What Is EMDR Therapy and Who Does It Help?

My name is Angela Bryan. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified EMDR Therapist at The Banyan Tree Center in Athens, Georgia. For more than 30 years, I have worked in trauma-informed care across three continents, supporting vulnerable children, families, and adults through humanitarian relief, family support, psychotherapy, coaching, and professional training. During that time, I have witnessed the incredible resilience of people facing hardship, loss, and trauma. EMDR is one of the most effective tools I have found for helping people heal, reclaim their lives, and discover that their past does not have to define their future.

By the time most people find this page, they are already feeling overwhelmed or exhausted, anxious or stuck, carrying things they feel like they cannot tell anybody or have never told anybody. And now they are reading about a therapy they have never tried, wondering if it is going to help or just be one more thing that does not work.

I want to answer your real questions about EMDR, how it works, and whether it might be right for you.

What does EMDR stand for and what is it?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a structured, evidence-based therapy that helps your brain process and integrate painful memories and experiences that continue to affect you in the present.

Here is the simple version. When something overwhelming happens to us, our brain sometimes cannot fully process and integrate the experience the way it does ordinary memories. Later, when something reminds us of it, our nervous system can react as if the threat is still happening in the present, even though we are actually safe.

That is not a character flaw. That is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do. It is trying to protect you based on information that has not yet been fully updated.

EMDR uses something called bilateral stimulation, which means left-right input to the brain. That can be following a moving object with your eyes, holding small tappers that vibrate in your hands, or tapping yourself.

While researchers are still studying exactly why bilateral stimulation is effective, it appears to help the brain process and integrate difficult experiences while you gently revisit those memories. Over time, the memory loses its emotional charge. It becomes something that happened rather than something that still feels as if it is happening.

How does EMDR therapy actually work?

EMDR is an eight-phase process.

Most people are surprised by that. They are often nervous about having to use bilateral stimulation in the first session and wonder how it will all work, often feeling nervous about EMDR for that reason.

The first phase is all about getting to know you, understanding your history, and building trust. Before any trauma processing begins, my goal is to make sure you feel safe, welcome, and supported. During this stage, we focus on understanding how you make sense of the world, the beliefs you have developed about yourself and others, and the ways past experiences may still be affecting you today.

This preparation phase is an important part of EMDR and often looks similar to traditional talk therapy. As I listen to your story, I am mapping out patterns, experiences, triggers, and themes that may be contributing to the difficulties you are facing today. That assessment process is EMDR too, even before we touch bilateral stimulation.

Phase two focuses on building resources. Grounding skills, calming techniques, and a strong enough sense of safety that when we do go into a difficult memory together, you can come back out of it. We begin building a toolbox of skills to help you regulate emotions, stay grounded during stress, and connect with positive memories, strengths, and sources of support. During this time, I frequently integrate other approaches such as DBT, IFS, sandtray therapy, art therapy, somatic techniques, or any modality that feels meaningful and helpful to the client. Together, we create a strong foundation so that when trauma processing begins, you have the resources and confidence needed to do the work safely and effectively.

Phases three through six involve identifying specific targets and processing them using bilateral stimulation. You focus on a memory while I guide you through short sets of bilateral stimulation. Between each set, we check in and notice what your mind, body, emotions, and memories are doing.

You are in control the entire time. Nothing happens without your consent. That is not just something I say to make people feel better. It is how the method actually works. You don’t have to try hard to do EMDR right, or know what to do next, or come up with some deep breakthrough thought. It is my job to guide you and know what to do.

Phase seven is closure. We make sure you feel grounded and stable before you leave the session.

Phase eight is reevaluation. We review the work that has been done, assess how the memory is holding over time, and determine what still needs attention.

What disorder is EMDR most commonly used to treat?

EMDR was originally developed to treat PTSD, which is why many people associate it with military veterans and combat trauma.

But the reach of EMDR goes much further than most people realize.

I use EMDR effectively with clients navigating:

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD
Childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences
Anxiety and panic attacks
Depression
Phobias and specific fears
Grief and loss
Eating disorders
OCD (often alongside ERP and Inference-Based CBT)
Relationship and attachment wounds
Body image issues and shame
Neurodivergent clients working to untangle trauma from their unique wiring

If you have had difficult or overwhelming experiences and find yourself reacting in ways you do not fully understand, or struggling with patterns you cannot seem to change no matter how hard you try, EMDR may be exactly what has been missing.

Who benefits the most from EMDR?

This is my favorite question to answer because the answer surprises almost everyone.

Haven’t we all had negative experiences in our life? That is genuinely how I think about it. EMDR helps people whose past experiences continue to affect how they feel, think, relate, or respond in the present. When I put it that way, I think that includes more of us than we often realize.

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is that EMDR is only for people with dramatic, “life-destroying” trauma.

People say things like, “I was never in combat,” or “My childhood wasn’t that bad,” and use that as a reason to count themselves out.

I understand why. We are often quick to minimize our own pain.

But trauma is not only about the big events. Complex trauma, the kind that builds up over years of difficult relationships, emotional neglect, bullying, chronic stress, or never feeling fully seen or safe, can leave lasting effects on the nervous system.

Some of the most traumatized people I work with are also the highest functioning. They have built entire lives around managing, coping, and performing. But if you ask them what they enjoy, what they want, or who they really are underneath all the responsibilities, they sometimes look at you and say, “I never had the luxury of thinking about that.”

That deserves attention, too.

EMDR can help both the person whose life has fallen apart and the person whose life looks perfectly fine on paper but feels exhausting to maintain.

Who is not a good fit for EMDR?

EMDR is not right for everyone, and I will always be honest with you about that.

