EMDR: Getting Over Past Trauma for Good

Summary

Podcast Summary: Change Your Brain Every Day

Episode: EMDR – Getting Over Past Trauma for Good

Hosts: Dr. Daniel Amen & Tana Amen
Release Date: May 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the journey of overcoming trauma, focusing on Tana Amen’s personal experiences and how Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy played a pivotal role in her healing. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana discuss the intersections of brain health, trauma, relationships, and therapeutic interventions, offering insights and real-life stories that underline the efficacy of trauma-focused therapy—particularly EMDR—in achieving lasting change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meeting, Relationships, and Trust Issues

• Tana and Daniel open with a candid reflection on their early relationship, highlighting deep-seated trust and intimacy issues stemming from past traumas.
• Dr. Amen discusses first recognizing signs of ADD and possible brain injuries in Tana ([02:49]).
  • Quote: “During our first date, I sort of thought you had ADD.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([02:49])
• Tana expresses skepticism regarding ADD diagnoses, associating it with stigma and excuse-making.

2. The Power of Brain Imaging in Uncovering Trauma

• Dr. Amen scans Tana’s brain early in their relationship, revealing patterns consistent with ADD and prior brain injury ([03:29]–[04:36]).
• Tana’s own medical background leads her to underestimate the significance of "non-catastrophic" head injuries until Amen explains the invisible impacts on mood and cognition.
  • Quote: “Your brain is soft, your skull is hard, your skull has sharp bony ridges…” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([04:36])

3. Medication Mishaps and the Importance of Personalization

• Tana recounts a harrowing experience with Prozac, which, due to her brain’s specific patterns, led to a drastic shift in her personality and decision-making ([05:23]–[07:28]).
  • Quote: “If you put someone on something that drops their frontal lobes and their frontal lobes are already sleepy… it increases impulsivity and affects their judgment.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([06:24])
• Emphasis on tailoring mental health interventions—what works for one can be disastrous for another.

4. Uncovering Childhood Trauma and Gut Health

• Physical health complaints like chronic GI problems date back to age four and correlate with a traumatic family incident: the murder of Tana’s uncle and broader household chaos ([07:48]–[10:22]).
• The hosts stress the brain-gut connection, with serotonin levels influencing both emotional safety and digestive health.
  • Quote: “Serotonin…is wildly important to your gut and it gives you a sense of safety… So think serotonin and safety.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([10:22])

5. Resistance to the Trauma Label and the Power of Denial

• Tana’s resistance to seeing herself as "traumatized," and the defensive maneuvering many survivors employ ([12:56]–[13:21]).
  • Quote: “Denial is a very important defense mechanism. And you were in denial.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([13:21])
• Dr. Amen gently challenges this denial by connecting physical, emotional, and psychological symptoms with traumatic experiences.

6. Encounters with Byron Katie and the Path to Self-Acceptance

• Daniel brings Tana to meet Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is, leading to a profound breakthrough in self-awareness ([14:42]–[19:30]).
• A candid discussion about eating disorders and the universality of self-judgment among women.
  • Quote: “Their thoughts were virtually identical… it didn’t matter what size they were, how old they were.” – Tana Amen ([19:19])
• The set of “four questions” (Katie’s process) is introduced as a transformative tool to challenge and reframe self-critical thoughts.

7. Naming Your Mind – A Practical Tool

• Dr. Amen shares a tip from Steven Hayes: give your mind a name ("Hermie") to develop psychological distance from anxious or negative thoughts ([20:59]–[22:04]).
  • Quote: “You don’t have to believe every stupid thing you think.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([22:04])

8. EMDR: Experience and Effects

• Dr. Amen’s history with EMDR and its dramatic effectiveness for trauma survivors, including himself and police officers ([25:32]–[27:51]).
  • Quote: “That one [EMDR session] was like 30 minutes. And I never felt anxious about the investigation again.” – Dr. Daniel Amen ([27:17])
• Tana, initially a skeptic, describes her EMDR process as unraveling the threads of her traumatic experiences and finally connecting the dots in a non-linear, powerful way ([27:51]–[31:20]).
  • Notable is the realization that healing often feels worse before it gets better, as denial gives way to pain and then resolution.
  • Quote: “It got worse before it got better… I found myself feeling angry before I felt better.” – Tana Amen ([31:51])

9. Healing Family Relationships

• Reconciling with her estranged father after he is misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Dr. Amen’s intervention not only transforms her father’s health, but also grants Tana the gift of forgiveness and closure ([39:11]–[43:38]).
  • Quote: “We were able to work through that, and it was—it really was—a gift.” – Tana Amen ([43:20])
• EMDR, writing her book, and therapy help Tana find perspective and peace regarding her parents’ actions, seeing them through an adult lens.

