"I Tried EMDR and It Didn't Work" — What Might Have Actually Happened

By Northwest Mental Health Alliance

We hear this regularly. Someone comes in, mentions they tried EMDR before, and says it didn't work. Sometimes they say it made things worse. Sometimes they just say nothing seemed to happen.

Before we take that at face value, we ask a few questions. And more often than not, what they describe doesn't sound like EMDR.

What people describe

The accounts vary, but certain patterns come up repeatedly.

Someone who spent sessions with their therapist doing eye movements for long stretches — twenty minutes at a time — without pausing, without the therapist checking in, without any sense of where the session was going. They left feeling disoriented and didn't notice any lasting change.

Someone who was moved into trauma processing in the second or third session, before any groundwork had been laid. They left feeling flooded and raw. Subsequent sessions were hard to attend. Things felt stirred up rather than resolved.

Someone whose sessions consistently ran over time or ended abruptly, with no real closure. They'd leave carrying whatever had come up in session — sometimes for days.

Someone whose therapist described themselves as EMDR trained but seemed to be using the bilateral stimulation as an add-on to regular talk therapy, rather than following a structured protocol.

If any of these descriptions sound familiar, it's worth considering that what you experienced may not have been complete EMDR. Because complete EMDR, delivered correctly, shouldn't feel like this.

What EMDR is actually supposed to feel like

Real EMDR is hard work. It asks you to hold difficult memories in mind and trust a process that can feel strange and nonlinear. Some activation between sessions is normal — your brain is continuing to process material after the session ends.

But there's a difference between hard work that moves somewhere and hard work that leaves you worse off.

Properly delivered EMDR should feel like: a session with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Processing that has direction, even when it feels circuitous. A sense that you are being tracked and guided — not left alone with difficult material. A clear closure at the end of every session so you can leave and function. And over time, a palpable shift in how the targeted material feels — not just that you've talked about it, but that your relationship to it has actually changed.

Why incomplete EMDR is so common

EMDR basic training is a two-day course. The therapist learns the protocol in theory, practices it briefly with other trainees, and is then credentialed to offer it to clients. Most therapists who complete basic training never pursue the consultation hours required for EMDRIA certification — the process that would have an experienced clinician actually look at their work and catch errors.

The result is a significant number of practitioners using the bilateral stimulation component of EMDR without the full protocol that surrounds it. They're not being dishonest. They believe they're doing EMDR. They just weren't trained deeply enough to know the difference between what they're doing and what EMDR fully requires.

What this means for you

If you've had a negative or unsuccessful experience with EMDR, we want to offer you a few things.

First: it wasn't your fault. If the protocol wasn't followed correctly, the outcome isn't a reflection of your readiness to heal or your capacity to benefit from treatment.

Second: EMDR itself isn't the problem. The evidence base for EMDR is substantial. When delivered correctly, by a well-trained and supervised clinician, it is one of the most effective treatments available for trauma. An incomplete or incorrect version is not representative of what the approach can do.

Third: it may be worth trying again. We understand the hesitation — why go back to something that hurt you or didn't help? Because this time, you'd know what to look for. And you'd know what to ask.

What we do differently

At NWMHA, EMDR is our specialty. Every clinician here practices under ongoing supervision and consultation. Our clinical director, Kevin St-Jacques, is an EMDRIA-approved consultant — which means he has met the field's highest standard for EMDR expertise. Interns are supervised closely. Cases are reviewed regularly. No one is practicing in isolation.

We follow the full eight-phase protocol. Every time. Preparation before processing. Resourcing before touching trauma material. Closure at the end of every session. Reevaluation at the start of the next.

We can't promise any particular outcome — no ethical clinician can. But we can promise that what you receive here will be EMDR, done correctly, by clinicians who take the protocol seriously.

If you've been burned before and you're willing to try again — we'd be honored to talk to you. Your experience matters to us, and we'll take it seriously from the very first conversation.

Apply for an intake — we respond within 3 business days. If you've had a difficult experience with EMDR before, please mention it in your application so we can approach things thoughtfully. →

The 8 Phases of EMDR — And Why Skipping Any of Them Is a Problem

By Northwest Mental Health Alliance

EMDR is an eight-phase protocol. This structure isn't arbitrary — each phase serves a specific clinical purpose, and the sequence matters. Understanding what the phases are, and what each one does, helps you recognize whether you're receiving EMDR correctly.

