EMDR Therapy: Skeptical? Go With That.
During graduate school, I noticed that many of my peers were pursuing training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, better known as EMDR. Its popularity was difficult to ignore. EMDR had become increasingly prominent in conversations about trauma treatment, and it seemed to carry a particular kind of professional momentum. It was, in many ways, the “it girl” of the psychotherapy world.
I was skeptical.
By that point, I had already been trained in Prolonged Exposure Therapy and was, in the least clinical phrasing possible, a total PE stan. Prolonged Exposure made sense to me. It was direct. It was structured. The mechanisms were clear enough to satisfy the part of my brain that prefers therapy to arrive with citations, a coherent theoretical model, and preferably several randomized controlled trials tucked neatly under its arm.
EMDR, from my completely uninformed vantage point, looked a lil’ suspicious. Eye movements? Bilateral stimulation? Holding distressing memories in mind while following someone’s fingers across a room? My evidence-based loving brain had what can only be described as “the ick.”
So, I did what skeptics tend to do when curiosity becomes inconvenient: I started reading.
I looked at the research. I explored the theories proposed to explain how EMDR works and became increasingly interested in what we understand, and still do not fully understand, about trauma, memory, and the brain. The more I learned, the harder it became to dismiss EMDR simply because its mechanisms felt unfamiliar.
I also started paying closer attention to the experiences of clinicians who practiced EMDR and, perhaps more importantly, to the people who had actually experienced it. Their stories were not a substitute for evidence, but they made me curious about something the research alone could not answer for me: What did EMDR actually feel like from the other side of the therapist's chair?
Research could make me interested. Anecdotes could make me curious. But neither could tell me what EMDR actually felt like.
Then I experienced EMDR myself.
Key Takeaways
EMDR is an evidence-based trauma therapy with particularly strong research support for
PTSD. Bilateral stimulation, including eye movements, alternating sounds, or tapping, is
only one part of a larger therapeutic process. Clients generally do not have to verbally
describe every detail of a traumatic experience, and the goal of EMDR is not to erase
memories. Instead, the hope is that distressing memories become less emotionally
overwhelming and less likely to feel as though they are happening all over again.
Researchers are still studying exactly how EMDR works and which parts of the treatment
contribute most to improvement. That uncertainty about mechanism is different from
uncertainty about whether the treatment can be effective. EMDR is also only one option
for trauma treatment. “Evidence-based” does not automatically mean right for every
person.
You don't have to keep carrying the weight of past experiences alone.
If trauma, PTSD, or distressing memories are affecting your daily life, Balanced Wellness is here to help. Our therapists offer compassionate, evidence-based trauma treatment, including EMDR, and will work with you to find the approach that feels right for you.
Reach out today to connect with a therapist who can support you with compassionate, evidence-based care.
So, What Is EMDR Therapy?
If you are new to EMDR, it is easy to assume that the whole thing is basically about eye movements. That is certainly the part people tend to remember, and it is also the part most likely to make a skeptical person pause and think, I’m sorry, we’re doing what now?
But EMDR is not simply a therapy where you think about something upsetting while following your therapist’s fingers back and forth. It is a structured trauma-focused therapy designed to help people work with memories and experiences that continue to create distress in the present.
The treatment is formally organized into eight phases. In practice, EMDR begins much like other forms of therapy. Your therapist gets to know you, learns about what is bringing you to treatment, and works with you to understand what you would like to change. You also talk about how you typically respond to difficult emotions and begin identifying memories or experiences that may be connected to what is happening in your life now.
Before any trauma processing begins, there should be preparation. You should have some understanding of what EMDR involves, what might come up during the process, and how you and your therapist will communicate if the work begins to feel overwhelming. Good trauma therapy should not feel like being dropped into the most painful experience of your life.
When processing does begin, your therapist may ask you to bring a particular memory to mind and notice different aspects of it: an image, what you believe about yourself when you think about it, the emotions that arise, and perhaps where you notice distress in your body. You then briefly focus on the experience while engaging in bilateral stimulation, which may involve eye movements, alternating sounds, or tapping.
After a short period, the therapist pauses and asks a deceptively simple question:
What do you notice?
Then you continue from there.
Over time, you and your therapist pay attention to whether the memory remains as upsetting, whether your emotional or physical reactions change, and whether the beliefs connected to the experience begin to shift. The pace doesn’t look the same for everyone. Some people move into processing relatively quickly while others need more time. Preparation is not something you rush through on the way to the “real” therapy. It is part of the therapy.
What EMDR Actually Feels Like
This was the part I could not understand through journal articles. It is also difficult to explain now because people experience EMDR differently. For me, one of the most interesting parts of the process was noticing how strongly I wanted to analyze everything that came up.
If one memory suddenly reminded me of another, I wanted to know why. If a seemingly unrelated thought appeared, I wanted to figure out the connection. If something shifted emotionally, some part of my brain immediately wanted to step in and provide a full clinical explanation.
And then came a phrase familiar to many people who have experienced EMDR:
Go with that.
