How EMDR Therapy Works: 10 Stuck Points It Can Help Heal
What is EMDR, and how does it work?
You know the thing you can't stop replaying — the memory that still tightens your chest, the moment that hijacks you before you've had time to think, the belief about yourself that you logically know isn't true but feel is true anyway. Talk therapy helps you understand it. EMDR helps your brain actually reprocess it, so it stops running the show. Here's what's actually happening
The mind can often heal itself naturally, much the way the body does — and a lot of that natural processing happens during sleep, particularly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in the late 1980s, drawing on this natural process to help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) work through distressing memories. EMDR has since become a recognized, evidence-based treatment for a wide range of mental health concerns.
During REM sleep, as your eyes move back and forth, your brain processes recent events. But distressing experiences can get "stuck" and need extra processing. Consciously engaging in rapid eye movements — or other forms of bilateral stimulation, like alternating shoulder tapping or hand-held pulsators — reactivates your brain's natural problem-solving process. By focusing on a specific memory along with its associated emotions, sensations, and beliefs, and then adding bilateral stimulation, your brain begins to work through it — often more effectively than it could during sleep alone.
Is EMDR for Anxiety?
Yes. Beyond PTSD, EMDR has been used successfully to treat many mental health concerns. At its heart, EMDR is about unraveling the negative core beliefs — the "stuck points" — that get written into our story during distressing life experiences. If anxiety is your main concern, you may also want to read about EMDR for anxiety in Ann Arbor, where I walk through how I use EMDR for anxiety, trauma, and grief in my online practice.
Here are ten common concerns people bring to therapy that EMDR can help with:
Low self-worth. Low self-esteem, low confidence, feelings of worthlessness — the familiar core belief that "I'm not good enough" or that you're somehow an imposter.
Guilt and shame. Guilt focuses on behavior ("I did something bad"); shame focuses on the whole self ("I am bad," "I'm unworthy of love"). EMDR can help unravel the belief that you're fundamentally flawed and undeserving. You may be imperfect — we all are — but that doesn't make you unworthy.
Anxiety. An umbrella term: worry, fear, nerves, phobias, obsessions, and panic can all live here, and distressing experiences often feed them.
High achievement and perfectionism. Often a form of anxiety, both can be rooted in early experiences of feeling not good enough or not competent.
Trauma. Whatever trauma you've endured, it can leave behind guilt, self-blame, shame, and beliefs like "I'm powerless" or "I'm not safe."
Grief. Loss can be traumatic, bringing guilt, self-blame, and a sense of abandonment — and it can reactivate an earlier core belief like "I'm all alone."
Avoidance and numbing behaviors. Bingeing on food, alcohol, Netflix, endless scrolling, or mindless shopping can all be ways of avoiding. What are you avoiding? The answer usually leads back to a core belief and the feelings keeping you stuck.
Unmet needs and people-pleasing. Somewhere along the way you started putting everyone else first — and now it's hard to even name your own needs, let alone voice them. EMDR can help you unlearn the story that you were "too much" and relearn that having needs is simply human.
Relationship conflict. As you heal anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief, you're less likely to reach for numbing behaviors and more able to be present in your relationships — at home, at work, everywhere.
Building resilience. If EMDR can help with everything above — improving your mental health, how you care for yourself, and your relationships — then greater resilience tends to follow.
What happens during EMDR? The steps of EMDR therapy
EMDR unfolds in three broad stages: case formulation (including the history-taking that begins in your first appointment), processing, and integration. Those stages break down further into eight phases. Across all of it, the core work is the same: recalling the past memories, recent events, or anticipated triggers causing you distress, identifying the core beliefs attached to them, and noticing the feelings and body sensations they bring up — all of which can be reprocessed while engaging bilateral stimulation.
Beyond the mechanics of the method, the process of EMDR can also:
Give your thoughts and feelings permission to exist. Your feelings are real and valid, and they're there whether or not you want them — including the ones you don't want to feel or think you shouldn't. Avoiding them doesn't make them go away.
Encourage self-observation instead of judgment. Rather than judging yourself for a thought or feeling, try simply to notice it: "I had a thought or a feeling," instead of "I had a bad thought, or a feeling I shouldn't have."
Strengthen self-compassion. Self-compassion has three parts: self-kindness (being as caring toward yourself as you'd be toward a friend), common humanity (recognizing we all have flaws and make mistakes), and mindfulness (staying present with your thoughts, emotions, and sensations without resistance or avoidance).
Are you Looking for Online EMDR therapy in Ann Arbor, Michigan?
Hi, I'm Nikki — a therapist and licensed clinical social worker with nearly 20 years of experience. In my online practice, I support women navigating perimenopause and everything that comes with it: anxiety and stress, ADHD and inattention, depression, grief, and the unexpected events that throw you off course. If you're ready for focused trauma work, learn more about EMDR therapy in Ann Arbor and across Michigan.
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