How EMDR Treatment Works and Who Benefits Most From It

In recent years, the popularity of EMDR treatment has increased significantly, yet many remain unsure of how it works. Simply put, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of guided psychotherapy that aims to help a person’s brain process trauma. It is an effective form of therapy grounded in science and evidence and is recognized by the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association.

What makes EMDR treatment unlike talk therapy is the use of bilateral stimulation. In a session, the therapist will ask the patient to begin to talk about the events that have caused them distress. While they speak, they are instructed to focus on the therapist’s hand, an object, a sound, or a series of light taps, which alternate back and forth, from left to right.

As they speak, their eyes move back and forth following the therapist’s instructions. This motion prompts the brain’s natural healing process to take place. Being skeptical of such an unusual method is understandable, but learning the science of EMDR treatment is a good place to start.

A Brief History Of EMDR

EMDR treatment began with psychologist Francine Shapiro in 1987. Whilst out for a walk in the park one day, she began to realize that as her eyes moved rapidly from one point of stimulation to another, the intensity of her emotions and thoughts was calmed. This experience led her to conduct therapy-based experiments on herself and a control group, leading to surprisingly positive results.

By 1991, she had developed a detailed prototype of EMDR treatment, which she began teaching to licensed therapists and clinicians. There have since been over thirty controlled outcome studies of EMDR treatment, each showing the effectiveness of the cognitive-based therapy.

It’s helpful to know the history of a popular form of therapy, and it’s still natural to have questions. More than any other form of psychotherapy, EMDR treatment is possibly the most confusing to hear about and understand from an outside perspective. Let’s break it down to the core essentials of how EMDR works.

It starts with memories

Everything we experience, both good and bad, helpful and harmful, is stored in our brain as a memory. These memories are like files on a computer that can be opened, viewed, and closed again, without any issues. They sometimes show that trauma occurred, and serve as a reminder of the experience, but just like scars that remain after an injury, they do not continue to cause pain or distress. Memories like this are known as adaptive memories.

For example, you might have an unexpectedly heated interaction with a stranger online that results in them calling you names and making threats to your safety. Though you don’t know this person and will likely report and block them, you are understandably upset and distressed by this experience.

Although you move on with life, that experience often pops up in the back of your mind or even in your dreams at night and affects your day-to-day well-being. You’re not being oversensitive or overreacting about this situation, despite how you might try to trivialize the experience.

In time, however, you realize that you’re safe and that none of the things this stranger said to you have stuck. A friend might have encouraged you and reminded you of all the times you were a decent person. You can rationalize that this person doesn’t know you, and that whatever statements they made came from a place of ignorance and were idle threats.

Eventually, the emotions from this experience begin to subside and vanish. Ultimately, the experience was like tripping and scraping your knee. It was painful at the time, but it caused no lasting damage.

Maladaptive Memories

On the other hand, sometimes we experience something that takes ages to heal, affecting us for years and even decades after it happened. These memories are like complex, infected injuries that will only heal when a doctor inspects them and prescribes treatment. This is where EMDR comes in.

When we experience something traumatic, our bodies take a kind of screenshot of what happened. These screenshots contain information that our nervous system consults to avoid similar future experiences. It remembers details, including sounds, smells, the time of day, the location of the event, the body language of the people involved, their tone of voice, facial expressions, and the emotions and physical sensations you felt at the time.

These trauma screenshots are known as maladaptive memories. Maladaptive memories are like excessively large files on a computer system, taking up space and requiring a lot of energy to process. Our brains tend to keep these maladaptive memories open and running in the background, as they constantly scan for information related to the trauma screenshot.

This is a neurological function that is designed to keep us from danger. But it backfires. With a maladaptive memory constantly awake and scanning for danger, the trauma will never heal sufficiently for us to move on.

To continue with the computer analogy, a maladaptive memory is hard to shut down because, unlike an adaptive memory, you can’t find where the maladaptive memory is stored. Despite how prominent it feels and how regularly it interferes with all your other mental and emotional processes, it is like a program that exists without a path or filename to follow and locate.

In the example of arguing with a stranger online, you were able to connect that experience to real-life experiences and test the validity of that person’s statements and threats. EMDR treatment allows you to convert the maladaptive memory and store it in your brain as an adaptive memory.

How EMDR Treatment Works

Maladaptive memories affect the part of your brain known as the amygdala. Most of your emotions, trauma responses, and survival instincts come from this part of your brain. Ordinarily, the amygdala is connected to the part of your brain responsible for logic, understanding, and reason, known as the prefrontal cortex. Together, the logical and emotional parts of your brain work together to help you process trauma.

However, maladaptive memories often cause the neural pathways in your brain to break down. This means that the emotions connected to that past experience always feel real and present because they are not connected to the logical part of your brain. When your eyes follow the back-and-forth movements in EMDR treatment, something happens in your brain. The eye movements help open the neural pathways in your brain, allowing emotions and reason to communicate with each other again.

This ultimately calms your nervous system and brings you out of survival mode, as your nervous system begins to understand that the threat is in the past, and that you are not in any present danger.

In the 1990 film Home Alone, young Kevin McCallister is accidentally abandoned by his family and has to brave the holidays on his own. One of the tasks he must face is doing laundry. The washing machine is located in the basement next to a scary-looking furnace.

To him, the furnace looks like a hungry monster waiting to devour him. It is only after facing some genuine threats and having some positive experiences that he can go into the basement and tell the furnace monster to “shut up.” His brain is finally able to distinguish real threats from imagined ones.

This is a picture of what EMDR does for people and who benefits most from it. Our monsters might be unveiled to be nothing other than shadows on the wall, or echoes from the past. You are not weak for experiencing continued trauma from a past event, and you are not beyond help either.

Is EMDR right for you?

If you are wondering about EMDR and whether it’s the right thing for you, we encourage you to get in contact with us. Feel free to browse our online counselor directory or contact our reception team to find the best fit for your needs. One size does not fit all when it comes to mental health care, and we would love to help you discover what type of therapy works best for you.