If you have found your way to this page, my guess is that you are tired.
I don’t mean the kind of tired that a Sunday afternoon nap can fix. I am talking about a bone-deep exhaustion that comes from holding it all together for way too long. You are likely the person everyone else relies on. You are the one who is good in a crisis, the high-achiever, the one who looks completely fine on the outside. But internally? It feels like your body’s alarm system is stuck in the “on” position.
Maybe you have tried therapy before. You have sat on a couch, hashed out your childhood, and made all the intellectual connections. You know why you do what you do. You understand your triggers better than most psychology undergrad students.
But here is the frustrating part (and let’s be honest, it can be incredibly frustrating): Knowing why you feel this way hasn’t actually stopped you from feeling it.
You can’t think your way out of a nervous system response. And that is exactly where EMDR comes in. It is a different way of working—one that goes beyond just talking about the problem and actually helps your brain and body heal from it.
What is EMDR therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a structured therapy designed to help you heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Unlike traditional talk therapy, which focuses on analyzing the trauma, EMDR focuses on the brain’s natural ability to heal, helping you process “stuck” memories so they no longer trigger a fight-or-flight response in the present.
It sounds like a mouthful, doesn’t it? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It sounds clinical, and frankly, a little bit weird. But at its core, EMDR is actually very human.
Think of your brain like a massive, complex filing cabinet. Most of the time, when you go through something difficult—like an argument or a bad day at work—your brain processes it while you sleep. It takes the useful information, learns from it, and files it away in long-term m. It becomes a story from your past. It’s something that happened to you, but it isn’t happening right now.
But when we experience trauma—or even just chronic, relentless stress where we never get a chance to catch our breath—that filing system gets jammed. The experience doesn’t get filed away properly. Instead, it gets stuck in the “right now” file of your nervous system.
This is why you might feel that sudden chest-tightening panic when your boss sends a vague email, or why you shut down completely when your partner uses a certain tone of voice. Your logical brain knows you are safe in your office or your living room. But your body? Your body thinks it is back in the danger zone.
EMDR is simply the mechanism we use to un-jam the drawer. It helps your brain resume its natural healing process, moving those stuck memories from the “right now” file into the past where they belong.
How does EMDR work?
The short answer is we have lots of research that shows it does work, but the science on how it works is not settled. As of the time of this writing, there are about 3 leading theories. One of the original theories views EMDR as mimicking what happens in REM sleep, while another more recent one focuses on how memories can be impacted by having to split your attention between 2 mentally challenging tasks.
When I went to my first EMDR training back in 2014, I walked in the door curious, but highly skeptical.
I am a thinker. I like science. And the idea that a client moving their eyes back and forth while talking about a traumatic memory could eliminate the emotional distress seemed too good to be true. It felt a little bit like magic, and I don’t believe in magic bullets when it comes to mental health.
Since I’ve been practicing it, I’ve come to the conclusion one of the reasons it gets extra scrutiny is because it looks strange. You sit with a therapist who might wave their fingers in front of your face or have you hold buzzing tappers in your hands. It’s easy to be skeptical of that. However, the truth is that we don’t know with 100% certainty exactly how any type of therapy changes the brain—even standard talk therapy.
We do, however, have a very strong leading hypothesis for why EMDR works. It is called Working Memory Taxation.
Here is how it works: Your brain has a limited amount of what’s called “working memory”—basically, how much information you can hold in your head at one time. When we ask you to think about a difficult memory (which takes up space in your brain) and simultaneously ask you to track my fingers with your eyes (which also takes up space), your brain gets taxed. It can’t do both perfectly.
Because your brain is busy tracking the movement, the memory becomes less vivid and less emotional. It loses its sting. Over time, this allows the memory to be reconsolidated—or saved again—without the heavy emotional baggage that used to be attached to it. It’s not magic; it’s biology.
How is EMDR different from just ‘talk therapy’?
Traditional talk therapy is considered a top-down approach, meaning we use your logical brain (the “top”) to try to calm down your emotions and body. EMDR is a bottom-up approach. We target the nervous system and the body first (the “bottom”), which allows the logical brain to come back online. Talk therapy gives you insight, but EMDR gives you relief.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are panicked, and someone tells you to “just calm down” or “look at the facts”? It doesn’t work. In fact, it usually makes you feel worse.
