What You Need to Know About EMDR

Written By Tasia Kristich

What You Need to Know About EMDR

If you've done any research into trauma therapy, you've probably come across EMDR — and maybe wondered whether moving your eyes back and forth could really help you heal. It's a fair question. Here's what the theory, the research, and the actual experience of EMDR look like.

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is an evidence-based therapy that helps people heal from distressing memories and experiences by tapping into the brain's natural tendency toward integration and health. It does this through bilateral stimulation (BLS): rhythmic, alternating sensory input that helps the brain process experiences that have become "stuck," reducing the distress connected to them. There are three types of BLS used in EMDR treatment:

  • Visual stimulation — visually tracking the movement of a finger, light bar, or dot moving horizontally back and forth on a screen

  • Tactile stimulation — alternating taps on both knees, holding pulsating buzzers in each hand, or the butterfly hug

  • Auditory stimulation — listening to tones or music that shifts back and forth between the left and right ears

Origins and Relevant Research

EMDR was discovered in 1987 by psychologist Francine Shapiro while she was on a walk, working through some personal distress of her own. As she thought about what was bothering her and noticed her eyes shifting back and forth, she realized the distress felt less emotionally charged. That small, curious observation led her to experiment with friends and volunteers who had their own histories of distress, and eventually to her first pilot study in 1989.

That original study, published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, found that a single session of the procedure significantly desensitized participants' traumatic memories, reduced their anxiety, and shifted the negative beliefs they held about themselves and the event, compared to a control condition (Shapiro, 1989). Research since then has only strengthened the case for EMDR: it's now recognized as a first-line treatment for PTSD by major health bodies including the World Health Organization, the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, with recent studies showing significant reductions in co-occurring anxiety and depression alongside improvements in PTSD symptoms (Simpson et al., 2025; de Jongh et al., 2024).

How It Works

EMDR is grounded in Shapiro's core theory of Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), which explains the brain's natural tendency to process memories, how trauma gets "stuck," and how healing happens. Shapiro proposed that the brain has a built-in system for processing life events into healthy, integrated memory networks (Shapiro, 2018).

On an ordinary day, the brain takes in a constant stream of experience and, largely through rest and sleep, processes that information through our sensory and emotional systems so it can be stored in our memory networks in an organized way. When an experience is too overwhelming to process this way, that natural system gets "stuck," and emotional distress follows. What gets stuck isn't just the facts of what happened — it's the raw sensory pieces of it: the sights, sounds, body sensations, and smells, along with the negative beliefs that formed in that moment. Left unprocessed, these "stuck" pieces can be triggered easily by everyday life and continue to cause distress long after the original event.

EMDR uses BLS to engage both bottom-up processing (the body's raw sensory and emotional experience of the memory) and top-down processing (the cognitive meaning we make of it), so the brain can access and reprocess the memory through both channels at once. This is also where the body scan comes in — a somatic technique used later in treatment to check that the experience has been fully integrated: not just understood intellectually, but felt, in the body, as resolved.

During EMDR, BLS is thought to work in part by taxing working memory (the brain system that holds and manipulates a small amount of information at a time), which reduces the vividness and emotional intensity of the memory as it's recalled. At the same time, the alternating stimulation is believed to engage both hemispheres of the brain, supporting information-sharing between them and helping the memory move through reprocessing and into integration.

It's worth saying clearly: EMDR does not erase memories. It's a way of tapping into the brain's natural AIP system to release a memory from wherever it's "stuck" and let it integrate into your broader, self-organizing memory network — the way an ordinary memory would. As that integration happens, the memory tends to lose its emotional charge, along with the distressing symptoms — anxiety, depression, grief, hypervigilance — that had been keeping it activated.

The Eight Phases of EMDR

EMDR therapy follows a structured eight-phase protocol:

  1. History-Taking. You and your therapist discuss what brings you to therapy and gather the background needed for effective treatment.

  2. Preparation. Your therapist equips you with coping and regulation tools to help manage distress, while you continue building trust and rapport together.

  3. Assessment. You and your therapist identify a specific target memory, the negative belief attached to it, and the positive belief you'd like to have instead.

