EMDR Therapy: What is it and how does it work?
emdr (eye movement desensitization & reprocessing)
Here are some common questions about EMDR.
What is EMDR?
EMDR is a form of trauma therapy that involves bilateral stimulation of the brain.
Okay…what exactly does “bilateral stimulation” mean?
Bilateral stimulation means you are using both hemispheres of your brain (left and right side).
How do you do bilateral stimulation?
There are several methods. It can be done through tapping your shoulders or legs, by moving your eyes back and forth, through tactile stimulation (like buzzers in both hands), or other methods.
“The past affects the present even without our being aware of it. EMDR offers a way to help free people from the past and live more fully in the present.”
Can EMDR be done online?
Yes! EMDR results have been found to be just as successful from online therapy as in-person therapy, meaning you can successfully heal from trauma and your symptoms in the comfort of your own home.
How long does EMDR take?
This isn’t the best answer, but it’s the truth: it depends (frustrating, I know…). However, most single trauma event clients start to find relief in as soon as 4-6 sessions. Complex trauma clients may take additional time to find relief but may start to see progress within 4-8 sessions.
What does an EMDR session look like?
Great question! There are 8 phases to EMDR, so each session may look different, especially in the beginning.
Stages 1-2: First, your therapist will want to gather your history, ensure you are a good fit for EMDR, and build rapport and trust with you.
Your therapist will ask about your current struggles and have you identify memories related to the present issues you want to work on. You will also learn and practice coping mechanisms.
Stages 3-8: In an actual “processing” session, your therapist will guide you through processing using your selected method of bilateral stimulation. You will take brief pauses where your therapist will ask what you are noticing, and you will continue the process.
Over time, the targets you are working on will become less distressing, and you will start to form new, positive associations with those experiences.
If talk therapy hasn’t been cutting it for you, EMDR may be a way to help get control back of your life so you can go back to being you! You deserve to enjoy life without living in a state of fight/flight/freeze.
It sounds too good to be true…how does it actually work?
Your brain is an organ, and organs have the ability to heal themselves. Just like a cut will heal over time, your brain has the capacity to heal itself.
When we experience trauma, it is like a cut that can’t heal on its own. Memories or associations of the trauma (sounds, sights, smells, etc.) get “stuck” in the oldest part of our brain. This part of the brain is responsible for survival and does not understand the concept of time.
After the trauma(s), your brain is always on alert. It constantly looks out for sights, smells, sounds, etc., that remind it of trauma.
When something triggers that memory or association of trauma, we go into fight/flight/freeze mode, which is why a trauma response can come out of nowhere without us even knowing.
What EMDR does is help to get that memory or association unstuck, kind of like finishing a movie that has been paused. Think of EMDR as hitting play.
Through bilateral stimulation, the memory can move up to higher levels of the brain that do understand the concept of time. Your brain can learn to relax because it understands those specific triggers are in the past. The memories become “adaptively” stored, so you are no longer stuck in a state of hypervigilance.