For someone who is very capable (a little too capable sometimes) of thinking about my own thinking about my own thinking, this was an adjustment. EMDR was not asking me to stop thinking or abandon logic. It was asking me, at times, to notice what was happening before immediately trying to explain it.
A memory appeared. Go with that.
An emotion shifted. Go with that.
Something seemingly random came to mind. Go with that.
There was something strangely freeing about not having to understand every association the moment it appeared. I could notice it, follow it, and see where it went. Sometimes what comes up during EMDR makes perfect sense. One memory may clearly connect to another. At other times, an unexpected thought, emotion, image, or physical sensation may appear. You may suddenly see part of an experience differently, or you may sit there thinking, I have absolutely no idea what my brain is doing right now. That’s allowed too.
I think this is part of why EMDR can be so difficult to describe from the outside. The facts of what happened do not change, and the goal is not to erase the memory. You still know what happened. What may change is the way the memory feels when you remember it. Instead of feeling emotionally immediate, as though some part of you has been pulled completely back into the experience, the memory may gradually begin to feel more like something that happened in the past. You remember it, but you do not necessarily relive it.
Do You Have to Tell Your Therapist Everything?
One of the most common concerns people have about trauma therapy is whether they will be expected to describe everything that happened to them in detail. With EMDR, the answer is generally no. You still have to bring aspects of the experience into awareness. EMDR is not a way to completely avoid engaging with painful material, and trauma processing can certainly bring up difficult thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. However, you generally do not have to provide your therapist with a detailed, moment-by-moment account of everything that happened.
For some people, that distinction is very important.
You share enough information for your therapist to understand what you are working on while much of what happens during processing remains internal. Another memory may emerge. A private thought may come to mind. An emotion may shift. You do not necessarily have to narrate every part of that process. This does not make EMDR easy, but it does mean that processing a traumatic experience does not always require telling the entire story out loud.
How Does EMDR Work?
Here is my favorite evidence-based answer: We have some ideas, and we are still figuring out the rest. EMDR is grounded in a theoretical framework called the Adaptive Information Processing model, or AIP. In simple terms, the model proposes that some distressing experiences may remain connected to emotions, physical sensations, and beliefs in ways that continue to influence us long after the actual event has ended.
It is important to understand that AIP is a theoretical model for understanding EMDR. It is not a literal map of what is happening inside the brain.
Researchers have proposed several explanations for why EMDR may be effective. One area of research focuses on working memory. When you actively recall a vivid and upsetting memory, your brain is already using some of its limited attentional resources. Performing another task at the same time, such as repeated eye movements, also requires attention. Researchers have explored whether this competition for mental resources may reduce the vividness or emotional intensity of the memory. Other research has examined changes in attention, emotional arousal, memory processing, and how information connected to traumatic experiences may become integrated differently over time.
The actual answer is that we are still learning exactly what is happening and which parts of EMDR contribute most to improvement. This is also where conversations about EMDR can sometimes go off the rails. When we do not fully understand why something works, there can be a temptation to fill in the gaps with explanations that sound scientific. You may hear that trauma is literally “stuck” somewhere in the brain or that bilateral stimulation is unlocking some hidden neurological healing mechanism.
Does this lack a full, exact understanding in my evidence-loving brain and make my eye twitch a little bit? Yes. Does EMDR change people’s lives who have been struggling with PTSD? Also yes. As much as I hate it, science is allowed to say, This helps, and we are still learning exactly why.
Is EMDR Actually Evidence-Based?
Yes.
EMDR is a well-established trauma-focused psychotherapy with substantial research support for PTSD. It has been studied in numerous clinical trials and is included in major clinical guidelines for PTSD treatment. That does not mean every claim ever made about EMDR is supported by the same level of evidence.
EMDR is now offered for many mental health concerns, and although research into some of those uses is promising, the evidence is not necessarily equally strong for every diagnosis or problem someone might bring to therapy. I feel this is important to discuss because evidence-based practice is not about deciding that a therapy is either completely legitimate or completely useless and then applying that conclusion to everything.
We can know that EMDR has strong evidence for PTSD while also remaining cautious about claims that extend beyond what current research supports.
What Changed for Me
Experiencing EMDR myself did not prove to me that EMDR works. That is not how evidence works, and my experience is still one person’s experience.
What it gave me was access to something I could not get from reading a study. My experience helped me understand why people sometimes struggle to describe what EMDR feels like, and why knowing the steps of a therapy is not the same thing as experiencing it yourself.
My experience did not replace the research, but it did change the questions I was asking. I became more interested in asking what happens when a distressing memory is brought into awareness under different conditions. Why might a memory begin to feel different even though the facts have not changed? Why do unexpected associations sometimes appear? Why do some people connect strongly with this process while others do not? Which parts of the treatment are doing the most work?
Those questions became much more interesting to me.
Experiencing EMDR also reminded me of something that can be easy to forget when you spend a lot of time reading treatment manuals and research articles: Therapy is an experience. Research can tell us whether symptoms improve, and it can compare treatments and help us understand which interventions are most likely to help.