We're going to walk through all eight. We're also going to be direct about which phases get skipped most often and what happens when they do.

Phase 1: History-taking and treatment planning

Before any EMDR processing begins, your therapist needs to understand your full clinical picture. This means gathering a thorough history — not just the presenting problem, but your broader life history, current functioning, and any factors that might affect how you respond to trauma processing.

This phase also involves identifying specific target memories: the experiences that will be addressed in treatment and the order in which they'll be approached. EMDR has a specific protocol for sequencing targets that isn't intuitive and isn't optional.

Therapists who skip or rush this phase often do so because it feels slow — it's not the exciting part of EMDR. But it's foundational. Without it, treatment lacks direction and targets may be addressed in an order that activates material the client isn't ready for.

Phase 2: Preparation

Before touching any trauma material, clients need to be prepared. This means psychoeducation about how EMDR works, what to expect during processing, and — critically — the development of internal resources.

Resources are mental anchors: a safe or calm place the client can access internally, a sense of a supportive presence, a felt sense of stability. These resources aren't decoration. During active trauma processing, if things become overwhelming, these resources are what allows the client to regulate and continue.

Skipping preparation and jumping directly into trauma processing is one of the most common and consequential errors in EMDR practice. It removes the safety net. Clients who haven't developed resources can become flooded during processing with no way to stabilize.

Phase 3: Assessment

Before processing a specific memory, the therapist identifies the target precisely — the image, the negative belief associated with it, the desired positive belief, the emotions present, and where they're felt in the body. Baseline measurements are taken.

This isn't paperwork. It's calibration. It establishes exactly what's being targeted and how activated it currently is, so the therapist can track movement during processing.

Phase 4: Desensitization

This is what most people picture when they think of EMDR — the bilateral stimulation phase where active trauma processing occurs. The therapist guides sets of bilateral stimulation while the client holds the target memory in mind, then pauses to check in about what emerged.

The pauses are not optional. Each set of bilateral stimulation is followed by a brief stop where the therapist tracks what's happening and adjusts. Continuous bilateral stimulation for long stretches without checking in is incorrect protocol and can leave clients overwhelmed and unguided.

Phase 5: Installation

Once the emotional charge of the target memory has decreased, the therapist works to strengthen the positive belief the client identified in phase three. This installs the new adaptive meaning — not just "the trauma feels less intense" but "I now genuinely believe something different about myself in relation to it."

Phase 6: Body scan

The client scans through their body while holding the target memory and the positive belief, noticing any remaining tension or discomfort. If physical sensations remain, they are targeted with additional processing until the body is clear.

This phase recognizes that trauma is stored somatically as well as cognitively. Completing processing only at the cognitive level without checking the body misses half the work.

Phase 7: Closure

Every session must end with closure — regardless of whether processing is complete. If the target memory has been fully processed, closure involves containment and grounding. If processing is incomplete, the therapist uses specific techniques to help the client put unprocessed material in a container so they can function safely until the next session.

A session that ends without closure leaves clients with open trauma material and no container for it. This is one of the most harmful errors in EMDR practice. Clients describe leaving sessions feeling destabilized, unable to function, or worse than before they arrived. This is not what EMDR is supposed to produce.

Phase 8: Reevaluation

At the beginning of the next session, the therapist checks in on the previous target. Was the processing complete? Did anything shift between sessions? Are there new aspects that emerged? This ensures treatment is actually moving and allows the plan to be adjusted based on what's happening.

All eight phases. Every time. That's the protocol. That's what makes EMDR safe and effective — not just the bilateral stimulation.

If what you've experienced in EMDR didn't include all of these phases — if sessions jumped quickly into processing, if they ended abruptly, if you never developed resources before touching trauma material — what you received wasn't the complete protocol.

If you want EMDR done correctly, apply for an intake at NWMHA. We respond within 3 business days. →

What EMDR Supervision Actually Looks Like — And Why It Makes Your Care Better

By Kevin St Jacques, PsyD, LMHC — Clinical Director, NWMHA

When people hear that they'll be working with a supervised intern, one of two things usually happens. Either they're relieved because of the price, or they're quietly worried about what supervision actually means for the quality of care they'll receive.

I want to address that worry directly. Because the supervision model at NWMHA isn't a compromise on quality. In some ways, it's a higher standard than what most private practice clients receive.