Some health conditions, such as seizures or traumatic brain injuries, need to be assessed first, and the adjustment may need to be made, for example, using tappers instead of eye movement, or in some cases, the TBI may render EMDR ineffective.

At times, EMDR may not be the right starting point if you are currently in an active mental health crisis and need stabilization first, if you are actively using substances in a way that would interfere with processing, if you do not yet have enough coping skills or emotional stability to move in and out of difficult memories safely, or if certain dissociative conditions are present that need careful assessment and preparation first.

That does not mean EMDR is off the table.

It may simply mean there is important work to do first.

I will never take you into a traumatic memory unless I believe you have the tools and support needed to navigate that work safely. My job is to know when the timing is right and to be honest with you when it is not.

Is EMDR better than talk therapy for trauma?

This is less of an either-or question but rather a matter of timing.

Talk therapy, whether CBT, narrative therapy, solution-focused therapy, or other approaches, is incredibly valuable. People learn tools for managing anxiety, shifting thought patterns, improving relationships, and building healthier habits.

The tools clients learn in talk therapy, they understand them, and they can practice them when they are calm. But when they are triggered or stressed, those tools go out the window. That is not a failure of the client or the therapist. It is just that trauma responses are stored in the subconscious regions of the nervous system, in a part of the brain you cannot reach by talking or learning skills alone. You need to actually move into that realm. That is what EMDR does.

EMDR resolves the automatic response underneath, so the tools you have learned in other therapies are suddenly available to you when you actually need them. I have quite a few clients who are in talk therapy, learning very important skills, but often are not able to use them when it matters most. Adding EMDR can help resolve the triggers of the traumatic experiences underneath, and all of a sudden, everything they have been working on starts to click. That is not an accident. That is how the brain works.

I regularly receive referrals from CBT therapists, OCD specialists, and other practitioners who recognize that something is stuck. Then they go back to their other therapy, and the work accelerates. That collaboration is one of my favorite things about this field.

EMDR has faced skepticism over the years, mostly because the mechanism behind why it works is not fully understood.

Why does bilateral stimulation while thinking about a memory help process trauma? Researchers have proposed several explanations. Some theories suggest that bilateral stimulation places demands on working memory, making distressing memories feel less vivid and emotionally intense. Others propose that it may resemble processes that occur during REM sleep, when the brain naturally consolidates and processes memories. While researchers continue to study these possibilities, there is still an active debate about the exact mechanism.

What is less debated is the evidence that EMDR works. EMDR is recognized as an evidence-based treatment for PTSD by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Decades of research and millions of clients have demonstrated its effectiveness in helping people recover from trauma and reduce trauma-related symptoms.

Some therapists remain skeptical simply because they have not been trained in it, or because it looks unusual from the outside. I understand that. It does look unusual. From the inside, however, it often feels very different from what people expect—less clinical, more collaborative, and often surprisingly gentle.

Here is how I think about it. Our brains and nervous systems are living biological systems. Every experience we have influences the pathways and patterns that shape how we respond to the world. Sometimes, difficult experiences leave lasting effects that continue long after the original event is over.

That is not because something is wrong with you.

It is because you adapted to survive.

If you injured your ankle, you would not think twice about seeing a doctor and then working with a physical therapist to regain strength and mobility. Your brain and nervous system deserve the same care. It is not about what is wrong with you. It is about what happened to you. And there are evidence-based treatments that can help you heal and move forward.

What makes EMDR at The Banyan Tree Center different?

One of the unique strengths of The Banyan Tree Center is that we have a diverse team of therapists with different specialties and areas of expertise working under one roof, and can thoughtfully match clients with the therapist who best fits their needs, goals, personality, and stage of healing. Finding the right therapeutic relationship is one of the most important predictors of successful outcomes, and we are committed to helping clients find that fit.

Therefore, at The Banyan Tree Center, EMDR is not a standalone technique. It is part of a holistic, integrative approach that draws on whatever each client’s nervous system actually needs.

I integrate EMDR with Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic approaches, TF-CBT, sandtray therapy, and other evidence-based modalities. Trauma is often expressed through thoughts, emotions, body sensations, relationships, and behavior. Because of that, I believe therapy should be flexible enough to meet clients wherever those experiences show up.

I am a Certified EMDR Therapist currently working toward EMDR Consultant status. Much of my advanced EMDR training and supervision has involved working with military and medical personnel, first responders, survivors of sexual abuse, orphaned, abandoned, or adopted children, and individuals with complex trauma histories. These experiences have deepened my understanding of how trauma impacts the nervous system across the lifespan and reinforced my belief that healing happens best when treatment is tailored to the individual rather than forcing the individual to fit a particular treatment model.

I work with adults, teenagers, and children, in person in Athens and via telehealth across Georgia. I offer therapy in English, German, and Spanish.

If you are curious about whether EMDR could help you, I would love to talk. You can book a free 15-minute consultation at athenscounseling.com. No pressure. Just a conversation.

About the Author

Angela Bryan, MS, LPC, LMHC | Certified EMDR Therapist | TBRI® Authorized Educator and Practitioner | The Banyan Tree Center, Athens, GA

My name is Angela. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified EMDR Therapist at The Banyan Tree Center in Athens, Georgia, with 30 years of clinical experience across three continents. I specialize in trauma, PTSD, CPTSD, anxiety, and depression, those facing big life changes, who are feeling lost, misunderstood, or having experienced trauma in the context of religion, migration, and difference. I work with teens, adults, and parents via telehealth and in person in Athens. I offer therapy in English, German, and Spanish. To learn more about my background or to book a consultation, visit athenscounseling.com/about/staff/angela-bryan.