What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a form of adaptive information processing which uses bilateral stimulation to reprocess traumatic material to resolve distressing emotions, distorted beliefs systems, and other troublesome symptoms which may have been reinforced by past adverse events.

There is a plethora of scientific literature indicating that EMDR can be helpful in addressing a variety of symptom complaints, including but not limited to: PTSD, depression, anxiety, phobias, addictions, relationship problems, complicated grief and more.

If you’d like to learn more about EMDR prior to your first session I recommend checking out some resources linked below:

EMDR FAQ’s

  • This is highly dependent upon your own specific goals for treatment, as well as what you’re hoping to get out of therapy during a given season of your life.

    Typically, more than one EMDR reprocessing session is required to begin to see a longer-lasting benefit — especially if you’ve experienced multiple traumas across the course of your lifetime. This is because there may be more traumatic material that needs to be “cleared” from both the mind and the body.

    However, this isn’t to say you can’t still experience powerful changes within a single EMDR session. More often than not, individuals can potentially expect to experience deep insights through a singular session; which can then be integrated to promote inner transformation.

  • Every EMDR session is unique and it’s oftentimes difficult to predict how a given individual may respond to treatment.

    It is possible that you will experience discomfort and strong emotional content. Distressing unresolved memories may also resurface through the use of EMDR. Some clients experience reactions during treatment such as:

    • a high degree of emotional disturbance

    • physical sensations

    • disorientation

    • fear

    • nausea

    Subsequent to the treatment session, the processing of trauma material may continue and dreams, memories, flashbacks (physical & emotional), or other feelings and sensations may surface.

    All of that said, the brain and body are very forgiving with this modality. Treatment can be dialed back and tailored to meet your nervous system where it’s at.

    We aim to ease our way into the “deeper end of things” — slowly but surely. This gradually allows you to build up your somatic tolerance over time to be able to reprocess deeper encoded traumatic material.