What supervision looks like in a typical private practice

In a standard private practice setting, a licensed therapist sees clients independently. They make clinical decisions alone. They write notes alone. If a case is complicated or something unusual happens, they might consult informally with a colleague — or they might not. There is no structural requirement for ongoing oversight of their clinical work once licensure is obtained.

This is normal. It's how most therapy works. But it's worth being honest about: once a therapist is licensed, the systems designed to catch clinical errors are largely gone.

What supervision looks like at NWMHA

At NWMHA, every intern's clinical work is reviewed regularly in formal supervision with a licensed, experienced clinician. This isn't a formality. It's a working clinical conversation about each case — what's happening, what the treatment plan is, whether the approach is working, and what to adjust if it isn't.

Before an intern works with a client on trauma material in EMDR, the case has been discussed. The targets have been reviewed. The treatment plan has been examined by someone with years of clinical experience. The intern is not making these decisions alone.

When something unexpected comes up in a session — and in trauma work, things come up — there is an experienced clinician available to consult with. Not eventually. Immediately.

Two sets of eyes on your case

Here's what this means practically for clients working with one of our interns: you have two clinicians invested in your care. The intern who is in the room with you, who is building a relationship with you and learning your history and showing up consistently. And the supervisor who is reviewing that work, catching anything that needs to be caught, and ensuring the clinical decisions being made are sound.

That's not a consolation prize. In complex trauma work, that's an advantage. Two clinicians thinking about a case together will reliably catch things that one clinician thinking alone will miss.

What I look for in supervision

When I supervise an intern's EMDR cases, I'm looking at several things. Whether the preparation phase was thorough enough before trauma processing began. Whether the targets being addressed are sequenced correctly. Whether closure is being done at the end of every session. Whether the intern is tracking the client's window of tolerance and adjusting accordingly.

I'm also listening for things that aren't in the notes — the intern's read on the client's emotional state, what they noticed that didn't make it into writing, what felt uncertain to them. That uncertainty is information. A supervisor who creates space for interns to voice what they don't know catches problems before they become patterns.

Why this model matters for EMDR specifically

EMDR requires more clinical judgment than many other therapy approaches. It's not simply a technique — it's a structured protocol with a specific sequence for good reasons, and the reasons matter. Moving too fast through preparation can leave a client without the internal resources they need to process safely. Skipping closure leaves trauma material open and uncontained. Targeting memories in the wrong order can activate material the client isn't ready to work with.

A well-supervised intern learns to make these judgments carefully, with the safety net of an experienced clinician reviewing their work. A licensed therapist practicing without oversight can develop blind spots that no one ever catches.

We built this model because we believe oversight should be structural, not occasional. And because the clients who trust us with their trauma deserve clinical care that is held to a standard someone is actually watching.

Supervision isn't about having less experienced clinicians. It's about building in the oversight that makes good care consistent.

Interested in working with an NWMHA intern? Apply for an intake — sliding scale from $35. We respond within 3 business days. →

The Difference Between "EMDR Trained" and "EMDR Competent"

By Northwest Mental Health Alliance

When you search for an EMDR therapist, almost every therapist profile says the same thing: "EMDR trained." It's listed alongside CBT, DBT, mindfulness, and half a dozen other approaches as a service they offer.

What that phrase tells you is that a therapist completed a basic training at some point. What it doesn't tell you — and what actually matters — is what happened after that training.

What basic EMDR training involves

The standard EMDR basic training approved by EMDRIA — the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing International Association — is a 5-6 day course, including didactic training, demonstrations, and practice with other trainees.

To be fair, this training is not nothing. It covers the protocol, the theory, the phases. Trainees practice bilateral stimulation with each other. They leave with a working understanding of what EMDR is supposed to look like.

But it is not enough to make someone competent in a complex trauma treatment protocol. And the field knows this — which is why EMDRIA has a certification process that requires significantly more.

What EMDRIA certification actually requires

To become EMDRIA certified, a therapist must complete the following beyond basic training:

• A minimum of fifty EMDR sessions with actual clients

• Twenty hours of consultation with an EMDRIA-approved consultant

• Continuing education in EMDR

• An active license in good standing

That consultation requirement is the most important piece. Twenty hours with an approved consultant means twenty hours of having your clinical work examined by someone who can identify gaps, correct errors, and push you toward genuine competence. It means someone has actually looked at how you practice.

