What Is EMDR Therapy? A Plain-Language Guide for People Who Are Curious but Not Sure

If you have heard the term EMDR and immediately thought that sounds either very scientific or slightly bizarre, you are not alone.

EMDR is one of those therapy approaches that tends to generate a lot of questions before it generates a lot of understanding. The full name does not help. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing sounds like something you would do to a hard drive, not a human nervous system. And yet it is one of the most researched, most effective approaches available for trauma, anxiety, and the kind of stress that has quietly embedded itself in how you move through the world.

So let me explain it in a way that actually makes sense, which is how I wish someone had explained it to me before I trained in it.