What is EMDR?
Traumatic stress is stored physically. EMDR is an evidence-based therapy model that bridges the mind-body gap.
How Does EMDR Affect Memories?
The brain and body especially remember negative or positive life events.
Memories are expressed as self-talk, and views about others, the state of the world, or your future.
EMDR therapy changes memories that are overwhelming or traumatic so they are remembered without the original distress.
What if EMDR is Too Intense?
Memories become less present-lived when activating them at your pace and control in the presence of a trusted therapist.
The memory where present-day problems in personal or professional life originated is focused on rather than its effects. The result is mental and physical calm and a preferred story about these memories.
Does EMDR Cause Memory Loss?
EMDR helps you remember with calm. It’s like you’re a train conductor watching the scenery of your thoughts without being pulled off into distress.
You can notice what’s there and the new surroundings as you progress on the track, calmly staying on the train until you reach the station - that is, your body and mind arrive, fully believing the experience is over, it’s in the past, and you are safe.
How Can EMDR Help Me Live Confidently?
Truth maintained amidst reminders of your old ways leads to confidence in your ability and deservingness to grow.
EMDR helps you to pause, accept, and respond fluidly when conflict arises and with the ebbs and flows of life by helping you replace outdated, unhelpful beliefs with preferred beliefs about yourself, others, and your future.
This isn’t just intellectualization but goes deeper with a felt sense of truth and confidence in body and mind.
The result? Embodying in the moment these beliefs that are needed, the truth that allows you to trust in who you are today, what you prefer for your life from now on, and resources known to make it a reality.
How does EMDR bridge the mind-body gap?
What to Expect: The Phases of EMDR Treatment
Phases 1-2: History & Preparation. We discuss your current and past challenges, goals for therapy, map your triggers, and build immediate emotional grounding tools. Polyvagal Theory and DBT skills are especially helpful as supports to the EMDR skills introduced here.
Phases 3-6: Processing the Memory. We use bilateral stimulation to safely desensitize the target trauma.
Phases 7-8: Integration & Closure. We evaluate your progress and ensure you feel grounded at the end of every session.
FAQs About EMDR Therapy
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During an EMDR session, you will remain fully awake, alert, and in control. As you focus on a troubling memory or anticipated event, I will guide you through bilateral stimulation, such as side-to-side eye movements, light tapping, or auditory tones. You will notice various emotions, thoughts, or physical sensations arise and change naturally as your brain reprocesses the event, much like watching scenery change from a train window.
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Traditional talk therapy engages your logical, conscious mind to analyze problems, which can sometimes feel like re-traumatizing yourself without finding relief. EMDR directly targets the nervous system and the deeper, survival-based parts of the brain where traumatic memories are physically stored. Instead of just talking about the trauma, EMDR helps change how the memory is stored, neutralizing its emotional and physical sting.
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Yes, EMDR is highly effective even if your memories feel blurry, fragmented, or entirely missing. Trauma is often stored in the body as somatic responses, vague emotional themes, or hypervigilant states rather than linear stories. We can use your current emotional triggers or physical sensations as a starting point to locate and reprocess the underlying trauma network.
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The number of sessions varies widely depending on whether you are processing a single-incident trauma or complex, chronic childhood trauma (C-PTSD). While some clients report a noticeable reduction in distress after just 3 to 6 processing sessions, others benefit from longer-term care. Our initial sessions will focus entirely on your history and building emotional coping skills before we begin reprocessing memories.
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Because EMDR stimulates the brain’s natural healing processing system, it is common to experience vivid dreams, heightened emotions, or physical fatigue between sessions. This is a normal sign that your brain is continuing to digest and reorder old memories. We spend the early phases of therapy building robust emotional grounding tools to ensure you always leave the session feeling safe and stable.
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Yes, EMDR is an extensively researched, evidence-based modality used to treat a wide variety of mental health challenges. Because it heals the underlying distress rooted in adverse life experiences, it is highly effective for anxiety, panic attacks, depression, chronic pain, and deeply ingrained negative self-beliefs.
