What Bad EMDR Looks Like — And How to Know the Difference

By Northwest Mental Health Alliance

We're going to say something most therapy practices won't: not all EMDR is good EMDR. Some of it is done incorrectly. Some of it is incomplete. And some of it, delivered without the proper protocol and preparation, can make things worse rather than better.

We're not saying this to alarm you or to disparage other providers. We're saying it because you deserve to be an informed consumer of mental health care — especially trauma care, where the stakes are high and the harm from poor treatment is real.

Here's what to look for.

What the full EMDR protocol actually involves

EMDR is an eight-phase treatment protocol. This isn't a suggestion — it's the structure that makes EMDR safe and effective. Each phase serves a specific clinical purpose, and skipping or rushing through any of them creates real problems.

The phases are: History-taking and treatment planning. Preparation. Assessment. Desensitization. Installation. Body scan. Closure. Reevaluation.

The phases that get skipped most often are preparation, closure, and reevaluation. These are also the ones that matter most for your safety.

Red flags in an EMDR session

Bilateral stimulation for long stretches without stopping

Standard EMDR protocol involves short sets of bilateral stimulation — eye movements, taps, or sounds — followed by a pause where the therapist checks in with you about what came up. Those pauses are not optional. They're where the therapist tracks what's happening, adjusts direction, and ensures the processing is moving appropriately.

If your therapist runs bilateral stimulation continuously for five, ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes without pausing to check in, that's not correct protocol. (Suggested timing is 20-45 seconds.) It's one of the most common errors we hear about, and it's one that can leave clients flooded and disoriented rather than processed and grounded.

Starting trauma processing without resourcing first

Before any trauma material is directly processed in EMDR, a client needs to have established what the protocol calls resources — internal anchors of safety and calm that can be accessed if processing becomes overwhelming. This might be an imagined safe place, a sense of a calm internal state, or a felt sense of support.

Skipping this phase and moving directly into processing trauma material is like opening a wound before you have the supplies to close it. Some clients can tolerate this. Many cannot. The result is sessions that feel out of control and leave clients in worse shape than before.

Sessions that end without closure

Every EMDR session should end with a closure phase — a deliberate process of containing whatever material was opened during processing, so the client can leave the session and function in their daily life. This is especially important when processing hasn't reached a natural endpoint within the session time.

A session that ends abruptly, with a client still emotionally flooded, is a session that wasn't properly closed. This isn't just uncomfortable — it can be genuinely destabilizing, and it's a sign that the therapist either doesn't know the closure protocol or isn't applying it.

No assessment or history-taking before treatment begins

EMDR should never begin with active trauma processing in the first session. The early phases of the protocol involve taking a thorough history, identifying specific target memories, and developing a treatment plan. A therapist who jumps into bilateral stimulation in session one hasn't done the assessment work that tells them what's safe to target.

"We did some EMDR" as a description of the session

If a therapist describes what you did as "some EMDR" or uses it as an occasional add-on when the conversation feels stuck, that's a signal. EMDR is a structured protocol, not a technique to sprinkle in. Competent EMDR therapists have a treatment plan with specific targets in mind. Sessions have a clear structure. The approach is deliberate, not improvised.

Questions to ask a prospective EMDR therapist

• How many hours of EMDR consultation have you completed beyond basic training?

• Are you EMDRIA certified, or working toward certification?

• How do you handle closure when processing doesn't complete in a session?

• What does your resourcing process look like before we start trauma work?

• How many EMDR clients have you worked with, and in what presentations?

A therapist who is genuinely competent in EMDR will answer these questions specifically and confidently. Vague answers or defensiveness are worth paying attention to.

If EMDR has hurt you before

If you've had EMDR and came away feeling worse — more activated, more destabilized, unable to function in the days after a session — please know that this is not what EMDR is supposed to feel like, and it is not your fault.

Processing can bring up difficult material. Some activation between sessions is normal. But sustained destabilization, a sense that things have been stirred up with no resolution, or feeling flooded during sessions with no way to come back to ground — these are signs that the protocol wasn't being followed correctly.

Properly delivered EMDR, by a trained and well-supervised clinician, should feel like hard work that moves somewhere. Not like a door opened with no plan to close it.

If what you've described sounds familiar — we'd like to hear from you. Our intake process is designed to understand your history and meet you where you are.

Apply for an intake — we respond within 3 business days. →