The Body Keeps the Score: Why I stopped being an EMDR skeptic
When I first heard about EMDR I was skeptical. I thought to myself 'So you move your eyes back and forth and that fixes things?'
I mentally filed it somewhere between crystals and past-life regression. I was wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. My initial reaction is worth sharing because a lot of people walking into their first consultation feel the same way.
Here's what changed my mind and why EMDR has become the go to tool for most trauma clinicians.
Your Brain Has a Filing System and Trauma Breaks It
When something happens to you, whether it is a conversation, a meal, or a car ride, your brain processes it and stores it in the hippocampus. Think of it like moving a document from your desktop into a folder. It happened, you remember it happened, and critically, you know it is over.
Trauma disrupts that process.
When an event is overwhelming enough, the amygdala, which is essentially your brain's smoke detector, hijacks the operation. Stress hormones flood the system and the hippocampus cannot do its filing job. As a result, the memory stays raw and unprocessed. It stays stuck on the desktop, if we are keeping the metaphor going.
This is why a specific perfume can send someone into a full panic response twenty years after an assault. It is why a tone of voice can make your chest tighten and your thoughts scatter even though you know, logically, that you are safe in your own kitchen. The body does not know the event is over. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk wrote an entire book about this titled The Body Keeps the Score. It resonated with millions of people because it finally put language to something they had been living with but could not explain.
Where Talk Therapy Hits a Wall
I want to be careful here because I am not bashing CBT. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps a lot of people because it works from the top down. You use your prefrontal cortex, the rational thinking part of the brain, to challenge distorted thoughts and manage emotional responses. For non-trauma things like anxiety, it can be incredibly effective.
But here is what I saw in my practice. A client would come in, talk about their trauma and understand the cognitive distortions at play. They would do their homework and show up every
week, but they would still flinch at loud noises. They still had trouble sleeping. They still felt that quiet hum of dread
The reality is that you cannot think your way out of a nervous system response. That is not a failure of effort; it is neurobiology.
EMDR approaches the problem differently. Instead of working top-down, it works bottom-up. It targets the stuck memory by using bilateral stimulation. This can be guided eye movements, tapping, handheld buzzers, or auditory tones. The goal is to help the brain finally do the processing it could not complete during the original event. You are awake, you are present, and you are in control, but your brain is finally doing something it has been unable to do for years.
It Is Not Just Eye Movement Stuff
It is common to hear people talk about EMDR as if it is just the eye movement thing. That is a huge misconception. Reducing EMDR to bilateral stimulation is like saying surgery is just the cutting part.
It's important to know that EMDR is a robust process. It has a specific eight-step roadmap designed to keep you safe while you do the heavy lifting.
1. The Setup (Phases 1 & 2)
Before the work begins, we find the root causes. Sometimes a random fourth-grade memory is actually what's fueling your current road rage. We also build a toolkit of grounding skills so you don't get overwhelmed. If a therapist skips the tools and goes straight to the memories, that is a red flag.
2. The Heavy Lifting (Phases 3–6)
This is where the tapping or eye movements happen. We take the bee-sting out of the memory and lock in a positive belief to replace the old one. We can check your body for tension. If we find you getting tense when you think about the event, we aren't done yet.
3. The Wrap-Up (Phases 7 & 8)
Every session ends with a cool down to make sure you feel grounded before you leave. Then, we circle back at the start of the next session to see how everything is settling and if any new insights popped up during the week.
The structure is what keeps it from being a venting session. The process is designed to make sure your brain actually heals the trauma rather than just talking about it.
What Is Actually New in 2026?
The field hasn’t been standing still. The most exciting development right now is how we’re bringing somatic awareness into the EMDR framework.
Traditional EMDR usually asks what you notice in your body. The newer somatic approaches go much deeper than that. They treat your physical experience as the main source of information rather than just a side effect.
A therapist trained in this style does not just listen to your words. They watch for small physical shifts while you work. It might be a change in how you breathe, a tight jaw, or your hands getting cold.
These are not random reactions. They are clues. It is your body telling us that there is more here for us to explore.
This approach is a huge help for people dealing with trauma from when they were very young. If something happened before you had the words to describe it, you might not have a clear visual memory to focus on.
Your body still remembers though. A tight throat or a heavy chest can be the actual key to healing. By working with these physical feelings during the eye movements, we can reach spots that the standard process sometimes misses.
The Efficiency Factor
I will say something that might sound strange coming from a therapist: not everyone has the bandwidth for years of weekly sessions. That is not a character flaw. People have jobs and kids and aging parents and exactly zero spare hours.
EMDR tends to work faster than traditional talk therapy for trauma. Not always, as complex trauma takes time, but for a single-incident trauma, many clients experience significant relief in far fewer sessions than they expected. The reason is straightforward. You are not re-telling your story for months to build toward insight. You are directly reprocessing the memory that is causing the problem.
I see this especially with professionals who are high-functioning in every visible way but privately dealing with imposter syndrome, performance anxiety, or a nervous system that will not downshift. They don't need to spend years understanding why they feel the way they do. They need the stuck memory unstuck. EMDR does that.
Finding the Right EMDR Therapist
Finding the right therapist is a huge part of the process. You want someone who hasn't just skimmed the manual. Here is how to navigate the search.
Check Their Credentials
Not all training is equal. Look for someone who completed a full EMDRIA-approved program. You want an expert, not someone who just attended a single weekend workshop.
Ask About Phase Two
This is the litmus test. Ask how they handle preparation. A good therapist will spend plenty of time on resourcing (building your coping tools) before ever starting the eye movements. If they try to rush you into the deep end on day one, that is a red flag.
Trust Your Gut
Even though EMDR follows a specific structure, the human connection still matters. If the vibe feels off or you do not feel safe, trust your instinct and keep looking. You need to feel completely supported before you can do the heavy lifting.
Trauma rewires your nervous system. That isn't just a figure of speech. It is a physical change that is measurable and real. The most effective ways we help people in 2026 are the ones that address the body directly instead of just the story.
EMDR therapy isn't magic. It is a specific protocol based on how the brain works. But watching the charge drain out of a memory that has controlled someone for decades still feels a bit like magic to me.
If talk therapy helped you understand your past but hasn't changed how you feel today, this might be what you are looking for. Whenever you are ready to see if we can get that stuck feeling unstuck, let's talk.
About the Author
Alayna Baillod, MSW, is based in Colorado and is the Founder and Clinical Director of Self Care Impact Counseling. She is an EMDRIA-Approved Consultant, a distinction held by an elite tier of trauma specialists qualified to train and supervise other therapists. Her whole-person approach helps people navigate trauma, anxiety, and depression and build the patterns and relationships that support the life they desire. Her practice serves couples and individuals in-person from two locations in the Denver area.