EMDR Therapy

What is EMDR Therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy which was developed by Francine Shapiro in 1987. It is designed to help people who have suffered from trauma and PTSD. It has also been found to be effective with other mental health problems, including anxiety, phobias and panic disorder.

There is a wealth of evidence that proves EMDR is an effective psychological treatment. It is a recommended trauma treatment in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for PTSD.

EMDR uses eye movements from left to right to process traumatic memories which have become stuck in our memory system.  Sometimes instead of eye movements taps back and forth are used.  These movements are known as Bilateral Stimulation (BLS).

EMDR is recommended for an average of 8 – 12 sessions. Individuals who have more trauma experiences, or have suffered from chronic trauma, may require more sessions.

My Experience

Training to practise EMDR is restricted to fully qualified mental health professionals. In the UK, the training is overseen by the EMDR Association UK & Ireland which sets the standards for training EMDR therapists. I am an accredited EMDR therapist.

I have a wide range of experience providing EMDR therapy to individuals with a diversity of needs. Some examples of times I have used EMDR with clients include for:

• Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Car accidents
• Birth trauma
• Panic attacks
• Generalised anxiety disorder
• Phobia’s
• Physical and sexual assaults
• Seeing loved ones being hurt
• Childhood trauma

I can offer online virtual EMDR, or face-to-face sessions in my Market Harborough clinic. There is recent evidence that virtual EMDR works just as well as completing this in person. Research found that clients and therapists viewed virtual EMDR as a safe and effective way to access the therapy.

Interested in EMDR Therapy? Visit my contact page to request an initial consultation.

I accept health insurance clients for BUPA, WPA, AXA, Vitality, and Aviva, as well as privately paying individuals.

Francine Shapiro says that the origin for EMDR came from an experience she had while walking in a park. As she looked from left to right at the trees around her, she noticed that some disturbing thoughts she had been experiencing began to fade away. She had spent many years before this studying the connection between the mind and body.

What can you expect from EMDR Therapy?

EMDR is different from other therapies. The aim is to process a traumatic memory rather than talk in depth about your experience of trauma or analyse your reactions. 

When you are processing with eye movements there is no right or wrong response, you just go with whatever comes up for you.  You will never be challenged directly about your experience, instead therapists are there to help you to experience and connect with emotions, physical sensations, and the memory.   When we experience trauma, it gets stored in a muddled, disorganised way, so sometimes the processing can feel like this as well.

Due to the way that EMDR works, it is not necessary that you have a good recall of your trauma, it can help people even if they have very limited memory of what occurred. 

If you choose EMDR, the therapy will start with an assessment, which explores your past experiences and identifies the target memories to work on. There will then be sessions that focus on developing strategies to cope in the here and now. This can include skills to manage emotions, grounding exercises, and imagery. You will then start to process your memories.

Usually one memory is processed in one or two sessions. For each memory you will be asked to identify a negative belief that you feel when you think about this, your emotions, and a more positive belief you would like to hold. After this, the main part of the session will be spent using bilateral stimulation (BLS), through eye movement or taps, to process the memory. You will be asked to pause every 30 seconds or so, and say what you notice. You only need to give a few words, and then you will continue with the BLS. There is no analysis of what comes up.

Your mind will take you wherever it needs to go during processing. There are no right or wrong ways to do this. Sometimes the images, feelings, or thoughts that come up don’t make sense, sometimes they do. You may feel an overwhelming sense of emotions, these will peak and then fall again. Some people notice their body sensations first, others specific thoughts or images. Imagine your memory is split into lots of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and processing is helping it to put these in order and see the whole picture.

Once you notice a reduction in your emotions, you will review the positive belief you want to hold about yourself. These often develop or become clearer during processing. Finally, you scan your body to check for any bodily sensations linked to the memory, and then the session is complete. In the next session we will review how you are feeling, and what you would like to focus on next.

EMDR has three stages of treatment, and it is usual to focus on past memories before moving on to present triggers and processing these.  Lastly, therapy will focus on helping to identify future situations where you want your response to be different and developing alternative patterns to cope.

How does EMDR work?

It is believed that the left to right movement, known as Bilateral Stimulation, works on the information processing part of the brain. By focusing on both the traumatic memory, and an external stimulus such as eye movements, it allows an individual to access unprocessed memories. They can then digest these in a way that removes the negative emotional states that are attached.   

EMDR helps the person to file the memory in the right place, and for their brain to dismiss untrue associations with the present which may have been made. For example, people can come to therapy with unhelpful thoughts such as “I am unsafe” or “I am a bad person” which stem from the trauma. EMDR helps them to understand that these beliefs are not true, and are no longer required.

EMDR works in a similar way to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which is believed to be the point in sleep where we process events.    Treatment for trauma is advised to be taken after a minimum of a month has passed from the traumatic event; this is because for many people their brain is able to process the event without the need for longer-term therapies. 

EMDR can be used for people who have all the types of trauma.  If someone has a one-off trauma, they are likely to need less sessions than someone who has a number of traumatic experiences.  It is also effective for people who suffer from long-term anxiety problems.

When a person has experienced a number of traumas, EMDR works by clustering symptoms or experiences. In most cases, it then starts by processing the earliest memory of this.  Starting with the earliest memory can help to reduce current symptomology without having to process every event that occurred. 

Interested in learning more? Please see the links below

EMDR for anxiety

There is growing evidence that EMDR is an effective therapy for anxiety disorders. In 2020, a scientific review of all the research in this area found that EMDR can effectively reduce symptoms of anxiety, panic and phobias.

Some people who have anxiety disorders can identify stressors and difficulties in their lives which led to the development of this. If this is the case, then these memories are targeted by EMDR to help reduce the original foundation of the anxiety.

For other people, they may not be able to identify specific memories. However, they can identify times when they have become anxious and this has had a negative impact on them, has caused significant distress or embarrassment, or has led them to avoid situations. In this case, these memories will be targeted.

With panic disorder/ attacks, EMDR can be used to target previous experiences of panic. Often when people panic they feel as if they are very ill or may die, which in itself is traumatic. Targeting these memories can help relieve the emotional distress related to panicking.

With phobias some people can identify a trigger that started this. For other people the trigger is unknown or they don’t feel there is one. As with general anxiety, if there are trigger memories these will be targeted with EMDR. If there isn’t, then experiences when the phobia caused significant distress will be. EMDR can also be used to target current situations a person may be avoiding due to their phobia.

How is EMDR different to Trauma Focused CBT?

• In EMDR, the focus is not on talking through the incident, it is about targeting an image from this and processing all aspects of the memory – including feelings, thoughts and physical sensations.
• Trauma Focused CBT (TF-CBT) has more of a focus on helping an individual to challenge the dysfunctional beliefs that have arisen from the traumatic event.
• TF-CBT involves behavioural techniques to manage avoidance. This includes ‘in vivo’ exposure, whereby the person directly faces the feared situation in real life. It also uses ‘imaginal’ exposure, where the person is asked to imagine the traumatic experience repeatedly, to reduce the fear response to this.

Got questions about the therapy process? Please see my Frequently Asked Questions.

Contact Gemma Pearson, EMDR Therapist