EMDR Therapy
Are you looking for a different approach to therapy that isn’t just about talking?
When you think about therapy, what image comes to mind? Maybe you pictured a person laying on a couch, sharing their life story while a therapist scribbles notes in a binder beside them. Maybe you imagined sitting across from a therapist in a cozy office, talking about techniques to cope with life struggles. Most of us, when we think about therapy, think about some form of talk therapy. Talk therapy is an important and helpful tool for many people, helping them work through the stress, challenges, and difficulties they face. However, there are other forms of therapy which can help individuals find hope and healing for their unique experiences and lives. EMDR is one of those alternative approaches to therapy.
What is EMDR?
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach that seeks to help you change the story you tell yourself about your traumatic or challenging experiences, allowing you to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress associated with those experiences. As you recall challenging memories and the emotions and thoughts that accompany that memory, an EMDR therapist uses bilateral stimulation to activate both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Bilateral stimulation just means a sensation (eg. sight, sound, touch) that you can track from one side of the body to the other. Through this process, you are able to reprocess these traumatic experiences in a more positive way, ultimately enabling you to recall these memories with increased positive thoughts and emotions instead of the negative and painful thoughts and memories you previously experienced. EMDR is a dynamic approach, directed to meet your individual needs within sessions The entire process is client-centered, and it takes as long or as short as each client needs.
Watch this video to learn more about how EMDR works!
Why should you choose EMDR?
EMDR is a great alternative to traditional talk therapy, particularly if you struggle to talk extensively about your experiences.
- EMDR therapy often takes fewer sessions than other methods to show positive changes
- EMDR has been found, through significant research, to be effective at decreasing the negative effects of trauma
- In fact, many organizations (including the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization) recognize EMDR as the best treatment for PTSD and other trauma-related disorders
- EMDR is client-centered, meaning your feelings, ideas, experiences, and values are central to the therapy process
What presenting problems/issues is EMDR used for?
- Traumatic or challenging life experiences
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD
- Anxiety disorders
- Grief, particularly from the loss of a loved one or from line-of-duty deaths
- & More, Just ask!
Is EMDR Right for you?
What does an EMDR Session Look Like?
EMDR therapy follows 8 distinct stages. If you are interested in learning more about what EMDR looks like in practice, check out this video to see two EMDR therapists conduct and debrief a mock EMDR session.
During the first session(s) of EMDR therapy, the therapist will gather information about you and your experiences and work with you to determine the target memories to use for EMDR processing. They will also assess your readiness to begin the process, taking your thoughts into account.
Together, you and your therapist will ensure that you have an arsenal of coping techniques to deal with emotional distress both within and between sessions.
You will be asked to identify a specific image of the target (this can be a distressing memory, the related emotions, and/or a negative view about the self) and a positive belief you would like to hold about that target. You will be asked to rate each statement based on how accurate you feel they are.
Once you no longer report any distress related to the target, you will again be asked to recall the positive belief you identified at the start of the session and rate how accurate you feel it is. Then, the bilateral stimulation is repeated with the positive belief in mind until you feel that the positive memory is accurate or true.
The therapist brings the target event back into focus, asking you to pay attention to any tension or stress that comes up. If you notice tension in your body, that tension becomes the target of further desensitization.
At the end of each session, the therapist works with you to ensure you feel better than when you first arrived that day. You may utilize your coping skills again at this point. The therapist also explains what you can expect between sessions, how to record these experiences in a journal, and what techniques can help you self-soothe.
At the beginning of each subsequent session, you and your therapist will together review the treatment plan, noting any progress that has been made.
Extra Resources
Still have questions? Not sure? Reach out! We’re happy to help.
Frequently Asked Questions about EMDR
Nope. And for a lot of people, that’s one of the appealing things about EMDR.
Your therapist needs enough information to understand what you’re working on, but you don’t necessarily have to tell the entire story, describe every detail or spend session after session talking through what happened.
If the thought of explaining the whole thing out loud makes you immediately want to cancel therapy, EMDR might be worth exploring.
Trauma memories aren’t always neat little movies stored in your brain with a beginning, middle and end.
You might remember pieces. A feeling. An image. A body sensation. A particular moment. Or maybe you don’t remember much at all, but you know certain situations make your nervous system absolutely lose its mind.
You don’t need a perfectly clear memory to talk to an EMDR therapist. Your therapist can work with what you do know without playing detective and trying to dig up memories that aren’t there.
Yes. Something happening 10, 20 or 40 years ago doesn’t automatically mean your brain and body went, “Welp, that was ages ago. We’re good now.”
Old experiences can still affect how you respond to conflict, relationships, rejection, intimacy, safety, criticism and approximately 900 other things.
EMDR can be used to work with distressing experiences from the past that are still showing up in your life now.
Trauma doesn’t have to involve a catastrophic event.
Maybe someone cheated. Maybe you spent years walking on eggshells. Maybe the relationship was controlling, abusive or unpredictable. Maybe somebody you trusted completely blindsided you and now every new relationship feels like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.
EMDR may help process experiences like betrayal, relationship trauma and painful breakups when those experiences continue to trigger strong emotions, beliefs or reactions long after the relationship itself has ended.
Sometimes EMDR can bring up some heavy stuff. We’re literally working with memories and experiences your brain has had a hard time processing, so we’re not going to pretend every session ends with you skipping happily into the parking lot.
But EMDR should not be about throwing you into the deep end and seeing if you survive.
Preparation and pacing are part of the process. Your therapist will work with you on grounding and coping strategies before getting into heavier processing, and they’ll pay attention to how you’re responding along the way.
Honestly? It varies.
You might feel totally normal. You might feel tired. Emotional. Lighter. A little weird. You may notice new thoughts, memories or dreams popping up afterward as your brain continues processing what you worked on.
If possible, don’t schedule the most emotionally intense EMDR session of your life immediately before a 17-person family dinner where your mother asks why you’re still single.
Give yourself a little breathing room afterward.
Then we stop.
You’re still in control during EMDR. You can ask to pause, slow down or stop at any point.
A good EMDR therapist isn’t sitting there thinking, “Well, we started, so buckle up.” They’ll be watching how you’re doing, checking in with you and adjusting the pace when needed.
You don’t get bonus points for white-knuckling your way through therapy.
Sometimes the memory is still there, but it stops having the same punch.
You can think about what happened without your stomach dropping. A trigger doesn’t send you spiralling for the rest of the day. You stop automatically believing “I’m not safe,” “It was my fault,” or “I can’t trust anyone.” Something that used to feel like it’s happening right now starts feeling more like something that happened then.
That’s the kind of change we’re looking for.
Not forgetting what happened. Changing what happens inside you when you remember it.
Then we don’t declare you emotionally defective and send you home.
EMDR is a therapy approach, not magic. It can be incredibly helpful for some people and not be the best fit for others. Your therapist may adjust how you’re using EMDR, spend more time on preparation, combine it with other approaches or recommend something different altogether.
The goal is not to successfully complete EMDR.
The goal is for you to get better.
There is no Trauma Olympics.
You don’t need the worst story in the room. You don’t need to prove that someone else would have been traumatized by it. And you definitely don’t need to keep dismissing something that still affects you because someone somewhere has been through worse.
If an experience is still showing up in your emotions, relationships, beliefs, body or reactions, it’s allowed to matter.
That’s enough to start the conversation.