What EMDR Is and What to Expect in Therapy
EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is one of the most researched and widely used trauma therapies in the world since 1987. Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR involves a structured, neuroscience-informed process that can feel unfamiliar until you’ve spent some time inside it. It’s experiential, adaptive, and deeply collaborative. And while the method is unique, the goal is simple: to help the brain complete the healing response that trauma once interrupted.
To understand EMDR, it helps to start with how the brain handles overwhelming experiences.
When something frightening, humiliating, or life-threatening happens, the brain tries to process that memory and integrate it into our larger story. But if the event is too intense, too sudden, or repeated over time, the nervous system can become overloaded. Instead of being stored like a “normal” memory, the traumatic memory remains raw and unprocessed. The sights, sounds, body sensations, and emotions of the moment stay active, almost as if the brain put the experience in a file it couldn’t finish organizing.
That’s why trauma symptoms often don’t feel like memories at all. They feel like reactions happening now: panic, shame, numbness, emotional flooding, chronic vigilance, or sudden overwhelm. This occurs as, during the time of danger, our prefrontal cortex or ‘thinking brain’ goes offline, as thinking about how to get to safety takes longer than reacting (think fight, flight, or freeze) and can be more adaptive to survival. EMDR was developed to help the brain finish processing these stuck memories, integrated with our ‘thinking brain,’ so they no longer take over the present.
During EMDR, the client gently activates a traumatic memory in a safe, controlled way while receiving bilateral stimulation, usually eye movements, sensory taps, or tones alternating left and right. This stimulation appears to help the brain reopen the memory network, connect it to more adaptive information, and complete the integration that couldn’t happen at the time of the trauma.
Although EMDR has a clear protocol, the experience itself is deeply individualized. In the beginning, the work doesn’t involve revisiting trauma at all. Instead, the first sessions focus on understanding your history, building trust with your therapist, and strengthening the internal skills needed to approach difficult memories safely. You and your therapist establish grounding tools, identify emotional resources, and practice ways to regulate your nervous system. Many people find this part unexpectedly meaningful, sometimes the first time they’ve been taught how to actually feel safe inside their own body.
When the processing phase begins, you and your therapist will work to hold the memory gently at arm’s length, just enough to activate the neural network without being pulled under. You might focus on an image, a body sensation, a belief about yourself, or a mix of these. As the bilateral stimulation begins, the brain starts to move. Associations surface, new understandings appear, emotions shift, images change, and thoughts that felt rigid can often soften. People often describe moments of lightness, clarity, or relief emerging where there was once tension or fear.
EMDR is not hypnosis. You don’t lose awareness or enter an altered state. You’re simply allowing your brain to access and reorganize information while your therapist tracks what’s happening and helps steer the work. If something feels too intense, you stop. If your nervous system needs support, you return to grounding. The therapist is there not to push but to collaborate and guide, ensuring the work unfolds at a pace that feels safe and manageable.
After processing a traumatic memory, the memory doesn’t disappear, nor is it “erased;” instead, it becomes part of your story in a new way, more like something that happened in the past rather than something happening right now. People frequently find that the negative beliefs they once held about themselves—“I’m unsafe,” “I’m powerless,” “I’m to blame”—no longer feel true once the trauma has been metabolized.
EMDR is ultimately less about the mechanics of eye movements and more about the brain’s innate capacity to heal when given the right environment. EMDR offers a structured, compassionate pathway through the layers of experience that once felt immovable.