EMDR coaching

EMDR coaching

We do EMDR coaching with athletes and performing artists. Improving performance and well-being is the key goal of coaching in these cases.

The concept of EMDR mental coaching is new but refers to the EMDR method and framework (used in Finland since 1996), which has been widely used in psychotherapy and has since become the WHO recommendation for post-traumatic stress disorder. The EMDR method is based on an adaptive information processing model. According to this model, the starting point of coaching is the idea that the current challenges of an athlete, for example, are the result of negative experiences of the past that have been stored in memory networks in an inappropriate way. 

EMDR coaching focuses on the client's disturbing memories and related cognitions, emotions and body sensations at the same time as he/she is given a bilateral stimulus. The goal of the coaching is to restart the information processing system and to adapt the emotions and cognitions related to the event to their neutral and non-disturbing emotional components. 

The client's mental challenges are often based on a variety of difficult but normal life experiences (such as relationship challenges, difficult coaching relationship, injury or failure) and related difficult and disruptive emotions - such as fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, shame, guilt, or helplessness. These underlying experiences can be decades old, but on an unconscious level, they can be activated on memory networks during performance and interfere with performance. EMDR coaching neutralizes the negative emotions associated with memory traces, so that experiences and related memories no longer trigger during future performance and impair mental and physical performance.

We have been using EMDR coaching for about five years with the following sports, among others, both professional and amateur: horseback riding, figure skating, billiards, scaffolding, sailing, diving, and football. In terms of performing artists, we have experience especially with professional musicians and actors in the film and theater industry.

Things to be worked on have included underachievement or failure in competition, performance stress and anxiety, freezing, fear, injury and disability, rehabilitation, and termination of a sports career. The number of training sessions required to be effective has varied from one to a few times.

Our services for coaches, managers, and teams cover, among other things, mental coaching, and crisis intervention. We have developed the BS4 Online Help, based on EMDR therapy, which relieves performance tension and stress. Our psychotherapy services also cover the end-of-career therapy process, which can use the EMDR method, among other things. The BS4 Online Help, a video-assisted application for teamwork management, is also suitable for a group that wants to quickly work on and neutralize a negative experience and associated memory that could impair the future performance of a group.