EMDR Therapy for Trauma Recovery: What it is, How I use it, and What it Actually Requires

I wasn’t sure at first whether I should train in EMDR therapy. Did I really need it?

Then something shifted. A client I had worked with for a year — someone with a history of complex trauma — told me they would be leaving to work with an EMDR therapist for their trauma healing. It made me realize I wanted to offer my clients the best tools available. So I pursued the training.

Not long after, I received a call from a former client — distressed, dysregulated, asking for an emergency session. They had been through EMDR memory processing elsewhere and had experienced significant dissociation during the session. Nobody had stopped. Nobody had slowed down. The processing had continued without the foundation it required. Somehow, they remembered to call me even though I wasn’t their counsellor anymore.

It was in the midst of the chaos when COVID started. The world was fracturing. And in the middle of all of that, we spent that session on grounding and stabilization. Reconnecting with the body. Coming back to the present. I felt angry with their therapist after the session, and maturity also told me that overwhelming emotions can happen in EMDR, even with careful practice. Both things were true.

It also taught me that the relationship matters. Ideally, this client would have called the therapist they were working with — repair within that relationship would have been the more healing path. But a crisis doesn’t wait for the ideal. In that moment, what mattered was that they reached for safety and found it.

That experience reminded me of something I already knew but now felt more clearly: EMDR is powerful. And it must be used with care.

I also know this from the other side. I have used EMDR in my own healing — to process remaining memories connected to childhood abuse and systemic trauma. By the time I worked with it as a client, I already had the capacity to be in dual awareness. The preparation had been done. The processing could reach what it needed to reach. That experience shaped how I understand what readiness actually means — and that it needs to be adjusted to where you are at.

What EMDR therapy is — and what it isn’t

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro in 1987 and has since become one of the most researched approaches to trauma treatment. It is recognized by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and several other major health bodies as an effective treatment for PTSD.

But EMDR is not a quick fix. And for many people — particularly those with complex trauma or childhood abuse — it is not sufficient as a standalone approach.

I use EMDR within my Integrative Trauma Recovery Model™, which means it is one tool within a broader trauma counselling approach that includes parts work, somatic practices, and a strong relational foundation. EMDR can be used in several ways: to build inner resources, to work with activated parts, or to process traumatic memories directly. How and when I use it depends entirely on you.

How EMDR memory processing works

The core of EMDR memory processing involves bilateral stimulation — typically eye movements — while holding a traumatic memory in mind. In my practice, I move my fingers from left to right and ask the client to follow them. This can also be done with sounds or other visual support.

The theoretical framework behind EMDR — Adaptive Information Processing — suggests that our systems can naturally heal from emotional wounds, but that traumatic experiences overwhelm that capacity. The memory gets stuck. EMDR’s goal is to support the digestion and integration of what could not be processed at the time.

In a memory processing session, we identify a target memory and explore its components: the image, the negative belief associated with it, what you would prefer to believe instead, and the emotions and body sensations that arise. We then move through sets of eye movements, pausing to check in between each set. The processing continues until the memory loses its emotional charge — until it can be held as a fact of the past rather than something still happening in the body.

This process cannot be predicted or timed. A memory may take one session or several. Sometimes a session ends before processing is complete — in which case we contain what has been opened and return to it when you are ready.

What EMDR therapy can and cannot do

Some people reach out to me after their doctors told them to try EMDR. I understand why doctors recommend it — the research is strong. But I am not always sure that doctors fully understand the complexity of trauma recovery. So here is an honest overview.

EMDR as a standalone approach tends to work most efficiently with single-incident trauma, like a car accident, a sexual assault, a medical crisis, or a specific loss. When there is a clear beginning and end to what happened, and when the person can stay in their window of tolerance, processing can move relatively quickly. Healing single-incident trauma is very different from relational or complex trauma.

For adults with childhood trauma, relational trauma, or complex trauma, EMDR’s role is more nuanced. I rarely use it as a standalone modality. Instead, I integrate EMDR into the Integrative Trauma Recovery Model™, my approach to trauma counselling, which combines modalities in a way that fits your stage of recovery and what you specifically need.

Early in healing, I use slower EMDR to build inner resources like confidence, safety, and internal calm. These skills are essential parts of healing, not just preliminary exercises.

