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EMDR THERAPY
What is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a one-on-one interactive therapy designed to help you process and heal from stressful or traumatic experiences. It's a powerful tool that helps clear the emotional “stuckness” left behind by events that overwhelmed your nervous system.
Trauma: small-t and Big-T
Trauma is anything that happened to you that shouldn’t have, like bullying or abuse, or something that should have happened but didn’t, like receiving safety, love, and support during childhood.
We think of trauma with extreme events like assault or abuse, war, or even natural disasters—these are what we call “Big T” trauma. Many of us have “small t” traumas we experience every day: being teased, feeling left out, failing an exam, or growing up with emotionally unavailable parents.
When those "small t" traumas are brushed off as part of life, they leave lasting emotional effects that deserve attention and healing. Think of it like a sports injury: instead of ignoring it and toughing it out, there’s more benefit and healing with seeing a physiotherapist.
EMDR works the same way for emotional wounds and their scars, and can tackle the root causes so you can begin real healing.
Great video explaining EMDR Therapy in a few minutes
Application of EMDR Therapy
EMDR therapy is shown to be an effective treatment for people who experienced psychologically stressful events, people suffering from traumatic memories, or those with a PTSD diagnosis. Since experience of psychological stress or trauma manifests in different ways, EMDR therapy may benefit you if you experience any of the following:
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Constant stress
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Anxiety
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Depression
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Eating Disorders
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Panic Attacks
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Recent and Past Trauma (car accident, divorce)
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Trouble sleeping
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Phobias
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Low self-esteem
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Performance Anxiety
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Complicated grief
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Pain relief, phantom limb pain
An EMDR therapist can assess whether EMDR could be an effective solution for you.
How EMDR Therapy Works
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy has eight essential phases. It’s necessary to go through all the eight phases for the EMDR therapy to work successfully. EMDR should always be used within a comprehensive treatment plan and should never be attempted without proper education, training, preparation, and the opportunity for reevaluation.
EMDR appointments often run 80 minutes. It’s possible to do shorter appointments, though when reprocessing each session requires an opening and a closing (like bookends). The 80 minute sessions allow you to progress faster and accomplish more in fewer sessions, costing you less in the end.
The process isn't always a straight line. Clients might move back and forth between phases.
Phase 1: History and Treatment Planning
We start with an opportunity for you to share a little about what brings you to counselling, so you and your therapist can develop a plan on how to move forward together.
Phase 2: Preparation
Your therapist teaches you techniques to help navigate those upsetting thoughts and feelings. They share more information about EMDR: the process, what to expect, how it works, and what to expect. This part is about building trust with your therapist.
Phase 3: Assessment
You and your therapist select and target specific memories connected to why you're here, and look at the underlying roots attached.
Phase 4 - 6: Desensitization, Installation, & Body Scan
We work on the distressing memory or memories ("targets") from Phase 3. Your therapist has you hold the negative thought, memory, or image in your mind while your eyes follow a light bar or their hand movement back and forth. This process actually ‘digests’ the negative thought so it's no longer distressing for you.
Phase 7: Closure
When it’s time to wrap up our session for the day (whatever phase you're in), your therapist closes the session in a way that feels nurturing and supportive. They might ask you to take notes of your experience between sessions, and try different techniques from Phase 2.
Phase 8: Reevaluation
In the final phase, the therapist checks in on what has changed between sessions. With this information, the therapist makes any necessary changes to your treatment plan. Sometimes this means revisiting a previous phase with a new memory or target.
For a more detailed description of the 8 phases of EMDR, read this.
Effectiveness of EMDR
EMDR therapy has helped over a million individuals over the years. The validity and effectiveness of EMDR therapy has been established as a result of through research in clinical settings. EMDR therapy is recognized and recommended as a treatment for PTSD/Traumatic Experiences by:
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Department of Defense (US)
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Department of Veterans Affairs (US)
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American Psychiatric Association
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International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
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National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (UK)
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Departments of Health in Israel and Northern Ireland
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World Health Organization
Formal recommendations for clinical treatment of trauma are slow to evolve, but as more and more studies are done, more countries and organizations recognize and recommend EMDR therapy as treatment for trauma and PTSD. And as the body of supporting evidence grows, it's very challenging to dispute is the effectiveness of EMDR therapy as a treatment for traumatic memories and experiences.