What is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing? (EMDR)

I find EMDR to be a powerful tool to resolve not only trauma but a variety of limited, stuck beliefs we may have about ourselves. However, before we get into EMDR, let’s take a look at what trauma is.

Trauma can be any life event that seems to be difficult to overcome and affects you in many different ways.

People sometimes think of PTSD when they think of trauma. PTSD usually involves being exposed to death or threatened death, serious injury, or threatened violence in some way. These symptoms last for at least one month and have an effect on your everyday life.

However, trauma can also be developmental. This means that you may have had distressful experiences in your past as a child. This may have been abuse, neglect, difficulty with attachment and caregivers, or even not feeling loved and accepted at home. Children need to feel consistent validation and support from caregivers and when they don’t, we can hold these negative experiences with us for the rest of our lives.

EMDR uses the adaptive information processing model, which is based on the idea that many emotional disturbances are a result of information and memories that were not encoded properly in the brain. This prevents the adaptive integration of those events into the brain so that you can move on with your life. Those negative experiences become stored in the emotional part of the brain without the proper time or date set to them. When something happens in the present to activate that stored memory, you may feel as if it is happening in the here and now which can lead to being “triggered” or that you have to act the same way you did before, which may not be helpful now in your life.

Here is an example. If as a child you were yelled at when you expressed your opinion or views, that information is stored in an unhealthy way in your brain. It never got the chance to be integrated so that you could move on. Now whenever you are about to say your opinion about something you feel fear and distress, perhaps not being able to do so because that memory of being yelled at when you were a child is not stored in the way it needs to be. Since telling your opinion is associated with being yelled at, we work on the associated memory network in your brain. It is actually adaptive that your brain is doing all this because it is trying to keep you safe. However, it can cause more problems as you get older and haven’t been able to work through those issues.

EMDR helps to access memory networks in your brain in order to move memories from being stuck and emotionally charged, to being processed in more helpful ways. So you can finally be free of them.

There have been many studies done on the efficacy of EMDR. One example is of the Pagini Research Study in which eye movements from EMDR showed higher activation in the orbital frontal, prefrontal, and anterior cingulate cortex parts of the brain. These frontal lobes are where processing and logic happens. We want these to be more “on line” in order to file away distressing memories.

If you are interested you can learn more about EMDR here and view a video explaining more in-depth https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

I hope this article has helped explain some facets of EMDR. Please keep in mind this article is not intended as professional therapy or clinical advice. If you need help with a mental health issue you are facing, please contact a licensed mental health clinician.

I wish you well.

-Dr. Zaleski

Dr. Katrina Zaleski is a licensed clinical psychologist providing therapy in the state of California. One of her specialties is working with those looking for help with trauma. Learn more about Dr. Zaleski’s services for Trauma.