That is because when your nervous system is hijacked, your prefrontal cortex—the thinking, rational part of your brain—goes offline. You physically cannot reason with a body that is in survival mode.
In talk therapy, we rely heavily on that thinking brain. We look for patterns, we analyze behaviors, and we make plans. This is incredibly valuable for many things! But for deep-seated trauma or anxiety, talk therapy alone can sometimes feel like spinning your wheels. You might talk about the same traumatic event for ten years and still feel the exact same panic when you bring it up.
In EMDR, we use what we call Dual Attention Stimuli (DAS). You might hear this called “bilateral stimulation,” but I prefer Dual Attention because it explains what we are actually doing.
We are asking you to keep part of your attention on the past (the memory) and part of your attention on the present (the eye movements or tapping). This anchor in the “here and now” is crucial. It tells your body, “I am remembering the danger, but I am safe in this room right now.”
This allows your brain to process the memory without being re-traumatized by it. We aren’t just talking about the storm; we are navigating through it to get to the clear skies on the other side.
Is EMDR just for trauma?
No, EMDR is not just for PTSD or “Big T” trauma. It is highly effective for anxiety, depression, and phobias. It is also incredible for “small t” traumas—like chronic criticism, bullying, or emotional neglect—which often leave deep scars that fuel feelings of “not being good enough” or imposter syndrome.
Clients who have been impacted by trauma that doesn’t look like the Hollywood version often wonder “Am I traumatized enough for this?”
They compare their lives to war veterans or survivors of major accidents and think, “Well, nothing that bad happened to me, so I should be able to handle this.”
But trauma isn’t just about the event; it’s about how your nervous system reacted to it. If you grew up in a home where you had to be perfect to be loved, or if you were constantly criticized, your body learned that making a mistake = danger. That is a trauma response.
At True North, we often use the metaphor of terrain. We all have a landscape we have to navigate in life. Some people have a clear, paved path. Others are hiking through mud, brambles, and steep cliffs.
EMDR helps clear the path.
We can use it for concerns like:
- Depression: Targeting the memories that fuel feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness.
- Performance Anxiety: Helping professionals or athletes who freeze up under pressure.
- Phobias: Fear of flying, public speaking, or medical procedures.
You don’t need a specific diagnosis to benefit from EMDR. You just need a nervous system that is ready to let go of some old baggage.
What are the 8 phases of EMDR?
EMDR is a structured 8-phase protocol. It includes: 1) History Taking, 2) Preparation, 3) Assessment, 4) Desensitization, 5) Installation, 6) Body Scan, 7) Closure, and 8) Reevaluation. We do not jump straight into trauma processing. A significant amount of time is spent in Phase 2, ensuring you have the coping skills and safety resources needed before we ever open up difficult memories.
One of the biggest fears people have is, “If I open this box, I’ll never be able to close it.” That is a valid fear. If you have spent your life white-knuckling it—staying busy, achieving, and ignoring your feelings to keep the scary stuff at bay—the idea of letting your guard down feels dangerous.
That is why we never, ever, throw you into the deep end on day one.
In Phase 2, we are packing your survival kit. We spend time building resources. This might look like visualization exercises, learning how to ground yourself in your body, or developing a calm place visualization where you can go to mentally when things get overwhelmed. We also look at your current life stability. Do you have support? Are you sleeping? We want to make sure you have one foot firmly planted in safety before we dip the other foot into the past.
The active memory reprocessing work (which is often the part of therapy people are talking about when they say they are “doing” EMDR), consists of phases 3-7. These phases, while named separately in the original model, actually are really interconnected processes. They may all take place in one therapy session without you as the client really noticing the transition from one phase to the other.
Phase 8 reevaluation is exactly what it sounds like – we’re checking back in the impact (both short- and long-term) of the work done previously to make any needed adjustments to keep the process moving forward, effectively and efficiently.
How effective is EMDR?
EMDR is one of the most researched psychotherapies in the world. It is recognized as an effective treatment for trauma by the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). While most research focuses on PTSD, a growing body of evidence supports its high efficacy for anxiety, depression, and other stress-related disorders.
We like research around here. We want to know that what we are doing actually works.
