Feeling Stuck? How EMDR Can Support Healing
What Is EMDR Therapy? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy that supports healing from experiences that continue to shape how we feel, relate, and move through the world. And often long after they’ve ended. EMDR is based on the premise that the brain has a natural ability to process and integrate experiences, which facilitates recovery (Shapiro, 2018; EMDR International Association, n.d.). When an experience is too intense, happens too early in life, or occurs without adequate support, our nervous system can become overwhelmed, and processing/recovery can be disrupted. Instead of being fully and adaptively integrated by our brains, the memory may remain stored in a fragmented or state-dependent way. This may show up later as emotional reactivity, negative self-beliefs, physical sensations, self-doubt, repeated relational patterns, etc. In other words, these maladaptively stored memories become “stuck” in our brain and bodies.
Rather than focusing solely on insight or verbal processing, EMDR works directly with how experiences are held in the nervous system by helping the brain revisit and reorganize these experiences in a way that supports integration rather than overwhelm. This involves the use of bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones, while you briefly connect with aspects of a memory and maintain a dual sense of awareness by staying anchored in the present. In a way, this process helps “metabolize” maladaptively stored memories. Over time, the memory often loses its intensity, and new perspectives, emotions, and beliefs emerge more naturally. People may to notice meaningful shifts in how they feel, respond, and understand themselves in relation to past experiences.
EMDR is structured around an eight-phase process, which provides a clear, supportive framework for working with memories, emotions, and triggers. Think of it as a guided path: each phase prepares, supports, or integrates your experiences so that healing is safe and sustainable.
The Eight Phases of EMDR Therapy:
1. History-Taking & Treatment Planning
We take time to understand your story, patterns, strengths, and goals, and collaboratively identify areas of focus.
2. Preparation
Emphasis is placed on safety, grounding, and developing tools to support regulation during and between sessions.
3. Assessment
Together, we identify a specific experience and explore the beliefs, emotions, and body sensations connected to it.
4. Desensitization
Bilateral stimulation supports the brain’s natural processing as distress gradually decreases.
5. Installation
More adaptive beliefs are strengthened as the system begins to feel safer and more integrated.
6. Body Scan
We attend to the body to ensure the experience feels settled and complete.
7. Closure
Each session ends with grounding and stabilization to support continued regulation.
8. Reevaluation
Progress is reviewed over time to guide ongoing work. These phases work together within a three-prong protocol, where present triggers are understood in the context of past experiences and how they influence future responses. The goal of EMDR is not to erase what happened, but to reduce its impact in the present and create space for new ways of responding and experiencing the world moving forward.
EMDR’s Three-Prong Protocol:
1. Past Experiences allows us to process memories that remain “stuck,” like files trapped in a cluttered cabinet. When unprocessed, these memories can leak distress into current life, shaping beliefs and emotional responses. EMDR helps your brain reorganize these memories so they can be stored more adaptively.
2. Present Triggers, such as sights, sounds, sensations, or thoughts act like alarms in our brain, setting off reactions long after the original event. EMDR helps you respond differently to these triggers, like learning to disarm an old alarm that keeps going off because it thinks it’s supposed to.
3. Future Templates help us imagines new ways to respond to challenges before they happen, like rehearsing a path through a dark forest with a lantern in hand, so you can move forward with confidence (or at least more confidence) rather than hesitation.
In other words:
Instead of reliving the storm, you’re relearning how to navigate the weather. You don’t have to revisit every lightning strike. You learn what the sky looks like now, how to read the clouds, and how your body responds when the wind picks up.
What Does EMDR Treat?
While EMDR is probably the most well known for helping treat symptoms of trauma, the extensiveness of its reach also expands into a wide range of concerns that are supported by a robust body of research (Shapiro, 2018; Bisson et al., 2013; WHO, 2013))!
EMDR may be helpful for individuals navigating:
· Anxiety disorders (including generalized anxiety, panic, and phobias)
· Attachment and relational patterns
· Body-based stress responses or somatic symptoms
· Childhood experiences that continue to impact adult relationships
· Depressive disorders
· Disturbing or intrusive memories
· Experiences of emotional, physical, or relational harm
· Obsessive compulsive disorder
· Post-traumatic stress (including complex or developmental trauma)
· Shame, self-blame, or deeply held negative beliefs
· Trauma related to medical events, accidents, or sudden loss
· Unresolved grief and loss (including complicated grief)
Some of the experiences addressed in EMDR may not be immediately labeled as “trauma,” yet still carry a lasting emotional or physiological impact. EMDR allows space for these experiences to be understood and processed without needing to minimize or over-pathologize them.
What will it actually feel like?
A common question people might have is, “What will this actually feel like?”. With EMDR, you don’t sit and unpack every detail of your story from start to finish. Instead, it’s very much about how your nervous system processes experience (not just what your mind remembers). Not all EMDR work begins with trauma reprocessing! Many clients spend a good chunk of time in the preparation phase to build resources, strengthen regulation skills, and create a sense of safety before moving into deeper work. Additionally, once you feel adequately prepared to do the deeper work, you are never asked to relive trauma in vivid detail. You remain fully present and in control throughout the process. EMDR is not hypnosis, and you can pause or stop at any time.
Because experiences vary from person to person, there’s no single way EMDR “feels,” but there are common ways people describe the internal experience.
During an EMDR session, you might notice:
· Internal shifts in sensation or emotion, like warm waves of feeling, brief tension, or a sense of pressure easing
· Thoughts or images coming and going, like clouds passing across the sky
· A change in how a memory “feels”, the same event may be remembered without as much emotional pull
· Quiet or calm moments, where it feels as if your system is settling into safety rather than re‑activating distress
Don’t forget that people can have very different subjective experiences. Some describe EMDR as surprisingly calm, others notice intense feelings, and many find the most meaningful shifts show up outside the session in daily reactions. Some might notice changes more quickly or slowly than others and the length of treatment with EMDR depends on many factors.
EMDR isn’t about erasing memory. It’s about reprocessing and helping your nervous system integrate what happened so you’re not constantly reacting as if the original event is happening right now.
Is EMDR Right for You?
EMDR may be a good fit if you’ve done insight-oriented work but still feel reactive, stuck, or disconnected in certain areas of your life. It can be especially helpful when experiences feel stored in the body rather than accessible through words alone.
EMDR is often chosen by individuals who want a therapy approach that honors both emotional depth and nervous system safety. At the same time, EMDR is not always the first or only step. Some clients benefit from additional stabilization, relational work, or other modalities before or alongside EMDR.
Your clinician will work with you to determine whether EMDR is appropriate and how it fits into a broader, individualized treatment plan.
Disclaimer: This is educational content and is not a substitute for medical advice.
References
Bisson, J. I., et al. (2013). Psychological therapies for chronic PTSD in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
EMDR International Association. (n.d.). What is EMDR? https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/
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.
World Health Organization. (2013). Guidelines for the management of conditions specifically related to stress.https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241505704