What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy is a type of psychotherapy that was developed in the late 1980s by Francine Shapiro. She came to understand the desensitisation effects of spontaneous eye movement and then developed a procedure to replicate it.

It is a therapy used to help people recover from distressing events and the problems they have caused, like flashbacks, upsetting thoughts or images, depression or anxiety. EMDR therapy aims to reduce the emotional charge associated with distressing memories and help clients reprocess traumatic events in a way that leads to healing.

When a person is involved in a traumatic event, they may feel overwhelmed and their brain may be unable to fully process what is going on. The memory of the event seems to become “stuck” so that it remains very intense and vivid. The person can re-experience what they saw, heard and smelt and the full force of the distress they felt whenever the memory comes to mind.

EMDR aims to help the brain “unstick” and reprocess the memory properly so that it is no longer so intense. It also helps to desensitise the person to the emotional impact of the memory, so that they can think about the event without experiencing such strong feelings.

Since its introduction into the field of psychotherapy EMDR has been subject to a vast body of clinical trials and research and has been found to be effective for a wide range of issues and symptoms which may or may not be due to trauma, including:

• Panic Attacks
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Low self esteem
• Phobias
• Complicated Grief
• Stress
• Abuse (sexual or physical)
• Addictions

EMDR is suitable for adults, young people and children. Younger children can find it difficult to fully engage with some types of talking therapies, so EMDR can be an effective, simpler alternative.
EMDR is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), which also recognises it as an effective treatment for children.
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