JESS HENLEY
PSYCHOTHERAPY & EMDR
EMDR
What is it and how does it work?
If you’ve never experienced EMDR before, you may be wondering what it actually involves — and perhaps feeling a little nervous about trying it.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a form of psychotherapy that can help you process traumatic memories and difficult experiences from the past that are still affecting you today.
When something frightening or overwhelming happens to us, our brains don’t always process the experience in the usual way. You may cognitively know that something traumatic happened in the past, but your mind and body can continue to respond as though it is happening right now, in the present.
This can happen with obvious, stand-alone traumatic events, but it can also happen with smaller, repetitive experiences such as neglect or abandonment. You may find yourself having intrusive memories, feeling suddenly overwhelmed, avoiding certain situations or experiencing a strong physical reaction to something that reminds you of what happened. You may also notice patterns or behaviours that you know aren’t helping you but still feel difficult to change.
EMDR helps you to process these experiences so that they can become memories of something that happened then, rather than something your mind and body continue to experience now. Once the memory has been processed and your brain recognises that the experience belongs in the past, the difficult feelings around it can begin to settle, leaving you feeling calmer and more at peace.
Importantly, EMDR doesn’t erase your memories, and you don’t have to forget what happened. The aim is to change the way the memory is stored and the way you respond to it, so that it no longer has the same emotional or physical power over you.
What happens in an EMDR session?
We start by talking about what has brought you to therapy and what you’re struggling with now. I’ll take some time to understand your history and together we’ll make sure you have some ways of managing and coping with difficult feelings before we begin processing any traumatic events.
When you’re ready, we’ll choose a particular memory or experience to work on. I’ll ask you some questions about what happened, how you feel about it now and what you notice in your body when you bring it to mind.
You won’t need to go into minute detail or relive the whole story. We just need to connect with enough of the memory to activate the thoughts, feelings and physical responses that are still showing up in the present, so that we can begin to process them.
We’ll then use something called bilateral stimulation (BLS). It sounds much more complicated than it is. Essentially, it involves a gentle, rhythmic stimulation that alternates from left to right.
I primarily use tapping. This can include a butterfly hug, where you cross your arms over your chest and alternately tap your left and right sides. We can also use eye movements, where your eyes follow a movement from side to side, or other forms of alternating left-right stimulation.
It’s this rhythmic left-right stimulation that we’re interested in. While you hold the memory in mind, the BLS helps your brain to work through and reprocess the experience, so that it can begin to feel like something that happened in the past rather than something you are still experiencing in the present.
And you don’t need to worry about doing any of this ‘properly’ or making something happen. I’ll guide you through it and you simply notice what comes up as we go.
As we work, you may notice that the memory starts to feel different. Perhaps it becomes less intense, feels further away or no longer produces the same emotional or physical reaction. You might notice different thoughts, feelings or memories coming up along the way.
There isn’t a right or wrong way to experience EMDR. Everyone responds differently, and you remain in control throughout the process. If something feels too much, we can pause or stop. The aim is not to change what happened. It is to help your brain understand that it happened in the past and you are safe in the present.
How many sessions will I need?
You may have heard that EMDR can work more quickly than some other talking therapies. While this can sometimes be the case, it’s important not to think of EMDR as a quick fix.
Before we start processing traumatic memories, I need to understand your history and make sure you feel sufficiently safe and supported. This preparation is an important part of the therapy and shouldn’t be rushed.
The number of sessions you need will depend on what you’ve experienced, how it is affecting you now and how complex your history is. Some people need relatively few sessions, while others need considerably more. What is most important is that we work at a pace that feels safe and manageable for you.
What about Attachment-Informed EMDR?
For experiences that are more complex or have their roots in things that happened repeatedly over time, I may use Attachment-Informed EMDR (ai-EMDR).
This builds on traditional EMDR and allows us to work with formative experiences, attachment and different parts of the self. It can be particularly helpful when what you’re struggling with isn’t connected to one particular traumatic event, but to experiences that happened repeatedly over time.