SOFTER Trauma Healing with OEI, Is It BETTER Than EMDR?

Have you ever tried something to fix your trauma and walked away feeling worse?

You’re not alone.

Some trauma therapies are intense for the sensitivities of survival.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can work, but for many individuals, it’s just too much all at once.

Let’s face it, confronting your past is not fun.

Why exposure therapy can feel too intense for trauma survivors

If you’ve felt overwhelmed in EMDR sessions, you might be unintentionally making things worse. There’s even a term for this, Iatrogenic harm, where the solution, inadvertently makes the problem worse.

This just pours gasoline on the fire and when you’re trying to escape a burning house, you don’t have time to fix a leaky faucet. You’re in survival mode.

Overwhelm shows you that your brain is on fire – and not in a good way.

That can happen in trauma therapy, especially when the focus is on reliving and reprocessing painful memories.

hmmm, doesn’t sound very trauma-informed. We have to update the definition, it needs to be soft and gentle to cool down the brain.

EMDR uses exposure to reduce the emotional charge of traumatic memories.

It’s like putting someone who is afraid of spiders into a bathtub filled with all kinds of spiders.

Not cool.

It pours gasoline on your brain and the brain can’t heal when it’s on fire.

How OEI is gentler than EMDR for trauma healing

OEI, which stands for Observed and Experiential Integration, takes a different path.

It still helps your brain reprocess painful material, but in a way that doesn’t push you past your limits.

You don’t have to talk about the trauma. You don’t have to relive every moment.

Remembering is not recovering.

You don’t have to recall because retelling causes revivification. It makes you re-experience the trauma.

Have you ever tried to talk about something emotional and the words wouldn’t come out?

OEI works with that. Instead of verbal processing, it uses visual processing.

This works better because trauma prevents processing by the verbal part of the brain.

OEI uses your visual processing system to help your brain do the work underneath the surface.

By working with one eye at a time, the therapist helps you process stuck emotional material gently. Many clients find it grounding, not triggering like EMDR.

Desensitization through exposure can sometimes feel harsh, especially for individuals with complex trauma.

When EMDR doesn’t feel right or didn’t work, OEI might be a better fit

Some therapies focus on getting you to tolerate more distress.

But ain’t nobody wants to lie in a bathtub of spiders.

If you didn’t have trauma before, you will after that creepy experience.

OEI is more about helping the distress move through you at a level that is gentle, so you can get stuck.

You don’t have to tough it out.

It doesn’t have to be harsh.

You need feel safe and grounded while you’re healing.

You need to cool your brain.

And OEI is also very flexible and intuitive. It responds to your needs in the present moment, which is exactly what someone who is already struggling needs.

PEI therapy works inside your window of tolerance or your brain will catch on fire.

You get more choice. You stay more connected to your body and your surroundings.

We always hang out in places where it feels better, not worse.

If you’ve struggled with EMDR or other intense trauma therapies, OEI might feel like cool, fresh air.

Not because it avoids hard stuff, but because it understands what is happening in your brain and works with it, not against it.

Let’s connect.