I also use the Flash Technique—an indirect approach that doesn’t work on the memory directly. It helps reduce the emotional intensity of a traumatic experience and creates more distance from it, without requiring full exposure to its contents. This can be particularly useful when a memory feels too charged but influences your daily life. It can also help to contain it before more resources are built.

I also use EMDR therapy to work with activated parts in the present — reducing emotional intensity without going into the original memory at all. Though this requires training beyond standard EMDR and a combination with parts-work approaches.

Full memory processing with EMDR — what most people picture when they hear the word — usually comes after significant healing with other modalities. It belongs to stage 2 of trauma recovery, once the foundation of stage 1 is genuinely in place.

If you have a secure or earned secure attachment style and the capacity to stay regulated during processing, EMDR can still move well, but there are often more layers. Earlier memories may surface unexpectedly. Parts that hold older wounds may get activated.

Standard EMDR with memory processing alone will not heal attachment wounds or teach you to set healthy boundaries. For childhood trauma, there are often more layers that need attention before, during, and alongside the processing. This does not mean something is wrong with you. It means EMDR needs to be adjusted to your life — not the other way around.

What is rarely communicated in the field is this: EMDR trusts in our innate healing capacities, which aligns with neuroscience. It calls this the Adaptive Information Processing system, the natural capacity we all have to integrate and heal from overwhelming experiences. Trauma blocks that process. EMDR’s goal is to restore it. That perspective — that healing capacity already exists within you and needs the right conditions to emerge — is aligned with everything I believe about trauma recovery.

Why preparation is as important as processing

The second phase of EMDR — preparation — is as necessary as the processing of traumatic memories itself. It is not a waiting room before the real work begins. It is the work. In my approach to trauma recovery — the Integrative Trauma Recovery Model™ — preparation happens within stage 1: stabilization and safety. This is the stage where we lay the foundation for memory processing.

For memory processing to be effective, you need dual awareness: the capacity to be present in your body and to be aware of the here and now, while simultaneously processing the emotions, thoughts, and body sensations connected to the memory. Another way to say this: you need to be in your window of tolerance for most of the processing.

Just to put it in plain words: that’s something the EMDR process itself can teach us — if we let it. Many of us have never learned to respect the subtle signals our bodies send. We push through. We want to get better. We ignore what’s trying to be heard.

Before my own recovery, I started running for the first time. I pushed hard. My ankle started hurting. I ignored it — I wanted to improve. It got so bad that I couldn’t walk for weeks. I had damaged my ligament.

Memory processing with EMDR can teach us the awareness my ankle was trying to give me: what is my limit right now, in this moment? That wisdom cannot be taught rationally. It is experiential. There is discomfort when we process memories — that’s part of it, and we tolerate it because we want to feel lighter afterwards. But there is a difference between productive discomfort and pushing past what is possible right now. Learning to feel that difference is itself part of the healing.

Preparation means building several things simultaneously.

The skills to be with emotions — to tolerate what arises without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. This includes understanding your trauma responses and your nervous system: how to recognize when you are leaving your window of tolerance, and how to ground and self-soothe when that happens.

Enough connection with your body. Not fully — that may take time — but enough to have some awareness of what is happening there while processing. For many adults with childhood abuse, the first challenge is that the body does not feel safe to be in. In this case, the first step is to start where you actually are — working with somatic approaches or parts work to build that foundation before processing begins.

The consent of all parties, not just the ones that show up to the session. This is where structural dissociation becomes essential to understand. Due to structural dissociation, we often split into rational carry-on parts and emotional parts hidden behind an internal wall. The carry-on parts are the ones that function in daily life — the ones that book the session, show up, and follow instructions. The emotional parts are the ones that hold the pain, the fear, the memories.

If the carry-on parts decide to do EMDR without the emotional parts having given consent, the processing may not reach what it needs to reach. Or it may reach those parts without their agreement, which can cause overwhelm, flooding, or shutdown.

For more info, read the article Parts Work Therapy for Adults with Childhood Trauma

Preparation means building enough of a relationship with all parts — including the ones that are scared, hidden, or not yet ready — so that when processing begins, it has their genuine consent.

The capacity to communicate your boundaries and what is happening inside you. For someone with a profound fawn response — where saying no feels dangerous, where compliance has always been the safest option — this is one of the hardest things the work asks of you. 

Compliance is not consent. And EMDR requires your genuine consent — not just the part of you that shows up and follows instructions, but the parts of you that hold what we are asking to heal.

