All About EMDR

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a treatment approach for several mental health concerns. While originally created to treat trauma, it is now widely used to treat anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, and both acute and complex trauma. The EMDR approach believes past emotionally-charged experiences are overly influencing your present emotions, sensations, and thoughts about ourselves. As an example: “Do you ever feel worthless although you know you are a worthwhile person?” 

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (or BLS for short) to help you reprocess and “update” disturbing thoughts, emotions, and experiences. EMDR was originally created by using eye movements that replicate rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. REM sleep is the period of time when we are asleep that helps process everyday things such as what you had for lunch and what drama occurred between two coworkers. Traumatic memories, or distressing events and experiences, often get stuck and are not able to easily process through to long term memory. With EMDR however, REM sleep is replicated to help reprocess events and memories that continue to be troubling and distressing. 

Presently, there are different options for BLS other than rapid eye movements. These include tapping, drawing, or hand held buzzers. All bilateral stimulation helps to break through emotional blocks that are keeping you from living an emotionally fulfilling life.     

Many people interested in EMDR have expressed to me they are scared of “doing it wrong” or are worried their symptoms might worsen. While EMDR is not a cure-all for mental health concerns, it can help significantly reduce anxiety and other dysregulating emotions. Will it be difficult to process memories and events that are emotionally distressing? Sure! But with a trained EMDR therapist, you will be prepared to handle emotions and sensations as they come up.