Most therapists who complete basic training never pursue certification. There is no requirement to. No enforcement. No follow-up. The training happens and then the therapist goes back to their practice and uses EMDR — or something they call EMDR — indefinitely.

What competence actually looks like

An EMDR-competent therapist has done more than attend a training. They have:

• Delivered EMDR to a range of clients with different presentations and levels of complexity

• Worked through stuck cases in consultation — learning what to do when the standard protocol isn't moving the way it should

• Developed clinical judgment about when to proceed with processing and when to slow down and stabilize

• Learned how to adapt the protocol for clients who are highly activated, dissociative, or have complex trauma histories

• Made mistakes and had those mistakes examined and corrected in a supervised setting

That last one is significant. Every therapist makes clinical errors, especially early in their EMDR practice. The difference between a competent EMDR therapist and an undertrained one isn't that one never makes errors — it's that one has had those errors caught and corrected before they become patterns.

What this means at NWMHA

At NWMHA, we have built a model where consultation and supervision are not optional extras — they are built into the practice. Our supervised graduate therapists work under licensed clinicians who review their cases regularly. Our licensed therapists have completed significant post-training consultation. Kevin St-Jacques and Linda Smith are both EMDRIA-approved consultants in training, which means they have met the field's standard for clinical expertise and are qualified to help certify other therapists.

When we say we specialize in EMDR, we mean that everyone practicing here has gone significantly beyond the basic training. We mean that clinical oversight is ongoing, not historical. We mean that the standard we hold ourselves to is what EMDR is supposed to look like — not what a two-day training makes possible.

"EMDR trained" is a starting point. Ask what came after.

Interested in working with an EMDR-specialized practice? Apply for an intake — we respond within 3 business days. →

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. →

Why We Started a Training Center — What We Kept Hearing About EMDR Scared Us

By Kevin St-Jacques, PsyD and Linda Smith, LMHC — Northwest Mental Health Alliance

This is not an easy article to write. It requires us to say something uncomfortable about a field we love and a therapy we've built our practice around.

But we think it needs to be said. Because the pattern we kept seeing — across clients, across consultation sessions, across intake after intake — was too consistent to ignore. And staying quiet about it felt like a choice we couldn't make.

So here it is: a lot of EMDR being practiced right now is not being done correctly. And some of it is causing real harm.

What we started hearing

It didn't happen all at once. It accumulated.

Clients would come to us after working with another EMDR therapist — sometimes for months — describing sessions that didn't sound like EMDR. A therapist who did bilateral stimulation for twenty minutes straight without stopping to process what came up. Sessions that jumped directly into trauma material without any preparation, assessment, or resourcing. Clients who left sessions feeling worse than when they arrived, with no closure, no grounding, no way to put things back in a container before driving home.

Some of them had been retraumatized. Not because EMDR doesn't work — it does. But because what they received wasn't actually EMDR. It was bilateral stimulation applied to trauma without the protocol that makes it safe and effective.

EMDR is a structured, eight-phase protocol. Bilateral stimulation is one component of it. Bilateral stimulation alone, without the rest of the protocol, is not EMDR.

We also heard this from the other direction — from therapists who came to us for consultation. What they described in their sessions sometimes stopped us cold. Skipping the history-taking phase because it felt slow. Moving into active trauma processing without establishing any sense of safety or internal resources for the client. Not completing closure at the end of sessions, leaving clients emotionally flooded and ungrounded.

These weren't bad therapists. Many of them genuinely cared about their clients. They had completed EMDR training. They believed they were doing EMDR correctly. They just hadn't been taught what correctly actually looked like — and the gap between what they learned and what the protocol requires was significant.

Why this happens

EMDR basic training is a 5-6 day course. That’s it. For a structured, eight-phase treatment protocol designed to address some of the most complex presentations in clinical practice.

To be clear: that training is a beginning. EMDRIA — the governing body for EMDR — requires many hours of consultation beyond basic training before a therapist can become certified. Twenty hours of working with an approved consultant who can watch your clinical work, identify gaps, and help you develop genuine competence.

Most therapists who complete basic training never pursue that consultation. There's no requirement to. There's no enforcement mechanism. A therapist can complete a basic training and begin billing for EMDR the following Monday, indefinitely, with no further oversight.

The credential "EMDR trained" tells you almost nothing about whether a therapist knows how to do EMDR well.

What we decided to do

We'd been running our practice for years when we made the decision to formalize what we were already doing informally: training therapists to a higher standard than the field requires.