And the research on EMDR is robust. Studies consistently show that EMDR can be more efficient than traditional therapy. For some people, it resolves specific symptoms in a fraction of the time it would take in talk therapy.
Why? Because we are cutting straight to the root.
Imagine you have a weed in your garden. You can mow over it (symptom management) every week for years, but it will keep growing back. EMDR is like digging down and pulling out the root. Once the root is gone, the weed doesn’t come back.
While the majority of the research on effectiveness of EMDR is for PTSD treatment, there is a wide and growing body of research on effective use of EMDR with many other concerns that bring people to therapy, and widespread anecdotal evidence from therapists using EMDR effectively with their non-PTSD clients, whether that is EMDR alone or alongside other treatments.
What is the “new” version of EMDR?
Science is always evolving, and so is EMDR. New innovations like EMDR 2.0 and the Flash Technique are adaptations that allow us to process trauma either more easily, faster, with less distress, or all of the above. These versions often involve more active tasks or lighter engagement with the memory, making the process faster and less painful. We use these tools to tailor the therapy to your specific nervous system.
Remember how I mentioned I’m a bit of a skeptic? I also believe that we shouldn’t continue to do things just because that’s how we’ve always done them.
Traditional EMDR is amazing, but sometimes it can be too intense for some clients to tolerate. In recent years, innovators in the field have developed ways to tax the working memory even more effectively, which ironically makes the process less emotionally draining for you.
With techniques like the Flash Technique or EMDR 2.0, we might not even need you to focus heavily on the traumatic memory. We might have you focus on something positive or engaging while we quickly “blink” past the trauma. This can be a game-changer for people who are terrified of facing their past.
At True North, we don’t believe in rigid adherence to a textbook protocol if it doesn’t fit the human in front of us. We use these modern adaptations to make sure the therapy fits you, not the other way around.
Can EMDR be used with other treatments?
Absolutely. EMDR pairs beautifully with other therapies like DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and CFT (Compassion Focused Therapy). It is a “both/and” situation. We can use EMDR to heal deep wounds while using other modalities to build daily coping skills, or we can bring EMDR processing tools into your regular therapy sessions to help with stuck points.
You don’t have to choose between processing your past and getting support for your present. In fact, we love integrating these things.
For someone who struggles with self-criticism, we might use EMDR to help process the childhood memories of where the inner critic was born, and use CFT (Compassion Focused Therapy) to help the client build an inner ally that never got the chance to develop.
Or, with grief. Grief is a natural expression of love, not a pathology. But sometimes, grief gets stuck. Maybe there is a specific image from the hospital, or a regret that keeps looping in your mind. We can use EMDR to clear that specific block, allowing the natural, healthy grieving process to start flowing again.
All forms of therapy have their strengths and weaknesses, and all clients have their unique histories and preferences. Working with a therapist who can blend techniques we know work in a way that is tailored to you is a powerful approach, and what we aim to do at True North.
Beyond Just “Knowing Why”
If you have read this far, I hope you are feeling a little less alone and a little more curious.
It is scary to think about facing the things we have spent so much energy running from. I get that. But I also know that the energy it takes to keep those memories shoved down is draining the life out of you.
You deserve to have that energy back. You deserve to feel safe in your own body, not just managing on the outside.
EMDR isn’t a magic wand, and it isn’t always easy. But it is a map through the terrain. And the best part? You don’t have to walk it alone.
If you are ready to see if EMDR might be the right fit for you, we are here to help you pack your bag and start the journey. Reach out to us at True North Therapy & Wellness today. Let’s help you find your way home to yourself.
About the Author
Jessica Draughn is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over 15 years of experience supporting clients in West Des Moines, Iowa. A self-described “compassionate skeptic” of one-size-fits-all solutions, she specializes in helping high-functioning adults who feel “stuck” navigate the complex terrain of trauma, anxiety, and burnout. Jessica is highly trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), seamlessly integrating it with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT).
This unique blend allows her to move beyond standard symptom management and address the root nervous system responses that keep smart, capable people feeling overwhelmed. At True North Therapy & Wellness, Jessica provides in-person individual therapy for adult clients, creating a grounded space where “professional” exteriors can be dropped and authentic healing can begin.