EMDR Therapy
I’m trained in EMDR and use it with adults across California by telehealth.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s and has become one of the more extensively studied treatments for trauma.
The premise: some memories don’t get filed the way ordinary memories do. They stay raw and immediate — the feeling arrives whole, years later, as though no time has passed.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, usually side-to-side eye movements, while you hold the memory in mind. Eye movements are the most studied form, but they aren’t the only option. Alternating taps or tones work too, which matters if you have an eye condition, a visual impairment, or simply find the eye tracking uncomfortable.The working theory is that this engages the brain’s own processing, letting the memory settle into the past where it belongs.
You don’t forget what happened. It stops arriving with the same force.
What a session actually looks like
Most people’s picture of this is vague, so here’s the shape of it.
Before any processing, we spend a session or two on preparation — what we’re targeting, and some grounding techniques you can use if things get intense. You’re never dropped into a memory without a way out.
In a processing session, I’ll ask you to bring the memory to mind along with the belief attached to it — something like I wasn’t safe or it was my fault — and notice where it sits in your body. Then we do short sets of eye movements while you hold it.
After each set I’ll ask what came up. Usually something has shifted. Sometimes an image, sometimes a different memory, sometimes just less intensity. We repeat until the memory loses its charge.
You don’t narrate. You don’t have to tell me the details. Noticing is enough.
By video, the eye movements are guided on screen or through hand movements on camera. It works.
What it's used for
Single-incident trauma, older experiences, grief, phobias, and performance anxiety. It’s most established for post-traumatic stress and has been researched most heavily there.
What the research says
EMDR is one of the most extensively researched trauma treatments available. A meta-analysis in PLoS One (Chen et al., 2014) pooled 26 randomized controlled trials published between 1991 and 2013 and found significant reductions in PTSD, depression, anxiety and subjective distress. A Cochrane review (Bisson et al., 2013) concluded that EMDR and trauma-focused CBT outperform other psychological treatments for chronic PTSD.
It appears in major treatment guidelines. The World Health Organization’s 2013 guidance recommends trauma-focused CBT and EMDR as the only psychotherapies for PTSD in children, adolescents and adults. The VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline (2017) placed EMDR among three therapies given the highest level of evidence. The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (2018) gives it a strong recommendation. The American Psychological Association’s 2017 guideline gives it a conditional recommendation — worth knowing, since guideline bodies don’t all agree on strength.
How long it takes depends on what you’re working on. In a Kaiser Permanente–funded study (Marcus, Marquis & Sakai, 1997), all single-trauma participants and 77% of multiple-trauma participants no longer met PTSD criteria after six sessions. Research with combat veterans has generally required longer courses. That range is about the complexity of what’s being treated, not a schedule I can promise you.
My training
I’m trained in EMDR. I’m not an EMDRIA-certified therapist or an approved consultant — those are separate credentials with additional requirements, and I’d rather tell you exactly what I hold than let a word do work it hasn’t earned.
How this compares to ART
I’m also trained in Accelerated Resolution Therapy, which is related but works differently — particularly around visual memory. Here’s how the two compare, including when I think EMDR is the better choice.