Understanding EMDR Therapy and Ways it Can Support You on Your Healing Journey 

Article Written By: Jessica Wright, LPC (CO), LPCC (CA) 

Has something ever happened that’s always stuck with you?

Can your negative self-talk be extra loud and causing disruption in your life?

Events ranging from a car accident, a break up, a different life change – basically anything that caused stress, discomfort, or sadness can stick to us, intensifying those negative thoughts we have about ourselves.

This distress can sometimes lead to persistent anxiety or other uncomfortable emotions that make it challenging to manage day to day.

We know that talk therapy can be extremely helpful in navigating distress from these events, and there is also a different type of therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy that can support you on your healing journey and working through distressing emotions and memories when talk therapy isn’t enough.

While EMDR therapy is typically considered a trauma-informed and effective approach to treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma, EMDR therapy help to shed light on this and so much more

It can also help you to manage everyday stress, alleviate anxiety, or a specific fear.

It can help to improve relationships as so much of our reactions and conflict in relationships are due to ways we learned to cope in unhealthy relationships or hurtful experiences from our past.

EMDR therapy helps to shed light on these hurts as well.

What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR therapy is a structured type of trauma therapy that focuses on targeting lingering effects of any kind of experience that caused stress or discomfort.

In trauma therapy, we often talk about “small t” and “big T” trauma.

This is another way of saying there is a spectrum of events that can cause distress.

It doesn’t matter how big or small this experiences feel, but it matters how you carry it today; how it impacts you.

At times, the impact from a traumatic experience can interfere with the present and an individual’s daily functioning.

Read More: “Considering Therapy? Here’s What You Should Look For When Choosing A Therapist For You.”

The premise is that these types of experiences can become become “stuck” creating what is known as a memory network or a memory that contains images, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, physical sensations as the whole memory of the event or experience.

This network of memories from the past leads to symptoms of distress now.

Our memory networks contain all of our beliefs, learnings, and resources which can be both positive and distressing at times.

These memory networks are created through experiences that can impact certain parts of our brains that are responsible for the fight, flight, or freeze response.

Often seen as a whole mind and body approach to reducing distress, EMDR therapy can help us to see and understand the reason why something is distressing or challenging for us, why we might become more emotionally activated by a situation or an interpersonal miscommunication than we generally would want to.

Once these light is shed on this insight, the techniques used in EMDR therapy help to reduce distress and support us in “unsticking” distressing memories in our brains.

How does EMDRY Therapy Work?

Setting The Stage For Support:

EMDR therapy is not a quick fix. Meaning you are not going to show up for your first day of EMDR therapy with your EMDR therapist and resolve your your trauma, distressing emotions, and at times, unrelenting feelings and beliefs about yourself as many people sometimes believe.

Read More: “5 Ways To Help Yourself When Your Body Feels Your Trauma”

It is a process, and for good reason. If done too quickly, there is potential for becoming flooded and overwhelmed with emotions that might be difficult to manage.

Therefore, it is important for your EMDR therapist to get to know you, your history of experiences throughout your life, and the way you relate to your experiences overall.

Building a therapeutic environment of support, understanding and curiosity sets the stage for working together and finding a pace that is comfortable for you.

Identifying and Practicing Ways of Managing Distress: 

Before getting into reprocessing your experiences more deeply with your therapist, you will learn and practice some helpful methods of regulating your emotions, reducing big feelings, calming your nervous system, increasing your tolerance for emotional discomfort and understanding your physical and emotional reactions to distress.

Part of this process involves working with your therapist on identifying and practicing ways of coping and managing emotions and physical symptoms you may experience.

These are skills and supports that you identify and practice in and out of session with the aim of increasing a safe and calm mental state for yourself.

These tools can become supportive in navigating the challenging terrain of your thought and emotions.

Reprocessing Your Experiences:

Once you feel more comfortable with supporting yourself in and outside of sessions with your new resources, you and your EMDR therapist will begin what’s called reprocessing.

Reprocessing is the part of EMDR therapy that most people identify as an EMDR session.

Read More: “How To Develop Healthy Habits That Support Trauma Healing”

During EMDR reprocessing, your therapist will guide you in focusing on those distressing memories and all aspects about it, including the negative beliefs associated with the traumatic memory or experience, emotions related to the experience, and physical sensations that show up in your body.

Once you have all these in mind, your therapist will provide what’s called bilateral stimulation, or a back-and-forth stimulation.

This safe, sometimes calming movement, is done using eye movements, tapping opposite sides of your body, or alternating sounds

This movement supports your brain and body in reprocessing the memory in a way that you wouldn’t in normal life, leading to less emotional distress and creating what clients often describe as “distance” from the experience.

It is often described as a similar process to dreaming, tapping into the subconscious and getting a chance to look at and alter some things that have been stored there.

In other words, it can make what was once an unhelpful and sometimes unhealthy way of coping no longer necessary because there was a sense of healing to our trauma wounds and the negative beliefs we carry, making it easier to have healthier responses to the world.

Reprocessing in EMDR therapy is safe and is NOT a form of hypnoses.

It does not erase or alter any of your memories. It allows your to process distressing memories in a safe and controlled environment.

Reprocessing can guide our mind in decreasing distress around our previous experiences.

What are the Benefits of EMDR Therapy?

After several sessions, you may notice that these memories aren’t as distressing.

People who have experienced completing EMDR therapy report:

“I feel more distant from that experience”

“I can remember it but it doesn’t bother me anymore” 

“I feel lighter”

“I feel more connected to myself”

“I’m no longer having those reactions”

These benefits can improve your quality of life by allowing you to move through the distress of previous experiences and live more fully in the present.

Read More: “How To Improve Your Mental Health Even When You Have Experienced Trauma”

It can also reduce anxiety and intrusive thoughts and memories, improve sleep and emotion regulation, helping you to manage emotions more effectively.

As clients progress through EMDR therapy, they often report experiencing a boost in self-esteem and a greater sense of empowerment.

This boost of confidence can lead to healing and working through emotional challenges in a different, more effective way.

EMDR therapy can help you through targeting experiences that end up impacting how we show up in our every day life.

EMDR therapy can help you through targeting experiences that end up impacting how we show up in our every day life.

Many individuals who engage in EMDR therapy may feel a sense of empowerment or enhanced emotional regulation.

EMDR can be viewed as a helpful tool in your healing journey that can offer support in making that journey a bit smoother on the other side.

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Learn More About Denver EMDR Therapist Jessica Wright

Jessica Denver therapist based in Los Angeles. She provides online therapy in Colorado.

Denver Therapist, Jessica Wright

She specializes in helping people make big transitions in their life.

Whether it’s from one therapeutic level of care to another, moving, taking a new job, making decisions about their next steps in life, Jessica provides support through navigating these changes.

Tackling anxiety, overwhelm, stress and depression with effective coping skills and a relevant road map can be overwhelming in themselves.

Jessica also helps people with ADHD, anxiety, depression, disordered eating, thoughts of suicide and trauma navigate life more effectively.

She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado, a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in California and an EMDR Therapist.