they brain grabbed onto that and like, you know, like you said, the train took me down memory lane to other times I felt those things. But then sometimes we might get blocked or we might be kind of looping around a memory.

00:37:52:29 – 00:38:15:00
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
So the therapist most often actually isn’t going to like give you a prompt or like say something in between these periods of time of you engaging in this bilateral stimulation. But sometimes they will they might give you what we call a good cognitive interweave where they share like a thought. I almost sort of look at it as like, I see you on a train track and like, it’s like you’re stuck.

00:38:15:02 – 00:38:36:12
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
We might share something, a prompt or a question or an invitation to imagine something. And it’s almost like laying down one more track just to kind of support you to continue to go through most often that we don’t. And the reason is because so much of eMDR work is what’s healing within you. It’s not what the therapist is doing.

00:38:36:15 – 00:39:00:26
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And yes, we’re holding space for it and we’re trained to do it to notice when you’re blocked. Right? But so much of the healing happens within you. You actually don’t have to go into a ton of detail about your trauma, which I think is helpful for some people to know. I might notice a lot of details of my trauma, but I don’t need to share every piece of that detail with my therapist in between passages of this, bilateral stimulation.

00:39:00:28 – 00:39:17:13
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And we’re going to eventually get to a point where the therapist is going to check in on the disturbance, on the validity of the positive cognition, on sensations in your body. And that’s going to help the therapist know if we’re actually getting close to closing this memory like we’ve done it right. Like now this.

00:39:17:13 – 00:39:17:25
Dr. Mona
Memory is.

00:39:17:25 – 00:39:19:29
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Stored in a new way.

00:39:20:02 – 00:39:23:16
Dr. Mona
Now let’s take a break to hear from our sponsors.

00:39:23:19 – 00:39:50:24
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then what we’ll move into is phase five, which is installation. So identifying that positive belief and connecting it to the experience and the memory, we may identify in there some blocking beliefs that you might still be stuck around. And if we do notice, those will come back to the reprocessing. We’re also going to tap into a phase six your body to make sure that your body also feels clear and calm and safe.

00:39:50:24 – 00:40:17:22
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Now, when you think about this experience and then closure, where we’re able to either go on to the next target from that flow exercise, which in the beautiful thing is, is that a process that touched on that earliest memory, right? Or the most distressing when there’s going to be a ripple effect. And so the ripple effect is going to impact those other memories that have been tied together, wired together through these negative beliefs, these physical sensations, these emotions.

00:40:17:24 – 00:40:25:24
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And the beautiful thing about that is that when we go to look at some of these other targets or memories, we’re going to notice that there’s been healing there as well.

00:40:25:26 – 00:40:39:13
Dr. Mona
Oh yes. You know, obviously, because I’m doing it and my husband does it when I hear you say it, obviously on the show, I’m like, yep, that’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’re doing. And I want to share. I’m going to share my example and kind of how my of course, my therapist does it a little differently. We’re virtual.

00:40:39:16 – 00:40:42:18
Dr. Mona
And it’s been great. And I know you mentioned that it could be virtual or in person.

00:40:42:18 – 00:40:44:28
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I mean, majority of my work is virtual.

00:40:44:28 – 00:40:58:09
Dr. Mona
And a lot of my followers have asked and I’m like, me and my husband both do virtual and we have no issue. It’s actually really helpful. We don’t have to drive anywhere and we get a lot of the work we do. Taps. That’s what I do. My husband has his therapist. They do something else, but that’s back and forth.

00:40:58:16 – 00:41:14:01
Dr. Mona
And so yeah, I’m going to share one example that’s very fresh. And it’s going to describe exactly how that brain goes and how it brings back things that you’re like, how did this happen? So one of the biggest negative beliefs I have about myself is that I can’t fail. I’m a failure. I have a lot of perfectionism tendencies.

00:41:14:01 – 00:41:35:22
Dr. Mona
And that’s from childhood. That’s the the ink or I forget the term you use the the right, the touchstone moment. Right. So the touchstone moment for me is that whenever I used to make messes in my house, I would get yelled at. There was no one supporting me. When I made a mess, I spilled something, I would get yelled at and I would have to clean it up on my own so no one would help me.

00:41:35:29 – 00:41:51:24
Dr. Mona
And so not only did I feel that I couldn’t make a mistake, I didn’t have anyone to walk me through a mistake. And so that is this memory that we talked about. I’m going to give an example. So what was my visual? My visual was I was in a kitchen and I spilled a gallon of milk when I was a child.