10. Motivations for Healing

• Tana’s primary motivation to work through trauma is to become a healthier parent to her daughter, breaking the cycle of emotional pain ([33:40]–[34:53]).
  • Quote: “I wanted to parent my daughter from a healthy place. I knew I… was going to be doing it from this fake place.” – Tana Amen ([33:40])

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Memorable Quotes

• On trauma patterns:
  “You could see it on my scan, the PTSD pattern.” – Tana Amen ([13:03])

• On self-disclosure and liberation:
  “I said it out loud. And in so many ways, it was freeing.” – Tana Amen ([20:17])

• On trauma and recovery:
  “It did take… it got worse before it got better… and then I came full circle, and I was able to let it go.” – Tana Amen ([31:37]–[32:49])

• On forgiveness:
  “We were able to work through that, and it really was a gift. And that was when I realized I was arguing with God again.” – Tana Amen ([43:23])

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Important Timestamps

• 02:49 – Dr. Amen suspects ADD in Tana during their first date.
• 04:36 – Tana’s head injury is revealed as significant through brain imaging.
• 06:24 – Discussion of Prozac’s counteractive effect on sleepy frontal lobes.
• 10:22 – Connection between serotonin, gut issues, and lack of safety.
• 13:21 – Tana’s denial of trauma, Daniel’s observations.
• 14:42–19:30 – Meeting Byron Katie; breakthroughs around eating disorders and thought patterns.
• 20:59 – Strategy: Naming your mind (“Hermie”) to separate from harmful thoughts.
• 27:17 – Dr. Amen’s first EMDR experience and its immediate impact.
• 27:51–31:20 – Tana’s EMDR journey, skepticism turning to transformation.
• 31:51 – The reality that trauma processing often gets more difficult before relief comes.
• 39:11–43:38 – Healing the relationship with her father after misdiagnosis; finding closure and peace.

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Tone & Style

The episode balances humor, candor, and vulnerability. Both hosts maintain an encouraging, approachable, and non-judgmental style, with Tana’s skeptical and practical perspective complementing Dr. Amen’s expertise and optimism.

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Summary Takeaways

• Trauma’s effects are profound, but with the right tools and support (like EMDR), lasting healing is possible—even if the journey is stormy.
• Personalized mental health care, including understanding the brain and past experiences, is crucial for genuine transformation.
• Opening up about trauma breaks isolation and encourages others to seek help.
• Self-forgiveness, compassion for others (including family), and breaking generational cycles are powerful outcomes of doing the work.
• Healing often looks like unraveling before it feels whole—but the process is ultimately freeing.

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Listener Engagement

Throughout the episode, the Amens encourage listeners to reflect on their own stories, share them, and consider therapy or brain-healthy interventions if struggling with trauma. Listeners are repeatedly urged to connect, comment, and seek community in their healing journeys.

Transcript

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. So the year is 2005. At the end of 2005, we meet each other.

[Tana Amen]

Well, we left off with sort of a cliffhanger story, and life was a little crazy, so just we're not going to go into all of that. Lots happens in the book between the Playboy cancer story and me meeting you, and it's not all good. Some of it's very good. But there's a lot of ups and downs during that time. And then I meet you. Yes.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And then you meet me. And our first formal date was January 1, 2006. We sort of think of that as our anniversary. And actually, we actually forget our real anniversary. We both forget our real anniversary a lot.

[Tana Amen]

I mean, January 1st is easy to

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

remember, so we remember that. And so 15 years ago, I totally didn't trust you. And I was, like, really excited.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah, I almost canceled my first date to meet you.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I'd been divorced six years and had a couple of relationships that, you know, were fine, but they weren't awesome. And then I meet you, and you are beautiful. You're smart, you're funny. My heart goes pitter patter. And then you keep pushing me away, pushing me away, pushing me away.

[Tana Amen]

Well, you kept trying to marry me. Like, you. Like you just like.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I didn't ask you to marry me.

[Tana Amen]

You did pretty quick. You were pretty serious pretty quick. And it just. You were so nice, and I didn't trust it. It's like I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. There's no way I trusted that you were that nice.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. No, I should have been way more anxious than I was.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

About you.

[Tana Amen]

I tried to tell you. I tried to tell you I was helping you. I tried to tell you I am doing you a favor, did I not?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You did, and you were wrong. Because ultimately, being married to you is the best decision I made. So, you know, I sort of had a sense that you were the one, and then you kept going away. But, you know, there are a couple of really pivotal parts after we met, because this is just how I am. I scanned you, like, two and a half weeks later. I'm like, you haven't seen the clinic? Don't you want to see the clinic?

[Tana Amen]

And I'm like, and you want to see my naked brain? I did give you credit for most original line. Yeah, I heard a lot of lines, and that one was very original.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And during our first Date. I sort of thought you had add.

[Tana Amen]

I did not have add.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You totally had ADD your whole life. Your mother has ADD from hell.

[Tana Amen]

And I just thought, I thought ADD was total nonsense, an excuse to fail, not try.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And when I sort of just ask questions about it.

[Tana Amen]

Oh, yeah, you're like, oh, but you drink two pots of coffee every day. And in your words, you get up at 4 o' clock in the morning to do a hard two hour workout so you can quote, unquote, clear the cobwebs. And I'm like, yeah, so. And you work in a trauma unit where it's like the most intense unit in the hospital.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And a lot of trauma doctors are ADD because they just thrive on the dopamine hit. And so when I scanned, you showed, yes, indeed, you did have a little bit, but then your brain had been hurt.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah. Which I also thought was crazy.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

But I'm like, well, have you ever had a brain injury? Now she works in a neurosurgical ICU unit, so she thinks you have to

[Tana Amen]

have like, that means like, yeah, you cracked your skull open. It's brain in your brain. When I asked, you're in a coma.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And she said no. And then I asked her again and she said, Well, I was 25 and my sister fell asleep at the wheel and we were going 75 miles an hour and she fell asleep and the car flipped three times and the roof was smashed in and you lived only because you were reclined.

