Many people worry that EMDR therapy means reliving their trauma. It doesn’t. This post explains what really happens in EMDR – why it can feel daunting to start, what can shift once you do, and how the process helps your brain finally leave the past where it belongs.
People imagine that EMDR therapy means re-living the worst day of their life.
That fear keeps people stuck. Stuck trying to manage flashbacks or panic, still reliving it, just without resolution.
It’s scary to go there – and that makes sense
We naturally do our best to avoid feeling pain, and that makes total sense. Our brains evolved to remember what was dangerous so we could stay alive.
After an event that shakes your world, your brain throws up reminders of it, and you do your best to not think about it or talk about it.
Coming to therapy, many people fear they’ll have to retell every painful detail.
But in EMDR, words are optional.
Some clients I see have already tried counselling or CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). At worst, that’s pushed them in a direction they weren’t ready for. At best, it gave them some coping strategies and helped them trust a therapist.
And this next bit surprises people.
If you’re waiting to feel ready for EMDR, you’ll wait forever
With trauma, it’s likely you won’t feel ready to go deeper. You want to try something that could work better, but it feels scary. I get it.
Often, the hardest part of EMDR is taking the leap to start.
And once you do, you’re on an accelerated path to recovery.
What can happen when you start EMDR
Clients often experience some quick relief in how intense a memory feels.
At the end of a second really good processing session, a client told me they’d thought EMDR would be really upsetting and that it would take ages.
We had carefully prepared, and they were ready to do the work. But you can’t know what it will feel like until… well, until you start.
In that session, they described how a memory flicked around a bit and then the fear was much less, even though it began with “I’m going to die”.
And this was the third point we had targeted from one horrific night. Three memory fragments that hurt a lot less after just two 50-60 minute sessions.
I’ve used EMDR with over 40 clients, many with complex trauma from both childhood and adult experiences. You get a sense of who might process quickly, but honestly, you never know until you start. When someone hasn’t been through much stress before, the brain can reprocess surprisingly fast.
Even when there have been multiple events, we start with one and work through what’s most disturbing.
How EMDR works – and how it rewires the brain
EMDR helps the brain re-file the past so it stops hijacking the present. You don’t relive it – you look at it, take perspective on it, and then leave it in the past.
Your brain connects fragments stored in different parts of the memory system. Some are just flashes of sensory memory – something you saw, something you heard… The process lets your brain link up what you know happened to make sense of the whole story.
This means the raw emotional charge stops setting off the alarm system. The part of your brain that detects threat quietens down once it gets the message that the danger is over.
It’s far more powerful than talking about it and trying to make sense of it that way. It’s actually rewiring your memory network. And that’s pretty cool.
Leaving it, not reliving it
What if leaving the past behind starts with letting your brain do what it already knows how to do?
If you’ve been waiting to feel ready, perhaps this is the sign you are.
I offer EMDR therapy in Manchester and online for adults wanting to move forward after trauma.