  4. Desensitization. BLS is used to focus on the target memory, activating your brain's natural AIP system to begin reprocessing it.

  5. Installation. BLS is used again, this time to strengthen the positive belief you identified — helping "rewire" the memory so it becomes associated with your own strength and resilience rather than the original distress.

  6. Body Scan. Your therapist guides you to notice any residual physical sensations connected to the memory, to confirm the experience is fully integrated, not just understood intellectually.

  7. Closure. Sessions end with a return to a stable, grounded state, supporting you as you move back into daily life.

  8. Reevaluation. Your therapist checks in on your progress and any remaining symptoms before treatment concludes.

What is EMDR Therapy Like

The first few sessions (History-Taking, Preparation, and Assessment) feel a lot like traditional talk therapy — you and your therapist are getting to know each other, and you're learning tools to help you self-regulate between sessions.

Once you move into Desensitization and Installation, BLS becomes a more active, consistent part of your sessions, and this is where the real processing work happens. Your therapist will deliberately take this slowly, giving your nervous system the time and containment it needs. These sessions often run longer than a standard session and can bring up real emotional intensity — which is exactly why the earlier phases spend so much time building your coping and resourcing skills first. Learning that you can stay present and in control while revisiting a distressing memory is, in itself, a powerful and often unexpectedly healing experience.

What matters most in this stage is practicing a new way of responding to the memory — using the tools from earlier phases to self-soothe and return to a calm, grounded state — rather than reacting the way you may have in the past, through impulsivity, mood instability, substance use, hypervigilance, avoidance, intrusive thoughts, or negative self-talk. Over these sessions, the once-distressing event gradually becomes just another processed memory from your past, one that no longer carries the same emotional weight.

By Closure and Reevaluation, sessions look more like regular therapy again, with less use of BLS. This stage is about restoring a sense of balance, addressing any leftover thoughts or feelings, and confirming that the memory no longer causes distress or gets in the way of your life. If something new comes up, you and your therapist simply return to an earlier phase and work back through the process for that target.

Once the work is complete, a final session honors what you've accomplished and supports your transition back into life without the weight you came in carrying. Many clients check in periodically after treatment ends to maintain their progress.

Above all: you set the pace. Moving through this process takes time, compassion, and vulnerability, and your therapist's job is to make sure you're never moved into a phase you're not resourced for. That's why so much care goes into building trust in the early sessions, before the deeper work begins.

Current and Further Research

Shapiro's AIP model — the idea that the brain has an innate, self-organizing system oriented toward health and integration — was a bold claim in 1987, made well before neuroscience had the tools to fully test it. Decades later, researchers across cognitive and clinical neuroscience are still working to understand exactly how the brain organizes, stores, and integrates memories, and Shapiro's core insight has aged well.

One notable point of overlap: psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Siegel — a clinical professor at UCLA and executive director of the Mindsight Institute — has spent decades developing the field of interpersonal neurobiology, which similarly describes the mind as a self-organizing system that integrates experience across brain, body, and relationships. His 2016 book, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, lays out this framework in depth, and it's a fascinating complement to the AIP model for anyone who wants to go deeper into the "why" behind EMDR.

The neuroscience of memory and integration is still an active area of research, and no single study has fully mapped how AIP works at a neural level. What we can say with confidence is this: EMDR's clinical effectiveness is well-established across decades of controlled research, even as scientists continue working to understand the brain mechanisms behind it.

Is EMDR Right for You?

If you're curious whether EMDR could help with what you're carrying, I offer free 20-minute consultations to talk through your history and see if this approach feels like the right fit. Schedule a consultation to get started.

Sources

  • Shapiro, F. (1989). Efficacy of the eye movement desensitization procedure in the treatment of traumatic memories. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2(2), 199–223.

  • Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

  • World Health Organization. (2013). Guidelines for the management of conditions specifically related to stress. Geneva: WHO.

  • de Jongh, A., et al. (2024). State of the science: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Journal of Traumatic Stress.

  • Simpson, E., et al. (2025). Clinical and cost-effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing for treatment and prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychology, 116, 1128–1149.

  • Siegel, D. J. (2016). Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human. W. W. Norton & Company.

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Tasia Kristich