[Tana Amen]

I was reclined. Yeah. And I, you know, I didn't, I walked away. So I guess I was just so grateful that I walked away from it. May I remember being jostled back and forth. So. But I, you know, I think I hit.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

But if you just think of. Your brain is soft, your skull is hard, your skull has sharp bony ridges, those forces. Is your brain spinning?

[Tana Amen]

Well, stopping. I mean, as a nurse, I'm like, we arrest people for shaking baby syndrome. Right. So for a reason. But it, but up until then, that never made sense to me because I'm thinking brain injury means you're in a coma. So you know those types of things. So.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And you were not. And I could see evidence on.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah, I could see a little dent. I'm like, what the heck is that?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. And sometimes that can go with mood instability or irritability. Not that anyone would ever notice that.

[Tana Amen]

As long as I'm not in line, I can't be in line. I hate being in line. And I don't like when construction is late on my brain.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

But even despite that you had a beautiful brain. And one of the first things I said is, I hope they didn't put you on Prozac.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah. And I literally. My jaw hit the. I'm like, why? And he said, because. He's like. You know, he's like, there are probably medications that would have helped you, but that wouldn't be one I would suspect. Did. He said, you said you were depressed. Did they put you on Prozac? And I'm like, they did, and it almost ruined my life. And, I mean, I did some crazy stuff on Prozac. And so, I mean, I'm just lucky that I. Whether it was the grace of God or I still had some, you know, semblance of control left. Enough to just, like, not totally ruin my life, but it could have ruined my life. And so you're like. And I'm like, why would you not put me on Prozac? And then you sort of show me my brain scan. You're like, this part of your brain is sleepy. Your frontal lobes. And what Prozac does is it increases serotonin. It's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So it increases the available serotonin, which drops your frontal lobes, but yours are already sleepy. So if you put someone on something that drops their frontal lobes and their frontal lobes are already sleepy, that increases impulsivity, and it affects their judgment, and it's the executive center of their brain. And I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. My whole life made sense. Like, that whole period of time where I was like, why do I just keep doing stupid things and I don't care? Like, the weird part was, it wasn't the stupid. Doing stupid things wasn't even the craziest part. It was the not caring, because that's not like me. I'm an anxious person. Like, you know me, I'm a very anxious person.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yes.

[Tana Amen]

So it did not prepare for the

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

end of the world.

[Tana Amen]

I prepare for everything. Like, I mean, in school, I was like, everything had to be turned in way early. So all of a sudden, I just didn't care. And for that. And what went off? Prozac, it went away. And so I was like, oh, my God, that makes so much sense. And I remember thinking that psychiatrist that put me on that. And he had increased. He had doubled my dose when I complained that I didn't feel right. Like, he should have been arrested for not actually, like, paying attention. Okay, well, he shouldn't have been taught that. I'm sorry. I'm a patient from a patient Dragon

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Judgmental dragon in his head.

[Tana Amen]

Absolutely. When it ruins your life. Yes, I get to say that. Yes, I do. Anybody out there feel this way? Anybody else out there experiences? Please leave a comment. I want to know, because I know I'm not the only one.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You are not.

[Tana Amen]

Yes.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So lots of insights. And another thing you told me was since the age of four, you had upper and lower GIs. And I'm like, well, what happened at four? And nothing.

[Tana Amen]

My standard response was nothing. Everything was fine.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And then I learned your uncle was.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah, you're, like, really sneaky. Like, you're super sneaky.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Oh, no. I have a book.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Don't Date a Shrink called the Brain in Love that I actually wrote when we were dating. The Brain in love. And there's chapter six. It's called Seeing the Dead Animals around the Oasis of Love. It's actually, if you're dating and you

[Tana Amen]

didn't run when you met me, it's

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

actually when you're dating, how to screen people for brain health, emotional health issues. Are they going to be a good partner or not? Well, for me, I have this rescue thing, which you hate because, you know,

[Tana Amen]

I hate because I don't think of myself, and I don't think of myself as a victim either. So.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You're not a victim. Yeah, but I thought that's why I kept pushing, because I cared about you, that I could be helpful to you. And so when I learned, really, the stories in the relentless courage, like I

[Tana Amen]

said, you're sneaky about getting information that

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

with help, you could just be even more amazing than I already thought you were. And one of my first gifts to you was emdr.

[Tana Amen]

Well, but you. Let's go back to the story, because you're like, what happened at 4? Like, you. You were having upper and lower GI's. That doesn't make sense. Then you found out that, you know, my uncle was murdered and there was other stuff, and you thought it was all nauseous and my dad was coming and going and doing drugs and, you know, whatever. There was a lot of stuff that was. And that's how I said it to you. I'm like, yeah, but it was just like, what happens to everybody, right? It's like garden variety dysfunctional. And so. And you're like. And you just. You had that look right there. And you're like, no, that's not like. No, you're like. So two weeks after this incident where your uncle was murdered, and there's screaming and chaos and, you know, craziness in your house, and you get pushed away and you feel sort of rejected. You start having these GI issues. And I was sick all the time. I mean, I was always on antibiotics.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, and most people don't know. Serotonin, that helps you feel normal is wildly important to your gut, and it gives you a sense of safety, that you can eat these foods or you can digest these foods. So think serotonin and safety. And you had no safety.

