Watch the short video above from the EMDR Association to hear more about how it works.
Some experiences stay with us longer than they should. Not because something is wrong with you, but because your brain didn’t get the chance to fully process what happened. Instead, the memory, or the feelings attached to it, can become frozen in time, showing up as anxiety, reactivity, avoidance, or a quiet sense that something is still not right.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) works with the brain’s own capacity to heal. Rather than analysing or talking through what happened in detail, it uses bilateral stimulation, typically guided eye movements or tapping, to help your brain finish what it started. To process the experience properly, so it loses its grip on your present.
It is one of the most researched and effective therapies available for trauma, and its reach goes further than PTSD and is also used to treat addictions, eating disorders, anxiety and panic, phobias and much more.
People come to EMDR carrying anxiety, low self-worth, the long shadow of a difficult childhood, or the weight of stress that has quietly accumulated over years. You do not need a dramatic story. You just need to feel that something has not settled.
EMDR is a treatment model that uses bilateral (left and right) stimulation, such as eye movements or taps, to activate the brain in a way that processes and resolves ‘stuck’ traumatic memories. In a sense, EMDR kick-starts the brain’s natural healing process and gets it going again.
In EMDR Therapy, you and your therapist will work together to identify:
Once you and your therapist feel confident that you are ready to process this ‘target’, you will be asked a series of questions to help
Your therapist will then guide you to track their fingers left to right, or another form of bilateral stimulation such as alternate sounds or taps, while observing the memory and any beliefs, emotions or sensations that emerge, simply allowing whatever happens to happen.
This continues in repeated sets, with your therapist checking in regularly to see what is arising for you. Throughout this process, your therapist will be supporting your progress and helping you to process the distress you still experience now.
You will be awake and in control at all times during an EMDR session and you can say ‘stop’ if you are feeling overwhelmed and need to pause the process.
The bilateral stimulation, activates the brain in a way that helps to process the memory. When you recall the memory, it moves from your long-term memory to your working memory. Keeping the memory in mind while doing the eye movements or taps, means your working memory is processing a lot of information at the same time, effectively ‘overloading’ it.
As a result of this, three things usually happen:
Pathways start connecting between the emotional part of the brain and the part that thinks logically. You are likely to start thinking differently about the memory, which leads to it having a much less negative impact on you.
As you process a series of key memories or issues in EMDR Therapy over time, your trauma symptoms are likely to reduce, more positive ways of thinking will likely develop, and your responses and behaviour will likely start to change. These changes are profound and lasting, because you are addressing core issues at a deep level, rather than simply managing your symptoms.
EMDR is an 8-phase model of treatment that can take different lengths of time depending on your particular circumstances. Some people require more preparation than others. Some memories resolve in a single session; sometimes it takes a few. There is no right or wrong.
EMDR Therapy is endorsed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is delivered by trauma therapists across the world.
EMDR is available in two formats depending on what suits your life, your pace, and what you’re working through.
Steady, structured therapeutic support
Best if you want consistent sessions at a manageable pace. For many people, weekly EMDR offers a contained way to work through difficult experiences gradually, with space between sessions for reflection and for the changes you’re making to take root.
Useful for anxiety, overwhelm, relational patterns, self-worth, burnout, emotional triggers and long-standing coping strategies. Therapy includes assessment, EMDR reprocessing, stabilisation strategies and integration work.
Arrange an appointment and let’s start creating some change for you in 2026.
Accelerated, intensive EMDR when you want deeper progress sooner
This approach is ideal if you:
Intensives include a comprehensive assessment, extended EMDR processing sessions across multiple days, and grounding and integration support throughout. They are planned collaboratively — we will discuss your history, your goals, and what format is likely to serve you best before we begin.
Enquire about whether EMDR Intensives would be right for you.
Therapy can’t erase the past or change what has happened, but it can change the impact it has on you now.
You don’t need the perfect words or a dramatic story.
You just need to start and together we can move forward.
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