EMDR Therapy

What is EMDR Therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy that encourages the client to focus briefly on the trauma memory or bothersome experience, while simultaneously experiencing a series of eye movements, sounds, or tactile sensations, which activate both the left and right sides of the brain. It is a type of therapy that helps people heal from their traumas and disturbing life experiences. It gets people UNSTUCK.

EMDR therapy is evidenced-based. The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs/Dept. of Defense, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and the World Health Organization are among many national and international organizations that recognize EMDR therapy as an effective treatment. 

How Does EMDR Therapy Work?

Our brains have a natural way to recover from traumatic memories and events. While many times traumatic experiences can be managed and resolved, they may also need to be processed with help.

Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create an overwhelming feeling of being back in that moment, or of being “frozen in time.” 

EMDR therapy helps the brain process these memories, and allows normal healing to resume. The experience is still remembered, but the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved.

During an EMDR session, a trained therapist will guide the client through a series of eye movements, sounds, or tactile sensations, which activate both the left and right sides of the brain. This bilateral stimulation allows the brain to reprocess the traumatic memories. 

EMDR Therapy allows you to face these painful memories in a low-stress, safe environment. By accepting these responses for what they are, you are then able to become more at peace with the event and how it has impacted you as a person. Then, the therapist can help you replace these negative assumptions your mind has made and replace them with alternative, positive beliefs. 

At the end of each session, the EMDR therapist will help you return and pause the work until the next session.

Many of the current problems that people come to therapy for such as, anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, etc., are rooted in memories of traumatic or adverse life experiences. Identifying and reprocessing these memories is a focus of EMDR treatment. EMDR therapy is designed to create the conditions to activate the brain’s processing abilities and aid in the recovery process.

Many clients report that this makes these memories less distressing and allows the individual to form adaptive beliefs and emotions. The brain wants to restore mental health in the same way the rest of the body is physiologically configured to heal when injured.

“When an event has been sufficiently processed, we remember it but do not experience the old emotions or sensations in the present. We are informed by our memories, not controlled by them.” (Shapiro, 2018, p.3).

Who can benefit from EMDR therapy?

EMDR therapy helps children and adults of all ages. Therapists use EMDR therapy to address a wide range of challenges:

  • Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias

  • Chronic Illness and medical issues

  • Depression and bipolar disorders

  • Dissociative disorders

  • Eating disorders

  • Grief and loss

  • Pain

  • Performance anxiety

  • Personality disorders

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other trauma and stress-related issues

  • Sexual assault

  • Sleep disturbance

  • Substance abuse and addiction

  • Violence and abuse

Sources

EMDRIA. (n.d.). EMDR International Association Home | EMDR Practitioners. EMDR International Association. https://www.emdria.org/

‌Shapiro, F. (2013). Getting past your past: Take control of your life with self-help techniques from EMDR therapy (p. 352). New York, NY: Rodale Press.

Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford.