EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. You never need to remember that, and Francine Shapiro, the creator of EMDR, said that if she could go back, she would just call it “Reprocessing Therapy.”

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​​EMDR recognizes that we all have a “processing system” in our brain that helps us resolve disturbing life experiences – similar to how our body has a process for healing when we get a cut. Traumas sometimes cause this processing system to get "stuck." It's stuck because even though it happened in the past, the experience gets stored in the brain as though it’s happening right now.

This is problematic when something happens in the present to trigger those memories, and you suddenly experience the same feelings and bodily sensations you had when the trauma occurred. So maybe your heart starts racing and your palms get sweaty and you feel a surge of panic. This can feel especially unsettling if you aren't aware that an old trauma is being triggered, so it feels like your reaction came out of nowhere or that it doesn't make any sense.

In addition to the feelings and sensations associated with traumatic events, "emotional learnings" can also get stuck. Emotional learnings define the way we view ourselves, others, and the world in general. Negative emotional learnings, such as “I'm not good enough” or “I can’t trust anyone because people always leave” are obviously more likely to develop when we experience a trauma such as childhood abuse or a parent dying or abandoning their family when they were growing up.

It's important to understand that many of our core emotional learnings develop very early, typically before the age of 3, which is before we have any concrete memories. Many adults are surprised to discover they have such deeply rooted negative core beliefs about themselves or others when they had a "pretty good childhood" or don't feel as though they've experienced anything that would qualify as truly "traumatic." But at those very early stages of development, feelings of shame or beliefs about being unlovable or unworthy can still get stuck from experiences that don't really seem like a big deal. That is because things that seem trivial to us as an adult could have been incredibly impactful as an infant or toddler.

Therefore, EMDR would define "trauma" as anything that happened to you or that you experienced that is continuing to have a negative impact on your life. So EMDR can help heal obviously traumatic events or experiences AND anything else that is still affecting someone and keeping them stuck. 
 

What does emdr therapy stand for?

The biggest problem when things get stuck like this is that the different pieces of the memory or emotional learning are stored in different, isolated parts of your brain, as though they are “locked away.” This means that all the other information you either already have in your brain or might be learning about in therapy that could help resolve the traumatic experience can’t link up. This is also why some methods of therapy like CBT don’t work when there is trauma involved. When you’re learning skills to challenge negative thoughts and replace them with more positive ones, you create new and very helpful pathways in your brain. But if those new pathways still can’t link up with the trauma, then it’s not going to make you feel better.

EMDR uses something called bilateral stimulation to basically “unlock” your nervous system and help the different parts of your brain link up. Bilateral stimulation gets the two sides of your brain talking to each other, and engages a a type of accelerated processing that we often do subconsciously during REM sleep. This can be done using eye movements where you track something moving side to side, or using headphones when you listen to sounds that alternate sides, or using little buzzers that you hold in each hand and buzz one at a time back and forth. 

Linking up this information is a necessary step in re-processing the traumatic experience, so your brain is then able to RE-store the memory in a new way. The images, sounds, smells, emotions, and body sensations get stored properly as being in the past. EMDR calls this desensitization, because it takes the “charge” out of the memory so it no longer feels distressing to remember it. EMDR follows this with installation, which “overwrites” the old negative belief and attaches a new, positive perspective to the memory. As your core beliefs change, so does the primary "lens" through which you see the world, allowing you to finally step into the life you've always wanted!



If you are a fellow nerd, feel free to check out my blog post where I take an even deeper dive into the neuroscience behind EMDR and everything you might want to know about what the process looks like. 

how EMDR understands "trauma"

why does emdr therapy work?