[Tana Amen]

No, I did not feel safe.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You had no safety. So when we come back, we're gonna talk about how important trauma therapy is to being well. Did you learn anything besides don't marry a psychiatrist? Write it down. Post it on any of your social media sites. Leave us a comment, question or. Or review. On busy clinic days or long writing sessions, I take peak energy for clean, steady focus. No crash. It just won a 2025 Nextie Award, beating over 500 supplements. Get [e-mail] use code podcast20 for 20% off.

[Tana Amen]

Welcome back. We are still talking about my journey and when I met you and how things changed and my reluctance at dating a psychiatrist. So we're talking about the relentless courage of a scared child. So, yeah, things changed when I met you.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. Now pay attention to the lessons. There's a lot of lessons and we just dearly love it. If you write it down, post it on any of your social media sites, hashtag brainwariorsway Podcast.

[Tana Amen]

And that's one of the. I mean, that's one of the reasons I wrote this, Right? I wrote this because there's no reason for me to just have people, like, voyeuristically looking into my life. I wrote this because the lessons and the things that people write to me, so I really want. And the comments I've been getting recently with some of the stuff we've been talking about have been sort of mind blowing. So. So I know there's a lot of people suffering, and I think when we open up this part of ourselves, it's really scary. But all of a sudden, you just don't feel alone. The stories I've been getting, the messages I've been getting have been really, really powerful. So I really do love getting those from you. Please keep sending them. And that is the reason that we're talking about all this. So let me know if it resonates.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So knowing about this drama, I'm thinking to myself, and I.

[Tana Amen]

And I hated when you used the word trauma. Do you remember that? I got so angry. I'm like, I am not traumatized, but you could see it on my skin. I Could you showed me the trauma pattern in my skin, the PTSD pattern? I'm like, what? No, I don't have trauma. Like, I'm not trauma. No.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. No. Denial is a very important defense mechanism. And you were in denial, yet you had just come out of a pretty traumatic marriage that was not good. Little bit. And you hadn't been settled.

[Tana Amen]

No.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And you had a baby. That Chloe was just turned two after we had met. And I adored her. She had 12 word sentences. I mean, she was just a little chatterbox. She still is. And so, you know, no matter who is in my life, I always just want them to be better. So you can go. You have, you know, rescue complex. And I'm like, that's where I get a sense of significance. Being helpful. It's why we do this. I like being helpful. And for whatever reason, my oxytocin level went way up when I was with you. It just made me happy. And so a couple of important things. I took you to meet my friend Byron. Katie.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah. That was mind bending.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I had read her book, Loving what is so right before I had met you, I dated someone for three years. And when she went away, it just broke my heart. I mean, I was just not normal. It's really the first time in my life, except losing my grandfather, I felt grief. I mean, it's just super off and sad. And then she and I are published by the same imprint at Random House. And I read her book, and then I got to meet her, and then I got to treat half the people in her family. That sort of how it goes with me. And I just. I fell in love with her work. And I still teach it all the time.

[Tana Amen]

Me, too.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And I had an opportunity to go visit her. And so you and I went and visited her.

[Tana Amen]

I had no idea what I was in for. I had no idea what I was in for.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And what did you learn?

[Tana Amen]

So, first of all, I was. Well, I thought that I was really good at having my wall, my facade intact. I was really good at it. And most people thought I had it pretty. Even you thought I had it pretty together. I mean, yeah, you're a shrink and you would get little pieces out of me, but you still thought I had my life pretty together for the most part. I mean, I had a good job, my house. I owned my house and didn't have a lot of bills. And for. On the outside, it looks like so

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

much attractive about you from how smart you are, how empathic you are, to be a neurosurgical ICU nurse. You can take care of the sickest people. So kind, competent, beautiful. I mean, you know, we went through the whole Playboy thing. So. Yeah, I mean there's just. I was completely taken, but thought maybe with a few.

[Tana Amen]

But you kept seeing this trauma, but, but even you at first, yeah, you kept mentioning this trauma and I was so irritated and it irritated me. But what even you didn't know at first was that I had never really addressed that I had suffered with an eating disorder secretly. So from the time I was 17 years old when my mom took me to UCLA Eating Disorders Clinic and they freaked me out so badly that I left and just, I'm like, I did not come here to get labeled and see people die. I mean, someone went into a code blue while I was there. A 17 year old, because she had heart, she went into heart failure or no cardiac arrest. And it freaked me out so badly that I never went back and got treated. And so I just would exercise as hard as I could to manage my anxiety. But every now and then it would, it would peak its head when, when, like when I got cancer and I couldn't exercise or when I, when I went through my divorce and I was working like crazy hours and trying to take care of a baby and just. Life was just overwhelming and then it would, it popped its head up and. And I just, I felt like such a failure. But I couldn't let anyone see that. And so I didn't even tell you. And I couldn't say the word. So I couldn't say certain words like molested. I couldn't say, make it, say it in the context of other people, but not me. I couldn't say the B word. And so I remember when I met Byron, Katie, and one of the first things she asked me was how long I'd suffered with an eating disorder. And I'm like, or she said disordered eating or something. I don't remember exactly what she said, but I'm like, I was stunned. And I had finally just told you like on the drive up there. I don't know why. Something had prompted me and I was

