EMDR Therapy (EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING)

---

You may have looked into EMDR already and come away more confused than when you started.

Something about eye movements, bilateral stimulation or "reprocessing" can sound technical, unfamiliar or even slightly strange.

So what is it actually?

EMDR is a structured form of therapy that can help people process distressing experiences that continue to affect them in the present.

• You don't have to have experienced one dramatic event.
• Sometimes it's a single experience that still feels emotionally charged.
• Sometimes it's a pattern of experiences that built up over years.
• And sometimes you understand perfectly well what happened, but knowing why you feel the way you do hasn't been enough to change the response.

When understanding isn't enough

You can know something is in the past and still find yourself reacting as though it is happening now.

You might:

• become overwhelmed by something that seems small
• find yourself stuck in particular memories or conversations
• feel anxious or on edge in certain situations
• struggle with particular relationships or situations
• have reactions that seem bigger than the situation you're actually in
• know intellectually that you're safe, but not feel that way
• understand where a pattern  comes from but still find it difficult to change.

This is one of the reasons EMDR can be useful. Understanding what happened and processing what happened are not always the same thing.

What happens in EMDR?

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements, tapping or sounds, while you hold a particular memory, experience, feeling or belief in mind.

You remain present throughout the process and you're in control of the pace.

You don't have to tell me every detail of what happened.

The aim isn't to erase a memory or make something that happened unimportant.

It's to help reduce the level of distress associated with it, so that the past can feel more like the past and you have more freedom to respond to what is happening now.

EMDR can be used for more than one kind of experience

EMDR is often associated with trauma following a single significant event.

It can also be used when distress has developed through repeated or cumulative experiences over time.

That can include experiences involving relationships, loss, rejection, conflict, difficult transitions or other situations that have left a lasting emotional impact.

What matters isn't simply whether something sounds dramatic from the outside.

It's how the experience is affecting you now.

EMDR and estrangement

Estrangement can involve experiences that continue to feel emotionally active long after the relationship has changed.

You might understand the circumstances intellectually but still find yourself reacting strongly to particular memories, conversations, family events or reminders.

EMDR may be helpful where distressing experiences connected to the relationship continue to affect you in the present.

But you don't have to be seeking estrangement therapy to work with me using EMDR.

EMDR is available as a standalone therapy for people who want to focus specifically on distressing experiences, memories or patterns that are still affecting them.

How I use EMDR

I don't start trauma processing in the first session. There is groundwork first.

We'll spend time understanding what's happening for you, deciding whether EMDR is appropriate and building enough stability and safety to work with difficult material.

That preparation is part of the therapy, not something to rush through.

If you're working with me more broadly and EMDR becomes appropriate, it can also be incorporated into your wider therapy.

Equally, if you're booking specifically for EMDR, we can work with that directly.

What to expect

EMDR isn't necessarily comfortable.

Processing difficult experiences can bring up emotions, thoughts, memories or physical sensations that you've been carrying for a long time.

I'll help you work within what is manageable for you, rather than pushing you beyond what you can tolerate.

You remain in control throughout.

How long EMDR takes varies. Some experiences shift over a relatively small number of sessions; others require longer-term work.

There isn't a fixed number of sessions that will be right for everyone. EMDR can be offered online, and I have worked online since completing my EMDR training.

A personal note

I've experienced EMDR myself.

I went into it with a low-level anxiety that had been present for years, not dramatic or acute, but something I'd largely learned to work around.

What changed wasn't a sudden feeling that everything was different. It was realising, at some point, that the anxiety I'd become so accustomed to simply wasn't there in the same way anymore.

That experience is one of the reasons I value EMDR as part of my therapeutic work.

Is EMDR right for you?

You don't need to know the answer before you contact me.

An initial consultation gives us the opportunity to talk about what's bringing you to therapy, what you're hoping will change and whether EMDR is an appropriate approach.