00:41:51:24 – 00:42:08:21
Dr. Mona
And my sister, who also was a parent in the same way, just stood there and laughed at me. She didn’t come and help me. She didn’t like, figure out. She just like she was like, you better clean that up before mom gets home. That was the memory. The photo was me about to spill the milk. I can’t control it.

00:42:08:27 – 00:42:24:14
Dr. Mona
And it’s about to spill. And that’s the screenshot. That’s the visual. So now I’m about to spill this milk and it’s right there. That’s where the memories started. And then we started to flow, like you said. And she said, go where it goes. I’m sitting there, I’m feeling. And then I do the tap back and forth whenever we talk about it.

00:42:24:14 – 00:42:39:12
Dr. Mona
And then she’s like, where are you now? The milk is everywhere and I am red in the face because I have no one to help me. And it’s everywhere. It’s seeped into every crevice of the kitchen. And I wasn’t even in my childhood kitchen. The visual was in my home right now.

00:42:39:12 – 00:42:40:23
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting.

00:42:40:29 – 00:42:59:14
Dr. Mona
Yeah. And so that I’m like, in my home alone, milk is everywhere at this point, and I’m crying as I’m reliving this. And again, people hearing this maybe like it’s a spilled glass of milk or a gallon of milk. It’s more than that, right? I’m crying and she’s like, okay, tap it out and I’m tapping it. She’s like, where are you now?

00:42:59:16 – 00:43:13:12
Dr. Mona
I’m just looking around and I have no one there, and I don’t even know how I’m going to clean all of this, because it’s gone into every part of my kitchen floor and I’m alone, and I have to get this ready. And I’m scared because I don’t know if I have enough paper towels to clean it. And I’m upset.

00:43:13:15 – 00:43:29:24
Dr. Mona
She’s like, tap it out, go. And I’m tapping, tapping. And then the visual is me starting to clean it up. But now it’s turned into, I don’t know if you follow me or know. A year ago we had an issue with our garbage disposal, and our garbage disposal kept breaking. And what would happen is I was doing dishes.

00:43:29:24 – 00:43:51:01
Dr. Mona
I was alone because my husband was at work and the food chunks came all over the kitchen floor. Okay. And so now the memory turned into that. Now it wasn’t milk, it was the garbage disposal breaking and two chunks everywhere, all over my kitchen floor. And I’m crying because I don’t know how to clean it up. And I’m afraid that it’s just going to be a mess.

00:43:51:01 – 00:44:06:20
Dr. Mona
And that I can’t clean it up. And then the memory, you know, we tap it through, the memory goes, and then the next memories, me yelling at my husband, who’s not even home, and I’m yelling at him, you should have fixed the garbage disposal, because that’s what my parents used to do to me. You should have done this.

00:44:06:25 – 00:44:25:21
Dr. Mona
Why did you do this? There was so much shame around making mistakes. And I’m yelling at my husband, who’s not even in the building, and he’s like, and I did this. And that’s the memory. Me yelling, you should have fixed this garbage disposal. Now I’m stuck cleaning this and I’m just hysterically crying with food everywhere. And then the tap it out.

00:44:25:26 – 00:44:46:26
Dr. Mona
We move through it. The next memory. I’m silently cleaning it. Tap it out. The next memory is I just see the bucket with the mop in my kitchen that’s now clean. Tap it out. The next memory is the kitchen is clean, it’s quiet, and there’s sunlight hitting the kitchen floor. And it’s peaceful and it’s beautiful and there’s calm in the kitchen.

00:44:46:28 – 00:45:06:08
Dr. Mona
And I share that because you wouldn’t think that a spilled milk want someone listening to be like, what is that? That’s not a traumatic event. It’s not even about the trauma. It’s the I’m a failure, right? It’s like I can’t make mistakes if I am not perfect, that I’m not, that no one’s going to support me. And it went to me bringing that how it impacts my relationship with my husband.

00:45:06:10 – 00:45:25:21
Dr. Mona
Like those things come out with my husband because we carry those traumas, right. We carry those little things that we don’t think that are going to impact our children or we don’t think the way we communicate, but I carry the way my parents communicated mistakes, and then I miss that part of that memory cycle was when I was postpartum, I dropped a box of cereal because I’m very clumsy.

00:45:25:21 – 00:45:27:11
Dr. Mona
I just tend to drop things, and I’m not.

00:45:27:13 – 00:45:28:19
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Common.