The training center at NWMHA exists because we couldn't find what we needed in the existing landscape. Basic training courses that send therapists out the door with a certificate and minimal supervised practice. Continuing education that teaches technique without clinical judgment. A culture in the field that treats EMDR as a skill to add rather than a discipline to develop.

We wanted something different. A program where interns and clinicians learn EMDR from the ground up, under close supervision, with ongoing consultation built into the model rather than treated as optional. Where the standard isn't "did you complete the training" but "can you actually do this safely and effectively."

What this means for clients

Every clinician at NWMHA — including our graduate therapists — practices under a model of ongoing clinical oversight. Cases are reviewed regularly. Consultation is built into the week, not an occasional add-on. We review transcripts of sessions and notes. When something unusual comes up in a session, there is a licensed, experienced clinician to consult with — immediately, not eventually.

This is not standard practice. In most private practice settings, a therapist sees clients alone, writes notes alone, and makes clinical decisions alone. At NWMHA, no one is working in isolation.

We built it this way because of what we kept hearing. Because clients deserve to know that the EMDR they're receiving has been taught carefully, supervised closely, and held to a standard that goes beyond the minimum the field requires.

That's what the training center is for. That's why it exists.

If you've had EMDR before and it didn't feel right — or didn't work — we'd like to talk to you. What you experienced may not have been the full protocol. There's a difference, and it matters.

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

What to Expect in Your First EMDR Session

What to Expect in Your First EMDR Session

If you've been told EMDR might help you — and you've spent the last hour down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what it actually involves — this post is for you.

EMDR has a reputation for being mysterious. People hear "eye movement" and picture someone dangling a watch in front of your face while you confess your deepest fears. That's not what happens. Let's walk through what actually does.

First, a quick reality check on what EMDR is

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It's a structured therapy approach developed in the late 1980s that's now one of the most well-researched treatments for trauma and PTSD. The World Health Organization recommends it. So does the American Psychological Association. It's not fringe — it's evidence-based.

The basic idea: traumatic memories get stored differently in the brain than normal memories. They stay "stuck" with the full emotional and physical charge of the original event. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation — typically side-to-side eye movements, taps, or sounds — to help your brain reprocess those memories so they lose their grip on you.

Skeptical? That's fair. The mechanism isn't fully understood yet. But the outcomes are well-documented. We've seen it work on people who've tried years of talk therapy without much movement. That's why we built our entire practice around it.

What actually happens in session one

It's mostly talking

Your first session is an intake and assessment. Your therapist is getting to know you — what brought you in, what you've tried before, what your life looks like, what feels safe to work on first. There's no rushing.

Your therapist will explain the process

A good EMDR therapist walks you through exactly what to expect before anything happens. You'll learn about the phases of treatment, how to signal if you need to stop, and what "processing" actually feels like. You're in control of the pace.

You might do some resourcing

Many therapists will spend early sessions building "resources" — mental anchors of safety and calm that you can return to if feelings gets intense. Think of it as building the floor before you open the door.

You won't have to narrate everything in detail

This surprises people. EMDR doesn't require you to describe your trauma in detail to a therapist who writes everything down. You hold the memory in mind — your therapist doesn't need to know all of it (sometimes they don’t need to know ANY of it!). That's part of why it works for people who've found traditional talk therapy re-traumatizing.

What processing actually feels like

During bilateral stimulation, most people describe a sense of the memory "moving" — emotions and sensations shifting, sometimes getting more intense briefly before settling. Some people cry. Some feel nothing at all at first. Some feel physical sensations in their body as things release.

The goal isn't to relive the trauma. It's to change your relationship to it.

How long does it take

It depends on what you're working on. A single incident trauma — like a car accident or a medical procedure that happened to someone who had a pretty OK childhood— might resolve in 3 to 6 sessions. Complex, childhood, or developmental trauma takes longer. Your therapist will give you a realistic picture after the assessment.

What to do after a session

Processing doesn't stop when you leave the room. Your brain continues working on things between sessions. Some people feel tired. Some feel emotional in the days after. Some feel lighter. Don't schedule anything intense right after your first few sessions if you can help it.

One last thing

You don't have to be sure EMDR is right for you before you apply. That's what the intake process is for. You meet with a therapist, talk through your situation, and figure out together whether this is the right fit. No pressure, no commitment.

Ready to find out if EMDR is right for you? Apply online — we respond within 3 business days.