But clients also experience therapy from inside their own minds and bodies. A therapy can be evidence-based and still feel weird, exhausting, emotional, frustrating, relieving, or some complicated combination of all of those things.
Experiencing EMDR did not make me less interested in evidence. If anything, it made me more interested…and slightly less smug about therapies that initially look weird.
Is EMDR Right for Everyone?
Nope. Spoiler alert: no therapy is.
EMDR might be worth considering when experiences from the past continue to feel emotionally activating and present in your life. Maybe a memory remains intensely upsetting. Maybe certain reminders bring you right back to how you felt when something happened. Maybe you know logically that you are safe now, but your mind or body still reacts as though the danger is happening all over again. Sometimes those experiences also shape the beliefs a person carries about themselves: It was my fault. I should have done something differently. I am not safe. I cannot trust anyone. I am powerless.
For people with PTSD, EMDR is one evidence-based treatment option. But evidence-based does not mean mandatory, and popular does not mean right for everyone. The “it girl” of psychotherapy is still allowed to not be your type.
Finding an EMDR Therapist
At Balanced Wellness, we have several therapists who treat trauma with both EMDR and other evidence-based modalities.
When looking for an EMDR therapist, I would definitely encourage you to ask whether the clinician has completed an EMDRIA-approved training and whether the therapist has additional experience or specialized training related to the client’s specific needs. This can be especially important when treatment involves complex, medical, reproductive, perinatal, attachment-related, or other particularly sensitive forms of trauma.
A well-trained EMDR therapist should be able to explain their training, approach to preparation and stabilization, and how they determine whether EMDR is appropriate for a particular client.
Finding a therapist whose experience aligns with your needs can help support a safer, more responsive, and more individualized treatment process.
Final Thoughts
I understand why EMDR inspires skepticism, and I think a certain amount of skepticism is healthy.
Psychotherapy is not immune to trends, overstatement, or exciting explanations that travel faster than the evidence supporting them. Clinicians should ask questions. Clients should ask questions. We should all be cautious when something sounds scientific simply because someone has placed the word neuroscience in front of it.
But skepticism should work in both directions. We should be willing to question treatments that make extraordinary claims, and we should also be willing to question our own assumptions when the evidence no longer supports them.
That was ultimately my experience with EMDR.
Sometimes changing your mind does not mean abandoning skepticism. Sometimes it means allowing skepticism to do what it is actually supposed to do: push you toward better questions, better evidence, and a more informed opinion.
And sometimes, when something unexpected comes up, you simply have to see what happens when you go with that.
Looking for trauma therapy that meets you where you are?
Learn how our therapists use EMDR and other evidence-based approaches to help clients heal from trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and life transitions.
At Balanced Wellness, we’re here to support you. Reach out to schedule an appointment.
Frequently Asked Questions About EMDR Therapy
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That’s totally fine. You do not have to walk into therapy knowing exactly which memory you should work on. Part of the EMDR process involves working with your therapist to understand what is bothering you now and whether past experiences may be connected to those reactions. Sometimes the starting point is obvious. Other times, it becomes clearer as therapy progresses.
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Usually, no. You will need to bring aspects of a distressing experience into awareness, but you generally don’t have to describe every detail out loud. Much of what you notice during processing can remain internal.
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There isn’t a single “correct” way to experience EMDR. Some people notice memories, emotions, physical sensations, images, or unexpected associations. At other times, it doesn’t seem like much is happening. You don’t have to force an emotional breakthrough or come up with something interesting to say. Your therapist can help you notice what is happening and adjust the process when needed.
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No. EMDR is not designed to erase memories. The goal is for a distressing memory to become less emotionally activating and less likely to feel as though it is happening all over again. Ideally, the memory becomes something you can remember rather than something you repeatedly relive.
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Trauma-focused therapy can sometimes bring up difficult emotions, memories, dreams, or physical sensations. This is one reason preparation, pacing, and communication with your therapist are so critical to the process. If you feel overwhelmed during or between sessions, it’simportant to share with your therapist. EMDR should be collaborative, and the pace can be adjusted when needed.
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There is no standard timeline. Treatment length depends on what you are working on, your history, your current symptoms, and how you respond to the process.
Someone working with a single distressing experience may have a very different course of treatment from someone with a long or complex trauma history.
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You don’t have to decide that by yourself! At Balanced Wellness, a therapist with appropriate EMDR and trauma-treatment training can help you consider your symptoms, treatment goals, preferences, and other available options.
EMDR has strong evidence for PTSD, but evidence-based does not mean that every evidence-based treatment is the right fit for every person.
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You wouldn’t be the first person to think that. You’re allowed to ask why your therapist is recommending EMDR, what each part of the process is supposed to accomplish, and what the research actually shows. A good therapist should be able to explain the treatment without asking you to suspend your skepticism or blindly trust the process. You can be skeptical and still be curious.
