A Look into the Healing Journey
When left unprocessed, trauma can overwhelm us emotionally, mentally, and physically. The wisdom of our nervous system tries to keep us safe, often compelling us to avoid talking about hard stuff. The idea of starting therapy and talking in detail about our most vulnerable experiences can feel like too much! We’re skilled at avoiding it, to keep ourselves feeling safe. Over time that safety through avoidance becomes more like a cage, keeping us “stuck” in patterns that no longer work. We intuitively know that safety is essential to deep healing, but we often need help establishing it first.
What if there was a way to heal from trauma, where talking in detail about our memories is not the main focus, or even necessary at all? Instead, developing intricate self-understanding, nervous system regulating strategies, and a sturdier sense of self, is. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy focuses on connection to ourselves and resiliency first. When ready, eye movement, tonal sounds and tapping are used to facilitate your brain’s natural ability to heal itself. That’s why I’m so passionate about using EMDR! It's highly effective, with emotional and psychological safety being of top priority so that deep change can really happen.
What is EMDR?
In the realm of therapy approaches, EMDR is relatively new, being founded by Francine Shapiro in 1989. It’s young, but very well-studied with results demonstrating EMDR to be one of the leading treatments for PTSD and highly effective at treating anxiety and depression. The approach is organized into 8 phases: 1) a thorough history intake, 2) calming skills/nervous system regulation strategies/talk therapy, 3) targeting memories, 4) reprocessing memories, 5) installing positive thoughts, 6) somatic scan and clearing, and 8) developing a future focus.
I’ve noticed that folks are eager to know what the eye-movements and tapping are all about! Let me try to explain… Phase 4 is when trauma reprocessing happens, and we use “bilateral stimulation” including tonal sounds, tapping, or eye movements to activate different brain centers to communicate with each other. The stimulation allows us to tune into our current thoughts, emotions, and body sensations while thinking of the memory. This dual attention allows us to process trauma while staying in the present moment which prevents us from re-living the trauma. As we are guided to notice what comes and goes during reprocessing, our brain creates new connections on a neural level. We begin to attune to more neutral thoughts about ourselves while thinking about the hard stuff, allowing us to file the memory away and be free from the negative internalized messages caused by the traumatic experience.
What EMDR Therapy Feels Like
Supportive and Warm
EMDR is highly relational, and it’s important to feel comfortable with your therapist. After the history intake, there will be sessions that feel like talk therapy to develop curiosity about your patterns, strengths, and unconscious reactions and strategies. Developing intricate attunement to your nervous system patterns while gaining skills to self-regulate, is often a sound recipe for increased self-love and compassion, which is healing in itself! This is all done within a supportive and accepting therapeutic relationship.
Empowering
Most of us will experience trauma at some point our lives, but we’re not all impacted in the same way. Internalizing negative core beliefs from traumatic memories isn’t a given- it depends on the resources (e.g. social support, etc.) and our personal capacity (e.g. age at the time, etc.) at the time to integrate the experience. When we experience an overwhelming incident or spend a chunk of time without our needs met, and we don’t have the tools to cope, we can automatically develop a sense of shame or guilt, which isn’t ours to carry.
These negative core beliefs about self can get ignited by triggers in our current-day life. Interestingly, our logical mind knows these core beliefs like “I’m not good enough”, are false, but when we’re triggered, they feel so true.
It’s empowering to be able to recognize when we’re triggered and feeling like “old stuff” is with us. We can notice the untrue negative beliefs and develop skills to prevent them from becoming the lens in which we see ourselves, others, and the world.
What’s even more empowering is when those negative core beliefs are replaced with truthful and grounded self-perceptions that are known logically and felt somatically and emotionally, in every cell of our bodies.
Challenging and Productive
Just like when we build a house, we must lay the foundation first- brick by brick. Each session of EMDR is designed to build upon the last, ensuring that we are equipped for the next step. This process allows for a level of scaffolding that supports optimal levels of challenge, to gain strength over time, and to heal effectively.
A study by Michaela Hammond, Christian Ryan, and Aoife Dwyer (2024) called “Clients’ Experiences of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy” demystifies EMDR therapy through descriptive interviews of folks in therapy. One person- Jane- uses words that resonate with what I have seen unfold in the therapy room:
“It’s like a load has been lifted! It’s like a freedom, it’s that cord that has been broken or detached from all that stuff that happened. It’s just, it’s just gone, it’s over there, and that’s where it’s staying” (Hammond, Ryan, Dwyer, 2024).
Simply put: It works! We often notice shifts in how we relate to our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviours early on. We gain self-awareness of our triggers and automatic reactions (trauma responses) and become skilled at coming back to calm. Change is holistic and sustainable, and relief is felt in the body. The “story” of who we are can finally reflect the truth, allowing us to move forward in our lives feeling more whole, centered, and present.
References
EMDR Canada (2025). Have questions about EMDR?
https://emdrcanada.ca/
EMDR is the recommended treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Hammond, M., Ryan, C., & Dwyer, A. (2024). Clients’ experiences of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 18(1), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1891/EMDR-2023-0018
Landin-Romero R., Moreno-Alcazar A., Pagani M., & Amann BL (2018). How Does Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy Work? A Systematic Review on Suggested Mechanisms of Action. Frontier Psychology. 13(9), 13-95. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01395
