Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an evidence-based, highly effective form of psychotherapy proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences. It is beneficial for the treatment of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. It is so different from typical talk-therapy that it can be difficult to describe to my clients who are curious about it. While the transformative experience of EMDR is hard to express in written words, here is an outline of the therapeutic process, and a breakdown of the steps involved.
EMDR is an 8-Phase process that occurs over multiple sessions.
Phase 1
Establishing safety, stability, and readiness. Life must be stable enough, and safe enough to begin trauma work. In Phase 1, we work on your resilience and coping skills, and learn grounding and safety techniques. This helps you handle any stress that might arise during the process and so you can keep yourself regulated and grounded between sessions.
Phase 2
History taking. We create a timeline of your positive and negative life experiences from infancy to present day. We do this to get an idea of where traumas have happened, and to see what kind of strengths might have helped you along the way.
Phase 3
Choosing a specific issue to work on with EMDR. We usually start with a problem that is happening in the present. You identify the feelings and thoughts that go along with this problem. Then, we go back into your personal history and try to find any earlier times that you felt similarly. The idea is that if you work on the earliest memories, it can reduce the distress around the stuff that is giving you trouble in the present.
Phase 4
Using bi-lateral stimulation to process the problem. I typically use eye movements or tapping. We use a program on the computer that has a ball that moves back and forth across the screen. It looks a little bit like the old electronic ping-pong games. Your job is to watch the ball move back and forth, and track it with your eyes. While watching the ball move back and forth across the screen, you will focus on the memory you have chosen to work on, and the thoughts and feelings that go along with it. Each set of eye-movements lasts 20-30 seconds. Between the sets of eye movements, we do a check-in where you tell me what is coming up for you (it could be thoughts, feelings, other memories, body sensations). You will do repeated sets of eye movements/check-ins until your distress around the memory reduces.
Phase 5
The distress around the memory is reduced, and the memory is no longer upsetting. Now we use sets of eye movements to install a positive belief about yourself, that counteracts the negative beliefs attached to the memory.
Phase 6
Body scan. This is where we take some time to check in with your body. You will be asked to focus on your body and notice if there are any lingering feelings of tension or discomfort. We use eye movements to process any feelings of discomfort that remain in your body.
Phase 7
Closing the session. Sometimes we get through all the phases and sometimes we don't. It often takes more than one session to fully process a memory. We find a safe place to close down the process, and we do grounding and containment exercises.
Phase 8
Starting again next time. We check in to see how you are doing and what came up for you in between sessions. We either finish the memory that you were working on before, or you choose a new one to start.
From: An EMDR Therapy Primer, Second Edition: From Practicum to Practice by Barbara Hensley
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures by Francine Shapiro
Picture: Yoann Boyer
Jessica Fukushima
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