How EMDR can help you heal

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful, evidence-based therapy designed to help people recover from traumatic or distressing experiences.

Originally developed by Dr Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, EMDR is now recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for treating trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Over the past three decades, its use has expanded to support a wide range of emotional difficulties, including but not limited to anxiety, grief, phobias, and attachment-related wounds.

How EMDR works

EMDR is based on the understanding that the mind has an inherent capacity to heal from psychological distress, much like the body heals from physical wounds. When a difficult event overwhelms our coping system, the memory may become “stuck" as emotions that have high salience are stored in the amygdala, yet can remain unconscious. Emotions are essentially stuck in the brain in a raw, unprocessed form. This can lead to intrusive thoughts, emotional triggers, body sensations, and unhelpful beliefs about oneself.

During EMDR, the therapist guides the client through a structured eight-phase process that should include:

Assessment and preparation: building safety, trust, grounding skills, and emotional regulation. For this, we assess safety and stability and ability to recover emotionally using resource exploration as well as meditations like the “safe space” meditation. 

We then work on targeting distressing memories and identifying images, emotions, body sensations, and negative beliefs associated with the events related to trauma experiences. 

Bilateral stimulation is done using side-to-side eye movements, taps, or sounds.

This mimics the natural processing that occurs during REM sleep. Reprocessing takes into account that our brains make new connections, the memory becomes more integrated, less activating, and connected to more adaptive perspectives.

Many clients describe EMDR as a process of the mind “clearing out” or “digesting” what previously felt overwhelming.

What EMDR can help with

Although EMDR is most well-known for the treatment of trauma, research and clinical practice show that it can be highly effective for many aspects of emotional regulation, including:

• PTSD and complex trauma
• childhood emotional neglect or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
• attachment wounds and relational trauma
• anxiety and panic
• phobias
• shame and low self-worth
• grief and loss
• distressing memories from medical procedures or accidents
• performance anxiety

Because EMDR works at the root in a sense (due to processing unhealed memories), it often leads to changes in negative beliefs and positive emotional shifts that feel deep, lasting, and transformative.

What to expect in an EMDR session

EMDR sessions typically feel different from traditional talk therapy. EMDR is more structured without any analytical interpretation or exploration of information that presents itself, as the information is just processed by the client themselves during the bilateral movements. 

Clients often speak less and focus more on internal experience.

A session may include:

• Checking in on stability and resourcing.
• Identifying a memory or emotional target.
• Short sets of bilateral stimulation while noticing thoughts, images, and sensations.
• Brief pauses to reflect on what is coming up.
• Continuing the process until distress reduces and new, more empowering beliefs emerge.

EMDR does not involve re-telling traumatic experiences in detail. Clients remain in control at all times, and the pace is adjusted according to readiness and comfort.

Is EMDR right for you?

EMDR may be a good fit if you experience the following issues:

• Feeling “stuck” in old patterns or experience triggers that seem disproportionate or hard to explain.
• You have been noticing your body reacting strongly to reminders of past events or triggers.
• If you want a therapeutic approach that goes beyond talking and reaches the deeper layers of memory and emotion. 
• Feel ready to work gently but effectively with difficult experiences.

A trained EMDR therapist will always assess your capacity for safety and self-regulation, along with exploring stability and readiness for this type of therapy before beginning trauma processing.

Why EMDR is transformational

Many people who complete EMDR describe profound changes:

• Memories feel like they are “in the past” rather than intruding into the present.
• Old emotional burdens feel lighter, potentially, and sometimes EMDR can help consolidate memory and process emotional memory, which may have affected self-perception. 
• The inner critic may become quieter, as one can recognise beliefs that may have occurred during or due to past trauma, and you can make subsequent challenges to negative beliefs, which help restore confidence and improve inner coach.
• Compassion, calm, and clarity can increase, hopefully creating a sense of autonomy leading to a better relationship with oneself and others that feels safer and more grounded

EMDR supports not only symptom relief but also deeper emotional integration, helping clients connect with a sense of strength, agency, and self-trust. Reach out to an EMDR therapist to learn more about what this approach could offer you.