00:45:28:21 – 00:45:46:25
Dr. Mona
Neurologic. I’m just I drop things. And I remember part of that memory cycle, which I forgot, is that my mom was with me and she laughed at me, and I was postpartum with my baby in my arms, cereal everywhere. And she just laughed. She didn’t even help me. And my mom is a very loving person, but there’s some things that she’s done that have been hurtful, right?

00:45:46:25 – 00:46:10:15
Dr. Mona
And that’s nature. And I remember just feeling so isolated then. Now I have to clean this and I’m getting laughed at. And then that’s where we ended it last session. And I, I don’t know where it’s going to go, but the other sessions that we’ve done have either gone to either events in my life currently with my husband or events with Ryan or our children, like another event where my dad used to be physically abusive to us.

00:46:10:21 – 00:46:29:14
Dr. Mona
That whole cycle took me to me playing with Ryan and him being upset and I’m not hitting him and I’m actually giving him a hug and it’s amazing to see where that goes and how, like again, how he closed it out because I didn’t even get into the other one about the hitting. But that event, we closed out because I don’t have any negative feelings towards it anymore.

00:46:29:14 – 00:46:44:26
Dr. Mona
With all of the work we’ve done. So we moved on to the next memory, which was this milk, and we kind of had to leave it because our time was done well. We did our salt, our container. We talked about where’s your safe space right now? Anything you’re feeling, I want you to put it into your container, which for me is like this vault.

00:46:44:29 – 00:46:46:20
Dr. Mona
I’m very Harry Potter style vault.

00:46:46:21 – 00:46:47:26
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
You amazeballs.

00:46:47:27 – 00:47:06:10
Dr. Mona
It’s my container. It’s so funny. Why like the right? Like I literally think of the Harry Potter vaults, and I put my memories in there, and I closed it up with the big handles, and I leave, you know, I leave the room. Yeah. And I, you know, I share that because it was fascinating to me where that went, you know, like it went from the milk, it went from feeling alone.

00:47:06:11 – 00:47:28:04
Dr. Mona
It went from being frustrated that I can’t clean this up, that I’m overwhelmed. And also the metaphor of the milk seeping into every aspect of my kitchen, about the lack of control that I struggle with. I couldn’t control it. When milk falls out of the gallon, it just flows everywhere and it was just blubbering out, and the amount of emotion and tears that I had feeling so alone.

00:47:28:10 – 00:47:42:27
Dr. Mona
And now, as a mother and you know this, like as a mother, knowing that I never want to do that for my son. I mean, a daughter, too. But she’s young. But how? And we do, because I know how hard that was. And that’s why I wanted you on the show. Because this isn’t just about healing your trauma.

00:47:42:27 – 00:48:14:13
Dr. Mona
This is about being a better parent and a better partner and just better for you. And I want to show this also that I started talk therapy because I was postpartum and couldn’t be consistent with the weekly sessions with eMDR and all that. We were just doing talk in the intake and I had to get on anxiety medicines because my anxiety was so bad postpartum and I was on anxiety medicines, and I was able to wean myself off two weeks ago because of the work I’ve been doing, not only with eMDR, but because I’m working out more, sleeping like everything.

00:48:14:13 – 00:48:36:16
Dr. Mona
But I attribute a lot of that work to eMDR, being able to use medicine as a bridge, but now having a better control over my negative belief systems, like you said, over the fact that I’m not a failure. I don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay to make mistakes about the trauma that I told. And we haven’t even touched the surface of why went to therapy in the first place, which was my birth trauma.

00:48:36:18 – 00:48:52:14
Dr. Mona
So that goes to show you that you just never know. And for anyone listening who doesn’t believe in it, I need you to just talk to a therapist, figure out if it’s right for you. But it may be the answer. It may be the reason you are better present for your child, and maybe the reason that you were better present for your partner.

00:48:52:18 – 00:49:09:25
Dr. Mona
And it also may be the reason that you’ve been relying on medication. Nothing wrong with medication, but both both me and my husband were on anxiety meds and eMDR has changed our life. So now both of us are off of it and I couldn’t sit on anxiety meds forever. I wouldn’t have had a problem. But I am so much more at peace.

00:49:10:02 – 00:49:33:07
Dr. Mona
Every week when my therapist asks me how has it gone? And I say I’m okay. I had really hard things happen, but I was able to manage it better. And that’s the therapy work. Like that’s coping skills and that’s me understanding that I’m not this awful person, that I had created, this narrative that I was. And so thank you for sharing this and and thank you for listening to my perspective as a patients.

00:49:33:08 – 00:49:37:13
Dr. Mona
I’m sure you deal with that and see that joy and that progress all the time.

