What is EMDR
How Does EMDR Work?
Is EMDR Effective?
EMDR works far faster than talk therapy alone and is often more effective in decreasing negative emotions and healing trauma. Numerous studies support this fact. For instance,
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Seven of ten studies found EMDR to be faster and/or more effective than cognitive behavioral therapy in treating negative experiences. (The Permanente Journal, Winter, 2014).​
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EMDR therapy reduced symptoms significantly more rapidly than talk therapy on four out of five psychosocial measures (The Permanente Journal, Winter, 2014).​
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A meta-analysis found that 84-90% of single-trauma victims no longer had PTSD after only three 90-minute EMDR sessions (The Journal of Clinical Psychology ).
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EMDR is a powerful method for diminishing and eliminating the effects of distress and trauma. It helps you to safely access disturbing memories at a subconscious level and then reprocess those memories to have less associated distress.
Working on one distressing memory often has a ripple effect in that it heals related memories as well. That's because difficult experiences over the course of your life accumulate into negative neural pathways in your brain. Those negative pathways may govern your behavior and experience in the present. For instance, if you had a car accident 20 years ago, you might still be afraid to drive. If your parents hit you when you were a child, you might wince when a boss is angry at you, though there's no risk of being hit. EMDR interrupts those old pathways, ratchets down the associated distress, and helps you to create new, more positive associations.
"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."
Rick Warren