What is EMDR therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR for short, is a type of therapy designed to help people heal from experiences that have gotten stuck in the mind and body. These are the types of experiences that, no matter how much you’ve talked about them or tried to move on, still quietly control your life, shaping how you feel about yourself, how safe you feel with other people, and how you move through the world.
EMDR is best known as a treatment for trauma and PTSD/CPTSD, but is also widely used for anxiety, depression, and a wide range of other common mental health concerns.
A brief history of EMDR.
EMDR was developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Francine Shapiro, who noticed that moving her eyes back and forth while thinking about distressing thoughts appeared to reduce their intensity. What began as an accidental observation became one of the most extensively researched therapies in existence.
Today, EMDR is recognized as an effective treatment for PTSD by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But beyond the research, what makes EMDR compelling is what people say about it: that it helped them heal after years of talk therapy couldn’t.
Who can benefit from EMDR therapy?
EMDR is the treatment of choice for PTSD and explicit trauma histories, but it’s equally helpful for anxiety, depression, chronic self-doubt, and the quiet, persistent sense that something is just fundamentally off. I use it with all of my clients who want a different type of healing or are having a hard time moving on from the past.
I also specialize in using EMDR for healing avoidant and anxious attachment styles.
What happens in an EMDR session?
Rather than discussing and analyzing the past, EMDR invites you to hold a memory or feeling in mind while engaging in bilateral stimulation—a rhythmic, back-and-forth movement, like following a light with your eyes or tapping on your shoulders. This seemingly simple process helps the brain do what it couldn’t do on its own: unstick experiences that have been frozen in place and draining their emotional charge. People often describe it as watching their thoughts and feelings shift like a movie. Images change, emotions evolve, and things that once felt unbearable gradually begin to feel like they actually belong in the past.
Before any of this processing begins, however, we’ll focus on preparation. Moving too quickly—especially for people carrying complex or layered trauma histories—can be destabilizing rather than healing. So first we develop a felt sense of safety, cultivate inner resources you can rely on when difficult material surfaces, and practice staying with hard emotions without being swept away by them.
Why EMDR can help when other approaches haven’t.
Quite often, people arrive at therapy having already done significant work on themselves. They understand their patterns. They can trace the anxiety back to where it started, name the relationships that shaped them, and articulate with impressive clarity why they are the way they are. And yet, knowing hasn’t made it stop.
What makes EMDR effective is that we’re not just talking about the past; we’re doing something to the brain. By accessing memories in a specific way while engaging in bilateral stimulation, EMDR allows the brain to reprocess stuck experiences—updating them with new information and draining them of their emotional charge. The memory doesn’t disappear, but it loses its grip, and things that once felt raw and present start to feel like they’re finally in the past.
What healing with EMDR might look like.
People who’ve done this work often describe feeling like a fundamentally different person, and yet, paradoxically, more authentically themselves than ever before. The chronic tension starts to ease. The hypervigilance quiets down. There’s more room to breathe, to feel, to notice the small moments of beauty and connection that fear used to crowd out.
That doesn’t mean life becomes easy or pain-free. Hard things still happen. But you meet them with more capacity, more groundedness, and a deeper trust that you can handle whatever comes your way.
Your EMDR therapist in Seattle
EMDR isn’t right for everyone, but when it works, it consistently moves people through to exactly where they need to go. I’ve worked with clients who have spent years in therapy, done enormous amounts of work on themselves, and still found themselves carrying something they couldn’t quite put down. And EMDR has helped them release it. This is what makes me genuinely passionate about this work—witnessing its effectiveness and the hope that brings.
My approach is particularly informed by the work of Laurel Parnell and Sandra Paulsen, who have developed methods for using EMDR to heal early relational wounds that often form before we even have the words to make sense of what we were experiencing. Their frameworks shape how I think about preparation, pacing, and the particular care required when working with early childhood material.
Frequently asked questions
-
No. One of the things that makes EMDR different from talk therapy is that you don’t have to describe what happened in detail, or at all. You need to be able to bring the memory to mind, but you don’t have to narrate it. For people who find it hard to put their experiences into words, or who simply don’t want to, this is one of EMDR’s most significant advantages.
-
You stay fully conscious and in control throughout EMDR. You may feel some of the emotions connected to a memory, but you’re processing it from a place of safety in the present, not reliving it as if it’s happening again.
Think of it less like being pulled back into the past and more like watching it from a distance, with support. You can pause or stop at any time, and we’ll make sure you have grounding tools in place before we begin any processing work.
-
Mostly because of how it looks. Bilateral stimulation—especially eye movements—can seem strange or even gimmicky to people encountering it for the first time, and early skeptics questioned whether it was meaningfully different from exposure therapy.
The debate has quieted considerably as the research base has grown, but the reputation for controversy lingers. What I’d say is this: the mechanism is still being studied, but the outcomes speak for themselves. Decades of research and countless personal accounts suggest that something real and significant is happening, even if we don’t yet have a complete explanation for why.
-
EMDR can be intense, and it’s worth knowing what to expect. After a processing session, it’s common to feel emotionally tender, tired, or a little “scrambled” for a day or two—almost like an emotional hangover. Some people have vivid dreams or find that memories and feelings continue to surface between sessions. This isn’t a sign that something is wrong. It usually means the brain is still doing its work. We’ll talk about how to take care of yourself between sessions, and make sure you’re well prepared.
-
It depends on what we’re working with. A single, clearly defined experience in someone without a complex trauma history might shift in just a few sessions. Deeper work—like healing attachment wounds or processing experiences that go back to early childhood—can take many sessions.
What I can tell you is that EMDR tends to move things more efficiently than talk therapy alone, and that real, lasting change is possible even for things you’ve been carrying for a very long time.
-
I see clients in person in Seattle’s U-District and online throughout Washington state. EMDR can be done effectively via video, and bilateral stimulation can be adapted for virtual work without losing its effectiveness.
You’ve struggled long enough. Let’s try something different.
Ready to get started? I offer a free 20-minute introductory call, where we can get to know each other, talk about what’s bringing you to therapy, and see if working together feels like a good fit. And if it does, we’ll schedule your first session before we hang up.