Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

People ask me about EMDR more than almost anything else. Usually the question is some version of: does it really work, and why eye movements?

Fair questions. Let me try to answer them the way I would across the room from you.

What it is

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's a structured form of psychotherapy developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, and it's now recognized by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association as an effective approach for post-traumatic stress.

The core idea is simple. When something overwhelming happens, the brain sometimes doesn't file the memory the way it files ordinary experience. It stays raw. Vivid. Present tense. Years later, a smell or a tone of voice can drop you straight back into it, body and all.

EMDR helps the brain finish filing.

Why the eyes

During part of an EMDR session, you'll follow my hand or a light back and forth with your eyes, or feel gentle alternating taps on your hands or knees. This is called bilateral stimulation: left, right, left, right.

Nobody fully agrees on why it helps. One idea is that it resembles what the brain does naturally during REM sleep, when we process the day. Another is that holding a memory in mind while doing something else lightens its emotional charge, a little at a time. What I can tell you is what I see: people describe the memory getting farther away. Still there, but no longer in the room with them.

What a session is like

We don't rush into it. The first sessions are about getting to know each other and building the resources you'll need: a calm place you can go to in your mind, a sense of safety in your body, an understanding of what we're doing and why. You're in charge the whole time. You can stop whenever you want.

When we do begin processing, I'll ask you to bring a memory to mind, notice what you feel in your body, and follow the movement. Then we pause and I'll ask what came up. Then we go again. That's it. No retelling the whole story. No reliving it.

Afterward, people are often tired in a good way. The kind of tired that comes after a long walk.

Is it for you?

EMDR was built for trauma, and that's where the evidence is strongest. But I've also used it with anxiety, grief, and the ordinary, stubborn beliefs we carry about ourselves — I'm too much, I'm not enough, I'm not safe.

If you're curious, the best next step is a conversation. I offer a free phone consultation so we can talk about whether it fits. Here's how to reach me, and you can read more about how I work with trauma and PTSD.