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

in the hotel room and I was

[Tana Amen]

so angry at you because I thought you told her. And you're like, I didn't say anything. I just learned myself. I just found out myself. And so I was like so mad. Cause I prided myself on no one knowing anything. And it just, everything began to crumble from that moment. It just like, like a, just like a house of cards. It just began to, one by one, you know, just break Down. Yeah. So I write the story in the book and it's pretty powerful story about how she turned that thought around, you know, with the. Is it true? Can you know it's true. How do you feel when you have that thought? Who would you be without that thought? And then we turn it to its opposite and it was just. It's a really powerful lesson.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, and then I took you to a three day workshop by Katie up at Esalen, and there's this very powerful exercise where she has you write down your thoughts about your body. And what you discovered was. And you're like in a size 0 jeans and that your thoughts were virtually

[Tana Amen]

identical to every woman in there. Didn't matter what they looked like, didn't matter what size they were, how old they were. It was mind boggling. They all had the exact same thoughts.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And you actually tell the story in the book of a woman who stands up and reads her list and it's the same as your list, but she's like much older than I am and overweight.

[Tana Amen]

And I'm like, I was so mind boggling.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And then you got up and just like shocked me in front of all those people. There are like hundreds of. And you commented on her thoughts and

[Tana Amen]

I commented on mine because she had said something about sort of women like me. And I was like, oh, hold up right now.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And then afterwards, you told someone else you struggled with an eating disorder. And I'm looking at you like you actually said that.

[Tana Amen]

I said it out loud.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah, you said it out loud. And in so many ways it was freeing.

[Tana Amen]

Well, it opened up the door. I knew I wasn't. That wasn't it. I wasn't done that. That was the beginning. All of a sudden I felt ready to go to therapy. I felt ready to. You had given me a gift of 10 sessions of EMDR. And at first I was like, why would you give me a gift of therapy?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I want to talk about that in the next one. Because it's such an important treatment tool for trauma. But.

[Tana Amen]

But only a shrink would give you but in therapy, as a gift.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

But an Esalen, you really got to dive deeply into these five questions.

[Tana Amen]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

You are not your mind. In fact, I'm going to give you, as a bonus for staying with us, a new exercise that I learned from our friend Steven Hayes. You're going to meet him soon. Is give your mind a name. That way you can separate from your mind. And the name I've given my mind is Hermie. So Hermie was my pet raccoon when I was 16 and I loved her. I actually didn't know it was her until she had babies. But Hermie used to talk all the time, all the time. And she never said anything, at least anything that I.

[Tana Amen]

That made sense.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

That made sense. And now that I've named my mind hermy that I get to choose if I listen to it or I don't listen to it. And what Katie really teaches is you don't have to believe every stupid thing you think.

[Tana Amen]

Right.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Is it helping or is it hurting? You should carry these three words around with you all the time. Is it hurting True that just because you have a thought has nothing to do with whether or not it's true. And then you actually ended up taking her nine day course.

[Tana Amen]

I did.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

To really get in the deep end. That was hard of managing your mind and that you don't have to believe everything you think. All right, so when we come back, we're going to talk about your experience with emdr. You had a masterful therapist and it was hard. And initially some of the feelings you had, like about your mom, it turned from, oh, we have this great relationship to not so much, which then came full circle. So anyways, stay with us. If you learned anything like give your mind a name, write it down, post it on any of your social media sites, leave us a comment, question or review. Struggling with your mental health at Amen clinics We use brain imaging and personalized care to help you heal at 11 locations. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Orange County, California, Seattle and Scottsdale. Visit amenclinics.com welcome back. I'm here with my beautiful wife and we're talking about her new book, the Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. I am so proud of her. In this session, we're going to talk about trauma and a specific treatment for trauma called emdr.

[Tana Amen]

But before we do, I want to read a review. Three wily girls. This podcast was the first podcast I started listening to and it's changed my life and my family. My husband had severe acid reflux and allergies. He no longer has to take medicine. Wow. My two girls, 13 and 14, are now eating healthy food as a choice, not because they have to. I'm a middle aged woman with midlife issues and I'm happy to report I run circles around women half my age. I love that. I've also learned how to love my brain, which in turn taught me how to love myself. When mom is happy, the whole family's happy. Isn't that True.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

It's so true. At least in my house.

[Tana Amen]

So thank you so much for that. You get either the end of mental illness or the relentless courage of a scared child. Or you can have the cookbook, the brainwasher.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, and we have to make sure we tell people that we have an event coming.

[Tana Amen]

Oh, that's right.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

December 12th. And you can sign up for the event at 10Amen.com forward/event. You can also pre order the book. And if you do, you get all sorts of gifts@relentless courage.com so if you

[Tana Amen]

preorder the over $400 worth of gifts,

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

you get a lot of great free things.

