The EMDR Therapy Treatment Experience

It is standard for EMDR treatment to begin by building relationship and positive resource strengthening. Your therapist will help you list the primary issues and concerns in your life. Together, you will identify and process previous distressing events that may have led to current difficulties.  It is common to schedule a series of weekly sessions, where each session lasts around ninety minutes. EMDR Therapy can be short-term, focusing on a specific issue, or longer-term, addressing more complex issues or ongoing personal growth. Every EMDR Therapy experience is distinct and caters to each individual and their specific goals.

In EMDR Therapy, as with all therapy, the first few sessions will be laying a foundation by getting to know each other and building a trusting relationship.  The first step in treatment is then begun by “resourcing”.  This helps the client to experience calm, helping to stabilize negative reactions and restore a sense of wellbeing in daily life.

In contrast to many other psychological therapies, with EMDR Therapy “processing” does not mean talking about it. “Processing” means allowing experiences that are causing problems to be reexamined, reordered and restored in your brain. Therefore, what is useful to you from an experience will be learned and stored with only useful emotions in your brain.  This information will then be able to guide you in positive ways in the future. Any unhelpful negative emotions, beliefs, and body sensations related to the experiences will be discarded. The goal of EMDR Therapy is to leave you with the emotions, understanding, and perspectives that will lead to healthy and useful behaviors and interactions.

To begin EMDR Therapy processing, the client is asked to focus on specific unresolved material in the forms of disturbing images, sensations, emotions and beliefs about the self. Using the eye movements or other modes, the therapist helps the client to move through this initial material toward less disturbing and intrusive memories and more positive beliefs, e.g. “I did the best I could under the circumstances.” The client reports levels of disturbance and belief at both the beginning as well as the end of each session, so that both therapist and client can see how the process is going. 

It’s good to keep in mind that most clients experience a “learning curve” regarding this new way of getting help, especially if they are used to talk therapy. While results can take a while, at times they can be surprisingly rapid and far-reaching.  (A recent study financed by Kaiser Permanente revealed that EMDR was twice as effective in half the amount of time compared to the standard traditional care.)

Clients and clinicians should note that EMDR Therapy is not a race. While many people show dramatic responses in a short amount of time, there are also those who will progress more slowly.  The slower progression is not abnormal. Just as in any therapy, we all progress at the rate appropriate to the individual and the  situation.

It is also important to know that EMDR Therapy does not solely consist of eye movements and rating scales. These will be interspersed with talking or debriefing in many sessions.  There will be some sessions of only talking, as needed. 

The aim of EMDR Therapy is to process completely the experiences that are causing problems, and to include new ones that are needed for full health. The amount of time the complete treatment will take depends upon the history of the client. Complete treatment of the targets involves a three pronged approach (1-past memories, 2-present disturbance, 3-future actions) in order to alleviate the symptoms and address the complete clinical picture.

Finally, it must be noted that each person must be evaluated individually to determine the best course of treatment, with or without the use of EMDR Therapy.