What Is EMDR Therapy? How Does It Work For Anxiety, Trauma (PTSD) and Depression?

EMDR is a powerful new psychotherapy technique that has been very successful in helping people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), trauma, anxiety, panic attack, disturbing memories, and many other emotional problems.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, but actually, it isn’t just about the eyes (beeps or taps can be used for the same effect).

EMDR is a therapy that was developed in the late eighties in the US. It was first used with combat veterans with PTSD but has quickly come to be useful for eliminating all the symptoms associated with stress and trauma such as flashbacks, panic attacks, anxiety and phobias, depression, over-reactive anger, worrying, disturbed sleep and so on.

In this therapy, you are asked to think about the traumatic memory or issue while the therapist waves her hand in front of your eyes back and forth or (gives you taps or beeps) in sets of about 30 seconds. This form of back and forth (eyes following the hand movement, hearing the beeps or taps) stimulates your brain bilaterally.

The idea is that traumatic memories sometimes get “stuck” in the information processing system of the brain, along with the emotions and even the physical sensations that went with the original experience.

When a traumatic event happens, it happens first to the body, then the emotions kick in and then the brain starts to ‘reprocess’ the event. You think about it, sleep on it, get support, time passes, and etc. At the end of that reprocessing interval, you can still remember the traumatic event but it no longer bothers you and you have peace with them.

That’s an example of the brain working the way it should. But sometimes this reprocessing gets stuck, and this is where EMDR comes in. It desensitizes and reprocesses the difficult memory/issue so that you have peace with it.

EMDR Therapy focuses on the past, the present and the future. When you have completed EMDR Therapy you will not only have resolved past traumatic memories, you will also be comfortable with any present-day triggers that developed, and confident about any challenging issues coming up in the future.

We don’t know exactly what your brain is doing during EMDR, but research has shown that it is very like the same thing your brain is doing during the dream stage of sleep (REM sleep). EMDR Therapy could be a kind of accelerated, conscious version of REM sleep.

EMDR Therapy has been extensively studied and validated by regulating and governmental bodies in the United States and around the world such as the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association.

Excerpt from Barbara Horne’s “What is EMDR Therapy” speech