EMDR Frequently Asked Questions

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

Desensitizing the intensity of the emotion felt with traumatic or distressing events.

Reprocessing the memories of traumatic events that did not undergo the needed processing in real time, and laying new adaptive pathways to deal with the future.

Eye movements were originally used to ensure the two hemispheres of the brain took an active part in the processing procedure. Today additional methods are used, including earphones playing sounds intermittently to both sides of the brain, or palm vibrations firing off intermittently.

EMDR is among the most thoroughly researched psychological methods. Many studies attest to its effectiveness within just a few therapeutic sessions. EMDR is considered evidence-based therapy by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the World Health Organization.

Eliminating internal obstacles to achieve your personal best, including athletes looking to boost performance before a big event, students before exams, artists before performances and auditions; business people looking to improve their ability to mount successful presentations and negotiations, and improve their self-worth before requesting a raise or promotion.

Dealing with life crises such as betrayal, divorce, being fired, unemployment, birth trauma, etc.

Changing repetitive behaviours such as difficulty forming intimate relationships, recurring bad decision-making, overeating, porn addiction, anger and rage outbursts, etc.

Dealing with anxiety and phobias such as fear of public speaking, performance anxiety, driving anxiety, fear of dogs, dental phobia, recurrent nightmares, etc.

Dealing with traumatic events such as sexual assault, physical assault, car accidents, terror attacks, death of a loved one, etc.

When it comes to mental suffering or internal inhibitions caused by a life experience, EMDR can be extremely helpful.

First, compared to previous methods, EMDR is proven to be more effective. It provides better results, or equivalent results in a shorter time period. These differences in duration of treatment and degrees of effectiveness are unprecedented in the history of psychotherapy.

Second, defining the problem, the treatment possibilities, and the focus of therapy are different from all other forms of psychotherapy. In EMDR, the negative beliefs, the emotional suffering and the “non-advancing internal story” (or paradigms) are NOT the problem. They are symptoms of an experience, or previous life experiences, that our brains did not manage to process in real-time. Those unprocessed memories are the problem.

EMDR therapy provides an abundance of insights and “falling chips”, but unlike other methods, the client achieves these insights on his or her own because of the process, and just as importantly, in a very short time. In EMDR, we don’t provide awareness and tools to deal with the problem, but rather we remove the problem. When the problem is removed, the symptoms cease to exist.

As one client said, “[The situation] doesn’t push my buttons any more, because the buttons are gone.”

When we’re in the middle of a distressing event, sometimes the brain cannot process information the way it usually would. As a result the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations we experienced during the upsetting event can get stuck or frozen in our brain and nervous system. These stuck experiences can influence how we perceive ourselves and the world, and how we interact with others.

We will locate, in up to three sessions, the experiences that are responsible for our present-day distress, and begin to reprocess them. Processing is done through four different channels: the sensory channel (mostly visual, but sometimes sound and/or voice), the emotional channel, the cognitive channel (negative beliefs associated with the experience, and positive beliefs we would like to be associated with the experience), as well as the channel of physical/body sensations.

Your sessions will quickly deal with past, present, and future-based material. EMDR doesn’t erase memories – they just become less upsetting and become stored in a way that is helpful to you.

You can get past your past experiences, limiting beliefs and behaviours, and become able to skillfully meet the future with confidence and ease.

No. EMDR doesn’t require that you practice homework between sessions. Nor do you need to wait weeks to be able to achieve the results you want. Accelerated EMDR can give you results in hours that would have taken weeks, months or years with previous therapies.

Originally, EMDR was developed for treating post-traumatic stress (PTSD). The first patients were veterans of the Vietnam War, as well as sexual assault victims. The findings were very different from those of previous treatment techniques. People who had suffered for years and decades, some taking part in therapies that were of no help, recovered from PTSD within a few sessions. Before that, post-trauma was considered a chronic ongoing disorder.

After being found effective time and again, EMDR was expanded in three different vectors:

Firstly, for people whose condition was less severe than that of PTSD. People experiencing anxiety, depression, phobias, life crises such as separation and divorce, difficulties in establishing intimate relationships, low self-esteem.

Secondly, for people who wished to improve achievements in various areas. EMDR was found to be effective in improving academic achievement, sports achievements, recovering from injury, performers such as musicians and actors, business applications, business crises, and removing internal inhibitions form business development.

Thirdly, for working with people with severe mental and emotional disorders, such as those suffering from severe psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dissociative disorders, and addictions. In such cases, EMDR could be incorporated, preferably with more extensive therapy.

EMDR is used to treat people of all ages. Children have been found to respond faster to EMDR therapy when compared to adults. When doing EMDR with very young children, the treatment is done in the presence of the adults.

No one is too old for EMDR therapy, as long as the individual has the ability to cope. People in their 80s and 90s have had success with EMDR.

Despite the differences in the details, the neuropsychogenic mechanisms causing distress in the present are the same. In EMDR it isn’t the role of the therapist to scratch his beard and give commentary or advice based on personal experience. The therapist’s job is to help complete the processing of events that are at the heart of the present inhibition or distress. The details come from the patient, from your experience and adaptive information processing, not from the therapist.