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How long does EMDR therapy take to work?

A general rule of thumb is that it will take at least 10-12 sessions to see the effects of EMDR therapy.

Many people find EMDR therapy to be helpful because it can accelerate your healing. It is not a quick fix, but it can help you process some things more effectively.  If you’ve been engaging in therapy for a long time, you may be able to feel the effects of EMDR therapy more rapidly. If you’re experiencing therapy for the first time it may take a little longer to prepare for the work.

EMDR

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy.  It is a relatively new cognitive-behavioral treatment technique that combines cognitive processing and exposure methodology to treat conditioned emotional responding and other trauma-related symptoms.

EMDR may help alleviate emotional distress that they experienced before during the disturbing event 

Eye movement desensitization was developed by American psychologist, Doctor Francine Shapiro. EMDR appears to have a positive effect on furthering the natural healing process of overcoming negative beliefs and negative emotions. It is now the first recommended treatment for PTSD according to the American Psychiatric Association. 

EMDR therapy has what’s known as the 8 Phases of EMDR Treatment, which is simply a way to describe the process your therapist will use during EMDR therapy. 

These 8 phases of EMDR therapy are:

• Getting a history of your life experiences

• Preparing you to work through some negative experiences in your past

• Determining what past experiences you will need to work through

• Working through some of these old memories

• Implementing more positive beliefs or strengths

• Working through any physical symptoms from your thoughts

• Finding closure for these past negative memories

• Reevaluating each session to make sure processing was successful

Unique features of EMDR: 

One of the things that makes EMDR unique is that there is less verbal processing involved.  The way that EMDR therapy works is by activating your body’s own psychological healing abilities. When this happens you’re emotions and thoughts are allowed to process things without actually talking about what you’re experiencing.  This can be valuable if you’ve experienced something that’s too painful for you to discuss. EMDR can be effective without you having to share much detail about what happened.  This doesn’t mean talking is not involved. Talking is more limited and you’re using a technique known as free association during EMDR.

Desensitization and reprocessing EMDR t

herapy can also be described as a form of exposure therapy.  By having a client describe a traumatic event and even imagine that event during an EMDR therapy training sessions, the client is face-to-face with memories of his or her psychological problems from trauma, and may even be accompanied by physical sensations, brought on by his or her nervous system, that are related to the trauma. 

Eye movement desensitization is also considered to be reprocessing therapy.  According to the International EMDR Institute, it helps a client to reprocess thoughts around traumatic events.  Afterward, the way that he or she frames the event may have changed, and their reaction to triggering stimuli may lessen.

Is EMDR hypnosis? It is not hypnosis, the difference with an EMDR session is that the person never goes into a trance-type of state of consciousness.

Do you talk during EDMR?  Sessions usually involve a little bit of talking, but much less than conventional talk therapy sessions that you might picture when considering EMDR therapy.

If you’ve tried other types of therapy and haven’t found the success you’re looking for, EMDR therapy might be a good option for you to consider.