[Tana Amen]

But if you go to Amazon or somewhere else, you need to then go to my site and show me the receipt, and then we'll give you the gifts. If you go to relentless courage.com, you can just download them. Yeah. Or you can go to relentless courage.com and actually enter your receipt number.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. So trauma, sort of the whole book is trauma. It's overcoming trauma, but overcoming trauma. So one of my gifts to you. So I studied EMDR, and I first learned about it around 1995. I had an EMDR trainer who worked with us in our Northern California clinic, our first clinic. Her name was Jennifer Lendl, and I just loved her. And 1996, I get investigated by the California Medical Board because I'm doing imaging, and it's like, you shouldn't be doing things outside the standard of care. So for a whole year, I got investigated, and I wasn't sleeping. I was anxious, I was traumatized. And I went and did one session with you because she saw I was really upset, and she's like, come here. We did one session. That one was like 30 minutes. And I never felt anxious about the investigation again. We won the investigation. Nothing bad happened. I became an expert for the California Medical Board after that. And I'm like, wow, this is so powerful. That could take a traumatizing, ongoing, traumatizing event and make me not care about it. Now, I still did all the things I needed to do to win the investigation, but I was impressed by how much that helped me. And then I did a study on emdr, on police officers who were involved in shootings, and all of them went back to work. They were all off work, and it changed their brain. And so when I'm listening about the murder of your uncle, the near drowning, the molestation, the date rape, being attacked when I was 15, cancer, it just

[Tana Amen]

reads like a horror film.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I'm like, you know, I think this will Help you. So I actually paid for 10 sessions of EMDR. You saw a wonderful. She was fantastic EMDR therapist. So what was it like for you?

[Tana Amen]

So, initially, I was. I was reluctant because I. I'm like, I am not going to go in and, you know, have some shrink, like, have me bang my head against a wall talking about my problems for three years and telling me how screwed up my mom is. I'm not doing it. So I was very reluctant. I didn't really understand what EMDR was. I wasn't into psychobabble. I'm like, I didn't. Like. I didn't like walkie talkies when I was working. I wanted them intubated and sedated. Like, make no mistake about it, I didn't want to talk about problems. So that was me.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

How did we get together?

[Tana Amen]

I know, right? I almost canceled my first date with you. But that's how I had survived. I had survived by not being a victim, by not talking about it as a problem. Doesn't mean I was thriving. It just means I was surviving. And so. But I finally, after the Byron Katie event, I went, you know, maybe there's a chance that life is better than this. I mean, it just opened up that possibility. Maybe there's a chance that life is better than this, that I don't have to hide so much and I don't have to pretend so much. And so it's like, you know, the fake it till you make it. I thought that was normal. And so I remember going in and I thought, well, I'll go try it once.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

If I don't like it, I don't

[Tana Amen]

have to go back. And I went. And she was so cool. Number one, my therapist was so cool. Like, I loved her. She just completely was, like, identified with me. She was really good at gaining rapport, so I really loved her. She herself had. Had. Well, actively had cancer. So I just. I just really loved her. But I didn't realize EMDR is sort of like. It's not really a shortcut. I don't want to call it a shortcut. It's not a shortcut, but you don't need to go on and on and on and on for a long period of time. You sort of quickly cut to the chase with emdr, you get to the core of the trauma really quickly. And I still wasn't even sure I felt about this word trauma, but she'd ask certain questions, and then she does the eye movement thing, which I'm like, how the hell is this going to work?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So you could learn more about EMDR@EMDR ia.org EMDR international association.org and I write about it and a number of my books, and it's just.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah, but no one is more skeptical than I am about stuff like this, so I'm like, very skeptical.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Psychobabble.

[Tana Amen]

Psychobabble, right.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Which you now promote all the time because it works. So.

[Tana Amen]

So she's doing this I thing, and all of a sudden, these weird, random thoughts are popping up in my head. Like, weird, random thoughts are popping up in my head, and I'm like. She's like, so, you know, like, how do you feel about this now? And I'm like, I don't know. Weird thoughts are coming to my head. She's like, nothing is random. So tell me what it is. So all of a sudden, it's like this sweater unraveling, and. And I'm like, things I thought that were normal when I was growing up, all of a sudden I'm like. I don't even know how to explain it. They began to connect. It's like putting a puzzle together, but then you can see the whole picture, and it no longer sort of doesn't make sense. Does that make sense? Like, it like, all of a sudden, the whole picture just comes together and you're like, oh, like, it doesn't. Like, it's not this, like, weird, random pieces of puzzle pieces anymore. And so.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And so your behaviors begin to make sense, and the eye movement actually is calming the limbic or emotional structures in your brain, and so you begin to take away the emotional charge of those earlier.

[Tana Amen]

But I will say this. It did take. Like. What happened for me was. I don't know if this happens for everybody. And maybe it's because I had had a number of traumatic events, even though that was hard for me to. Like, it's like hundreds of them. About hundreds. But no.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

When you grow up with screaming and gunshots and people breaking into the house and your mom not coming home night after night after night, there are hundreds, maybe thousands.

[Tana Amen]

But I think I survived. But I survived. And I know people watching. I know because I'm getting the messages. I keep hearing my life was your life. So I know that there's a lot of people who go through that. And I started telling myself it was normal. I started telling myself that was normal. So when I started to all of a sudden realize, oh, wait, maybe that wasn't so normal. That was hard. And that's when, rather than getting better right away, it was like, I almost had to, like, acknowledge that it wasn't normal. Do a little bit of backtracking. It got worse before it got better. And I started unraveling all of those events almost one by one, if that makes sense. And so I found myself feeling angry before I felt better. Like, people that I thought that I was close to, I'm like, that wasn't normal. That wasn't okay. What happened? Like, I found myself getting kind of angry. Like, the child that should have reacted that way, that didn't. That couldn't. All of a sudden was angry. And then I came full circle, and I was able to let it go. So for me, I don't know if that's normal for everybody.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

It's very normal. And your mom, who, when you and I first met, you had idolized.