00:49:37:15 – 00:49:57:18
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I so appreciate you sharing that personal experience. I really think it just brings it to life and just showcases how, right, like I think people think like, does it have to be some big, big trauma capital T trauma, right. Like it could be spilled milk, right? Like it could be spilled milk. And how the adult around you respond it.

00:49:57:22 – 00:50:01:20
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
And then I also think that someone might hear that and be like oof. Like I was like, it’s my kid again.

00:50:01:22 – 00:50:02:29
Dr. Mona
Like all these things, like.

00:50:03:01 – 00:50:24:15
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I but you know, my daughter, my 12 year old is in therapy doing eMDR right now. And her touchstone is a memory of when my parents dog got out and my reaction to that because she let the dog out. And now breaking the cycle is also like she gets to do this work. I’m supporting this now while she’s young, you know, we’re able to have conversations about it.

00:50:24:15 – 00:50:48:25
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
I’m able to tell her, like in that moment, actually, I was scared about my mom’s reaction. And then I had this big reaction to you, we are here breaking the cycle. Now I want to invite the listener to do a couple steps. Go listen to our other episodes on Overstimulation and Rage, because I just think that this, plus those two is like a masterclass in like breaking cycles and it’s free.

00:50:48:25 – 00:51:07:12
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Like, please, like we cover so much so in-depth in all these three in these three episodes and like, it’s free, like now just go, go do it and then take a step to get support. And so how can they find an eMDR therapist? Let’s wrap up here. I am based in California and so I have a group practice.

00:51:07:12 – 00:51:29:05
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
There’s four of us who are trained in eMDR and we do it virtual. We have one person that does, some in person in San Diego. And I also do offer, occasional eMDR intensives where we’ll just do like three four hour sessions in person, here in San Diego as well. And you can learn more about my practice at Doctor Cassidy mfd.com.

00:51:29:05 – 00:51:52:07
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
If you are a California resident. And for the rest of you, Maria is a great resource to look online as well as, just the the eMDR website so some folks can do eMDR if they’ve received the basic training. Some folks go on to get certified, in eMDR. And so you want to make sure that the person had at least a basic training.

00:51:52:09 – 00:52:16:06
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
You can also go on Psychology today.com or Open Path Collective, which is for lower fee counseling. But psychology TODAY.com. You can also search by your insurance if like that’s something that’s important to you, to be able to use and make it sustainable. And I just really encourage the listener to take that next step, to explore this option for you and your healing journey.

00:52:16:08 – 00:52:33:05
Dr. Mona
Oh, amazing. We could have talked about this forever. And I know this is like a mini revisit of my own eMDR therapy. And also for you, I didn’t realize that you went through it as well as a recipient of the therapy. Where can people stay connected to you? I know you already mentioned, obviously your practice, but your Instagram handle, your podcast.

00:52:33:05 – 00:52:34:08
Dr. Mona
Say that again to everyone listening.

00:52:34:08 – 00:52:50:17
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Yeah, yeah. So on Instagram, I’m at Doctor Cassidy. Come find me on Fridays. I share funny TikToks. On Fridays. It’s a good time. And then, on my podcast is Holding Space, which you can find anywhere that you stream podcast. And we have all sorts of conversations like this one.

00:52:50:20 – 00:53:07:12
Dr. Mona
And I will be linking not only her resources, but also the links that she mentioned, you know. Psychology TODAY.com Maria, all of that. So if you are interested in this and you feel like it’s a good fit, that you can get the resources and actually have those conversations to find out if it’s going to work for you. And thanks again for taking this time today.

00:53:07:15 – 00:53:16:01
Dr. Mona
I’m so grateful. It’s something I really wanted to get out there. And you really delivered in terms of helping people learn about the truth and how it can be so beneficial.

00:53:16:04 – 00:53:17:20
Dr. Cassidy Freitas
Thank you so much for having me.

00:53:17:27 – 00:53:49:22
Dr. Mona
Yes, and for everyone listening. If you love this episode one, make sure you share it on any social media channels. Tag after Cassidy, tag myself and then also make sure you leave a review and rating on how much this helped you. I know so many of my followers are starting eMDR or have been interested in it, so I want to hear how this helped you either make that decision, or what your experience with eMDR or therapy in general, so that we can normalize 12 year olds, 25 year olds, 38 year olds getting therapy because it’s beneficial and we all need it to subject.

00:53:49:24 – 00:53:51:24
Dr. Mona
Thank you so much. Thank you.