I bring this up actively with clients. The goal is to build enough safety in the relationship that you genuinely feel you can bring up concerns, express that something feels off, or say no to something I suggest. Not because I require it. Because your healing does.

For many adults with childhood abuse, there is another challenge that rarely gets named: they cannot remember their childhood. If there are no explicit memories to work with, EMDR memory processing is not the starting point. We begin with somatic approaches or parts work — building the foundation from which processing eventually becomes possible.

Preparation is not about whether you are ready or not ready. It is about building readiness together, at a pace that respects where you are.

What happens when things get difficult

EMDR therapy is not always smooth. Naming the obstacles honestly matters.

Emotional overwhelm. EMDR therapy can bring up more than the nervous system is ready to process. If your symptoms are getting worse rather than better, that is almost always a sign that things are moving too fast. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a sign that the pace needs to change.

Overwhelm cannot always be avoided. What matters is how it is responded to. If you become flooded, we slow down, return to stabilization, reconnect with the body and the window of tolerance before continuing. Overwhelm, when met with care, becomes part of the healing. Overwhelm that is ignored or pushed through is where harm happens.

Avoidant parts. Parts of you may resist EMDR therapy — not because they are difficult, but because they are scared. Sometimes they are scared of what the emotions might feel like. Sometimes scared of losing control. Sometimes — and this is important to name — scared of healing itself. For adults with childhood abuse, the structures that protected you were built for survival. Concerns may be what happens to my relationships if I heal? Asking them to change can feel as threatening as what they were built to protect you from. Those parts deserve curiosity, not pressure.

Getting stuck. Sometimes, processing stops moving. That is the moment to pause—not to push through— to explore what is happening inside. There is no standard script for this. It depends entirely on the person. Sometimes there are parts that have not yet given consent. Sometimes an earlier memory is blocking access to the one we are working with. Sometimes the nervous system simply needs more stabilization before it can continue.

Dissociation. If parts of you dissociate during processing — if you disconnect from your body or lose your sense of the present — that is the signal to stop and reconnect. The goal is always dual awareness. If it is lost, we pause.

In my work with clients, we often go back and forth between EMDR, parts work and somatic practices. It is not linear. It is finding the balance between challenging you to look at something difficult and doing it in a way that is actually feasible for your nervous system. That back-and-forth is not a detour. It is the work.

My position on EMDR therapy

My critique is not of EMDR. It is about what happens when EMDR is delivered without the foundation it requires.

The modality is sound. What surrounds it — the relationship, the preparation, the pacing, the attention to parts and to consent — is what determines whether it heals or risks harm.

I have seen profound transformations through EMDR therapy. I have experienced them myself. I have also seen what happens when it is rushed, when preparation is skipped, when the practitioner mistakes compliance for readiness and keeps going when they should stop.

If EMDR did not work for you — or made things worse — that is not a reflection of your capacity. It may reflect the process, the preparation, or the relational foundation within which it was delivered. That is worth exploring before concluding that EMDR is not for you.

What becomes possible with EMDR therapy

When EMDR therapy is done well — with adequate preparation, genuine consent from all parties, a relational foundation that can hold what arises, and a pace that respects your nervous system — things shift that talk therapy alone often cannot reach.

Memories that have held emotional charge for decades lose their power. Not because they are forgotten — the facts remain — but because they no longer live in the body as if they are still happening. The image becomes a memory. The memory becomes part of a story. The story becomes something you can hold rather than something that holds you.

For adults with childhood abuse, this often means more than the processing of specific memories. It means the gradual integration of parts that have been hidden, frightened, or frozen. It means building internal attachment — learning, perhaps for the first time, that it is safe to be in your own body, to feel what you feel, to trust your own perception.

That is not a quick process. But it is a real one.

And it does not require you to be more ready than you are. It requires a practitioner who meets you where you actually are — and builds the foundation with you, at your pace, with your consent, until what needs to heal can finally be reached.

If you are looking for an EMDR-only approach, I may not be the right fit for you — and I’d rather you know that now than discover it later. If you are curious about an integrative approach to trauma healing that includes EMDR alongside parts work, somatic practices, and a relational foundation built at your pace, feel free to reach out. I offer a free consultation to explore whether working together makes sense.

Learn more about my EMDR services here.

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