How EMDR Therapy Works

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR therapy, is an intensive trauma therapy used to process and resolve traumatic memories. But what does that even mean?

To understand how EMDR therapy works, it’s helpful to understand more about the trauma it seeks to resolve.

Trauma and the Brain: The Body Keeps the Score

The way our bodies and minds are connected is a complex system. When we experience traumatic events in our lives, our bodies remember that experience and adjust to try to be on guard for the next time something terrible happens to us. In the same way a cut on our hand can heal but leaves a scar, traumatic events leave their own kinds of scars.

Sometimes, traumatic events cause physiological changes in the way our bodies develop. Traumatic childhood experiences, even those we don’t have any working memory of from birth or before, can “rewire” our minds, causing our limbic system—the part of our brain that controls our behavioral and emotional responses—to be in constant overdrive. This is where anxiety, depression, phobias, disorders, addictions, and other executive function challenges can originate.

Those traumas, whether recent or in the past, are “held,” so to speak, by our bodies and minds, guarded in a way. Because the body and mind remember what that trauma was like, they’re on high alert for other threats that might come along. They don’t feel safe, even when their environment is controlled. As a result, even inconsequential conflicts or other relatively minor tension can release a herd of hormonal warriors to swoop in and protect your person from further traumatic experiences. This natural process of self-protection is is often instinctual and subconscious due to where trauma is stored in the brain.

How Does EMDR Therapy Treat Trauma?

EMDR therapy is a method of psychotherapy that aims to persuade the body’s defense mechanisms that they can let go of that traumatic experience, it’s safe now, and it’s time to move forward. This can be done with any traumatic memory, even those that the person doesn’t have any actual accessible memories about (like birth traumas, or events in early childhood).

There are several phases of treatment, first, to identify the source of trauma, and then assign a response to the negative beliefs, thoughts and feelings that memory conjures (“I am under threat,” to “I am safe.”). Then, with the help of the counselor, the individual reviews the memory while focusing on some kind of bilateral movement. The process is repeated several times, and each time, the individual is asked what they are noticing until the memory is no longer disturbing.

How does this work? The therapy engages both sides of the brain at the same time, allowing the warriors that usually are working to protect you to rest, and allowing you to reprocess the memory in a way that leads to a peaceful resolution ("I am safe.")

Each session of EMDR therapy can take about an hour. The therapy may be repeated to work on other memories and help the individual move forward from their traumatic experiences, unbinding the knots that have developed around those memories.

EMDR is an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-based issues such as; anxiety, separation, complicated grief/loss, disturbing memories, intrusive thoughts, stress reduction, abuse (sexual, verbal, physical, spiritual), neglect, abandonment, phobias, panic attacks, performance anxiety, eating disorders, addictions, and identity issues.

Alabaster Creative Arts Therapy is certified to offer EMDR therapy as part of its counseling services. Learn more or request an appointment to get started on your healing journey.