EMDR is a structured process. It begins with taking a history and identifying traumatic memories to the best of your ability. You will not have to disclose or describe anything you’re not comfortable with.

Next, we practice skills that we call ‘resources.’ This means learning ways to take control of your mind and your nervous system. These skills are simple yet powerful. They include visualization exercises, practicing awareness of the present moment, and accessing the wisdom of your body to create calm.

After learning those skills, we will begin the work that we call reprocessing the memory. You can imagine that your traumatic memories are almost like locked rooms within your mind. Because they can feel so dangerous, your mind has done you the favor of keeping them out of your normal conscious memory. But even though you’re not consciously remembering, those memories effect you in ways you probably don’t realize. By reprocessing the memory, you get conscious control back. That memory will come out of the closet, and you’ll have the skills and support to face it head on. It no longer has to have power over you.

Last, you get to create your new, updated version of your belief. This is truly life changing. Imagine — choosing your own belief about yourself and then actually believing it!! This is the difference between EMDR and other ways of trying to feel better. Often, we operate in the mold of Stuart Smalley. Our conscious mind understands that rationally, we are definitely good enough, smart enough, and people like us. So, why can’t we actually believe this in a way that we can feel in our bones? Because old beliefs that were informed by trauma tell us otherwise. They tell us that we are definitely NOT good enough or smart enough. They tell us that we are unlovable and worthless. And where do these beliefs come from? Trauma. From crap that happened to us. Crap that told you that you deserve these bad things, or that the world is inherently unsafe, or that you cannot have any control over your life. You didn’t ask for these life lessons, and you didn’t need to have them foisted upon you. It’s as though you entered school ready to learn your ABC’s, which would be really helpful and you wanted to learn that, but instead you ended up in a class about how horrible everything is and it was so convincing that you bought into it. But over down the hall, the ABC class is still happening, and if you’d ended up in that class, you’d deeply believe that A is for Apple and you are totally able to read.

It’s almost like a cult of one, and your trauma is your very charismatic cult leader.

EMDR will help you re-invent your relationship with those memories. It will not erase them, but it will lessen their impact. You will say, “huh, I used to be in that cult, and I used to believe such wild stuff. Now I know that those beliefs are kind of a load of shit, and I can finally breathe freely again.”

You will be guided to pay attention to your body as you remember certain events. In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk describes all the ways that we experience memories in subconscious ways. While certain parts of the brain encode memories through words and images, other parts of the nervous system bring these memories and their associated emotions throughout the body. There are nerves that wrap around organs that are responsible for that stomach clenching feeling, or the tightness in your chest, or the way your shoulders hunch up around your neck. In EMDR, we listen to these body signals to give us further information into how you’ve reacted to your trauma. You may think it’s locked up in a closet, never to be seen again, but your trauma may be responsible for your asthma, or your IBS, or that weird immune disease you’ve been trying to figure out.