What Actually Happens in EMDR? A Clear Walkthrough with Examples

What Actually Happens in EMDR? A Clear Walkthrough (with Examples)

If you’ve heard of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) but aren’t sure what it actually involves, you’re not alone. Many people imagine something complicated, medical, mysterious or even a bit woo-woo. In reality, EMDR is structured, based on evidence, collaborative, but very human. Here’s a clear walk-through, with examples, so you know what to expect.

What is EMDR in simple terms?

EMDR is a therapy that helps your brain make sense of (process) overwhelming experiences, so they stop feeling so raw and painful in the here and now. It doesn’t erase memories, and it is not hypnosis, but it does reduce the distress linked to painful memories and experiences.

EMDR is a structured therapy that will ask you to move or stimulate each side of your body in turn (bilateral stimulation like moving eyes from left to right, or up and down, tapping your hands turn by turn, or listening to sounds) to help the brain work through and re-sort distressing experiences so they feel less overwhelming and no longer “stuck” in the present.

Woman having an online conversation with her therapist

Step 1: Assessment and history-taking

Your therapist won’t dive straight into difficult memories. In fact, therapists stick to the EMDR step-by-step approach because it keeps you safe, makes sure nothing important is skipped, and ensures the therapy works as intended. That means to begin with, you will spend time talking about your background, your goals, and your current challenges. Not in an endless way, but in a way that helps both you and your therapist to understand the main issue that EMDR can help with.

Example: You might share that while you’re successful in your career, you freeze whenever a senior colleague talks to you. You criticise yourself for being stupid and childish (but really, this links back to an experience with a strict teacher in childhood and your nervous system becoming dysregulated during that time – you still carry that same response when someone acts similarly now). It’s completely understandable, and you simply need to work through the experience that is keeping you stuck.

Step 2: Preparation and safety

Safety is so very important in EMDR. Together, you and your therapist will practise ways to keep you feeling relaxed and calm – these are called grounding techniques, which involve things like imagining a safe place or learning breathing strategies.

Example: If you’re logging in from your home, you’ll make sure you’ve got a private space and stable Wi-Fi. Your therapist will remind you they aren’t available out of hours, but they’ll help you create strategies if strong feelings arise between sessions. You will also have a plan with strategies in it so that you know what to do and how to do it if you are feeling a bit wobbly.

Step 3: Identifying the target memory

You’ll identify a specific memory (or “target”) that links to your current struggles (e.g., when your teacher called you silly in front of your friends). You’ll also understand the negative belief that might be connected to that memory (e.g., “I’m not good enough”). You will also think about what you would like to believe about yourself instead (e.g., “I am capable”).

Step 4: Bilateral stimulation

While holding the memory in mind, your therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation, which is usually eye movements on screen, taps, or alternating tones. This helps the brain unpack and digest the memory differently, much like what happens to our memories during sleep.

Example: Online, this might mean following dots moving across your laptop screen. It sounds strange, but it will make sense.

Step 5: Reprocessing

As the bilateral stimulation continues, new thoughts, feelings, or images often surface. Your therapist checks in with you frequently so that you don’t get lost or overwhelmed by any of those things. Over time, the memory becomes less distressing. People frequently say: “It feels further away now,” or “It doesn’t stress me out when I think of it now.”

Step 6: Installing a positive belief

Once the distress has reduced, and you can think of that memory without the dysregulation and high level of stress, you’ll focus on the positive belief you’d like to hold about yourself instead of the negative one. The therapist helps strengthen this belief through more bilateral stimulation. This is a really useful way of seeing yourself as you want to now, rather than through the eyes of the child you were when the hard experience happened.

Step 7: Body scan

You’ll notice any lingering tension in your body. This helps check whether the memory feels truly settled. If there is some tension, you will continue with steps 4 & 5. When there is no horrible feeling, you will move on the step 8.

Step 8: Closure and review

The session always ends with grounding, making sure you leave feeling stable. At your next session, your therapist will check in on how things have shifted. The memory will by this stage be processed and will no longer cause you so much distress.