EMDR Therapy 

What Exactly Is EMDR Therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy—or EMDR—is a powerful therapeutic intervention used to address a range of mental health challenges. EMDR is particularly effective for treating individuals who have experienced trauma or other adversity in their lives, including anxiety, depression, panic attack disorders, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

Though the name may be a bit intimidating, EMDR has humble beginnings. In 1988, a young psychology graduate student, Francine Shapiro, discovered on a walk through the park that certain eye movements reduced the distress caused by memories of her painful past. After experimenting with these eye movements, she developed a way to help people desensitize intense memories so they could be processed naturally and relegated to the past like any other memory. 

After decades of extensive research and application, EMDR is now considered to be one of the most effective treatment options for trauma as well as for a host of other conditions. Its efficacy has been recognized by numerous national and international organizations:

• The World Health Organization (WHO)

• The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• The U.S. Department of Defense

• The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 

• The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

• National Alliance on Mental Illness

• The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies

• The American Psychological Association

• The American Psychiatric Association

​Starting Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy 

The EMDR treatment process is broken down into eight phases. In the initial phase, we’ll begin by gently taking a look at your history, discussing your experience with trauma, and identifying potentially difficult memories to target in the future. 

The second phase is about preparation and teaching you skills, such as deep breathing exercises, mindfulness techniques, and other coping strategies, to help you manage emotions both in and outside of sessions. The whole point is to not retraumatize you in any way, which is why we want to make sure you have the tools to keep you feeling safe and grounded, allowing EMDR to do its work.  

In phases four through seven, we’ll begin processing the target issue or experience by focusing on a negative thought, memory, or image while your therapist instructs you to do specific eye movements. These eye movements create what’s called bilateral brain stimulation—a phenomenon similar to the rapid eye movements produced in REM sleep. This process enables both hemispheres of the brain to communicate, helping to desensitize and unlock stuck memories. 

After the bilateral eye stimulation, your therapist will ask you to take a breath, let it go, and notice what you are seeing, thinking, and feeling. Your therapist will then either ask you to concentrate on what comes up so you can explore that further—or you can go back to the original focus until the target memory is fully processed. Then, in phase eight, we’ll evaluate your progress, and you can decide whether or not you would like to repeat the process with another target memory.

In just a few, short counseling sessions, EMDR therapy can help you experience a “reprogramming” of the brain that allows you to reprocess old, distressing memories and finally move beyond the past. As the brain stores those fragmented memories as a whole, the emotional impact is reduced, you can feel calmer, and though the past will still be there, it will no longer have the power to control how you live in the present. 

 Therapists Who Can Help