[Tana Amen]

She was tough.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

That took a dip.

[Tana Amen]

It did. It took a dip.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

It was hard that, you know, some of the things she did, you know, she was doing them often for her attempt at survival, but they were clearly not good for a child.

[Tana Amen]

Right.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Like.

[Tana Amen]

And she was a young mom. I mean, now I understand the whole. Writing my story helped me understand the whole perspective, but it got worse before it got better.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Does that. It actually can help you put childhood wounds into an adult perspective, and you can have your adult self go back and almost repair.

[Tana Amen]

Right. That's kind of what happens. And so I want to hear, which

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

made you a better mother.

[Tana Amen]

That was one of my reasons for doing that. One of my big motivations for doing it was I did. I wanted to parent my daughter from a healthy place. And I knew I wasn't going to. I was going to be doing it from this fake place. In fact, I have a story about my daughter walking down the mall with me, and she stopped and looked at me, and she goes, mommy, people look at you funny. And I go, what do you mean? She goes, they look at you like you're shiny. And I was like, oh, my gosh. What she was seeing was my facade. And if my toddler could see this, I was so worried that she was going to grow up thinking that was normal.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

See, no. People look at you because you're beautiful.

[Tana Amen]

That's not how I saw it.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I have. We were in Venice on a.

[Tana Amen]

Okay, no, stop. Stop.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

What you telling us people would go, oh, American Barbie, that's not important. That's why people look at you.

[Tana Amen]

But that's not what I wanted. I didn't want her growing up thinking she. She had to have makeup all the time or hair done all the time, that if she wanted to be in sweats and no makeup, that was fine. I wanted her to value herself for more than her physical appearance because I knew how painful it was when you lose that. So I felt like she was seeing the facade. And so whether that's what it was or not, it told me that I needed to change something.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

All right, when we come back, but

[Tana Amen]

before we come back, I want to hear from you. Your messages have been just so encouraging to me. This was a very scary journey for me to take. It was a painful journey for me to take. But hearing from you about your things that you went through growing up that you've been afraid to talk about up until now that you haven't shared or that, you know, maybe you're finding the courage to finally share. I want to hear from you, please. So tag me.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. So did you learn anything? Hydration is more than just water. Your brain needs the right balance of electrolytes. I add smart electrolytes to my water every morning for fast hydration, brain support, and all day energy. There's no sugar, just clean ingredients. Try [e-mail] with Code Code Podcast. 20 for 20% off.

[Tana Amen]

Welcome back. We are still talking about my journey through the relentless courage of a scared child. We are hopefully finding and touching on topics that relate to you and some of the things that you guys have dealt with growing up. I'm getting these messages. I love them. Keep them coming, please. And we left off with emdr. And when we were dating and it

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

was sort of a perfect segue into about four months into our relationship, I

[Tana Amen]

had no idea what I was getting myself into with you.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

It's been the best time of your life.

[Tana Amen]

It has, but it was.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

There's.

[Tana Amen]

I was faced with a lot of

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

personal work, let's put it that way, right. Children have growing pains. It's because they're going to be bigger.

[Tana Amen]

And there was like working out in

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

the gym and one of the early things that happened for us. So when I was writing the Brain in Love, it just had been very clear to me, if you want someone to fall in love with you, you want to do something special for someone they love.

[Tana Amen]

But you probably should make sure they actually want you to do that for the person.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And so you got a call from

[Tana Amen]

my sisters, my two half sisters. And they were freaked out because my dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He was a recluse. He wouldn't come out of his room. He wasn't showering. He wasn't going to the grocery store. He was. Yeah, he was a mess. And I hadn't seen my dad. Now, because of my situation with him growing up, he had left when I was a baby. We did not have a good situation or relationship growing up, even after he finally came back and decided he was going to become a Baptist minister. And that was very complicated. His. His. His journey with religion was complicated and complicated our relationship more. I'll leave it at that. But I write about it in the book, but it didn't make things better, let me put it that way. Then he leaves the. He leaves the ministry and is again now doing drugs with my sister, one of my half sisters. And just. I just disconnected from him. And I finally had stopped being angry at him, but I also didn't have a relationship with it. I finally, along the way was just like, I'm too tired to be angry with him anymore. I disconnected from. From him, didn't talk to him for years. And then finally I was just like, I'm too exhausted to be angry, but I don't want to. I don't want him, like, in my life. And so then I get this call from my sisters that he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and they need help. And I'm like, and what's your point? Not my monkey, not my circus. Like, he's never been there for me. It's not my job to be there for him. And that's really how I felt. I was. I was. Had just come out of a really awful divorce. I was finally dating something. My life was finally getting back on track. I was doing a lot of hard work with myself. I had a baby, a toddler. And I. That was not. That was not even close to, like, on my list of things to do was take in a dad that had never been there for me.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. And for me, family, super important. John, one of seven.

[Tana Amen]

Your family's not like my family. Mine's like Jerry Springer. Yours is like Leave it to Beaver. So mine is like the Nightmare on Elm street, actually.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And so with his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, one of the reasons I got so excited about imaging is one of my very first cases was Matilda, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. And SPECT is actually very good at distinguishing. Is it Alzheimer's or vascular dementia or frontal temporal lobe dementia or pseudo dementia? And I don't really care if that's pseudo dementia. And when I put her on the right treatment for her brain, she got her memory back. And it's one of those dopamine. Aha. Oh, my God. Incredible moments. I mean, it's sort of like the movie Awakening. And when you have that kind of experience as a doctor and power, you remember it. And it just gave me all the chemicals of happiness. And so when I.

[Tana Amen]

And I loved what you did. I just didn't want to bring my dad into my life.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And so I said, well, you know, you should bring him down and we should see him and at least let me work him up. And.

[Tana Amen]

And I'm like, and where is he gonna stay? And you're like, with you. And I'm like, no, no, no.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I didn't mean forever. It just meant while I was.

[Tana Amen]

What happened?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, keep going with the story. So I scan him. He doesn't have Alzheimer's disease. In fact, he's on a toxic combination of medication that I end up pulling him off the medications. I mean, he had to stay so that I could work the plan, and

[Tana Amen]

he had to stay. Let's. Let's repeat that. He had to stay. So it wasn't temporary so you could work the plan, which means he lived with me and. Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And what happened?

[Tana Amen]

So here's the truth. It didn't just all of a sudden, our relationship didn't just all of a sudden get better, but we had time. We ended up with time. As his brain got better, we started having these opportunities to heal. And within months, he was actually. Not only did he not have Alzheimer's disease, he had pseudo dementia. And he gets better. He loses 20 pounds. He starts teaching all day seminars at the church and leading Bible study in my house, and he starts getting sort of back into his ministry. And I'm like, I don't know if I trust this right now, because I've never really trusted that with him. But he started like, I really could see this sincerity probably for the first time. Probably honestly for the first time ever. And so we started to have these opportunities to talk. And over time, now, we also had a lot of hard times that we had to work through, but we had the opportunity to have those hard times to work through. And then fast forward when we finally get married.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Became more independent.

[Tana Amen]

He became more independent. And as we got married, we ended up helping him get a roommate. And. And. And then a few years later, he ends up passing away with, you know, like a leukemia, like a blood disorder similar to leukemia. And. And nothing related to his brain. And he ends up moving back in with us. He was on hospice, and so we move him back in with us at the end of his life, and so he ends up dying with. In my arms with me praying for him. But I Had the opportunity to really work on all of that anger that I had had with, you know, all of those bad memories growing up, all the anger that I had with him, and I was able to completely forgive it. And he had a harder time forgiving himself than I had for forgiving him. I didn't realize how much he had been carrying, you know, just regret for the way he had handled his life and. And how he'd been a dad. And so we were able to work through that, and it was. It really was a gift. And that was when I really realized, you know, it was the second time that I realized, okay, I was arguing with God again. And first time was at the drug rehab center. And it's like, no, God was trying to give me this gift, and I kept trying to push it away. He was giving me the script of healing. So you're gonna take the credit now, are you?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

No, I'm gonna take the credit for being who I am, which is.

[Tana Amen]

You're amazing.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Wanting to be helpful. And when someone is suffering, it's just so easy to call people bad. It's when you grow so.

[Tana Amen]

And when you grow up in trauma, it's easier. When you grow up in trauma, it's

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

easier, and it's just harder to go, why? But when you've seen tens of thousands, actually, it's getting closer to hundreds of thousands of scans. It just softens your heart, and you just go, why was he like that? And which of the four circles that you and I always talk about were broken?

[Tana Amen]

Or in his case, pretty much all of them.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

And his mother had suffered with severe

[Tana Amen]

depression, and he was abused when he was young.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. And you got to meet your uncle.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah. And so one of the gifts through that was that I didn't even know my dad. My dad didn't introduce me to his half brother or talk about him when I was growing up. I didn't really see my dad. He has this half brother that I didn't even know about. And when I met Bill, Bill ends up being, like, this amazing human who

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

is so much more like your real dad.

[Tana Amen]

Yeah. I'm like, why wasn't he my dad? Like, he was. He literally was like, I'm like, we had so much in common.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

It was, like, a nice degree black.

[Tana Amen]

He was, like, so into karate. I was super into karate. Like, we just had so much in common. I'm like, that was the weirdest thing. And it was right at the end of my dad's life that we connected, and it was like, the same last little gift that I got was like, oh, this person. Like, I'm so bonded to him. And it's. We just, like, instantly bonded. And it was. Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. So as he passes, you really get.

[Tana Amen]

And my Aunt Patty, too. Like, both of them are just amazing humans, and I just love them. Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

So the help was for him and

[Tana Amen]

the healing was for me.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah. So what did you learn?

[Tana Amen]

Has that ever happened to you where you had to take care of someone you resented and you didn't want to do it? And what happened? I would love to hear the story.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Write it down, what you learned, post it on any of your social media sites, Brain WarriorsWay podcast and TANA. Amen. And if you can relate, we'd love to. To read your story. Post [e-mail] we'll enter you into a contest to a raffle to win a copy of the Relentless Courage of a Scared Child. I hope you just give it away to so many of the people, you know, who struggle in relationships that, guess what? That's all of us. You guys have heard about the goat. No one is immune. Leave it to be. But with a little bit of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Seriously, at least. At least if you're.

[Tana Amen]

I know. I always think of your. Your family. Your family is so amazing. And then I heard that story, and I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I don't feel quite so bad about my life now. Sa.