Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that is designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories for example PTSD.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is unique in its use of bilateral stimulations, typically involving eye movements, sounds, or tapping. These stimulations are thought to mimic the processing that occurs during REM sleep, where rapid eye movements help process emotions. The core idea of EMDR is that traumatic experiences cause memories to be locked in a way that prevents normal emotional processing, keeping the associated intensity and distress. Bilateral stimulations help activate memory networks, allowing cognitive and emotional parts of the brain to work together and process the trauma adaptively. Unlike other therapies, EMDR doesn’t require clients to share detailed memories. Instead, they focus on the image of the trauma while the bilateral stimulations are applied, which helps reduce the intensity of the memory, making it accessible with manageable emotion but no distress.