EMDR
EMDR is one of the most effective therapeutic approaches available today — and yet it remains less well understood than it deserves to be. This page explains what it actually involves, what it can help with, and what to expect from sessions.
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing — is a structured therapeutic method developed by American psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. It was originally created to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and has since been applied successfully to a much wider range of difficulties.
The starting point is an observation that most of us recognise intuitively: some experiences don't seem to fade the way they should. Long after an event has passed, the memory of it can still feel raw, intrusive, or destabilising — as though the mind never quite finished processing what happened. Shapiro's insight was that this "stuckness" is neurological as much as psychological, and that certain kinds of bilateral stimulation — alternating activation of both sides of the body — can help the brain complete that unfinished processing.
In a session, this typically means tracking the therapist's moving hand or a light bar with your eyes, or receiving alternating taps or audio tones through headphones, while holding a specific memory, thought, or feeling in mind. The bilateral stimulation appears to help the brain approach difficult material differently — reducing its emotional intensity and allowing a more settled, integrated perspective to develop.
What is EMDR therapy?
Yes — it is one of the most thoroughly researched therapies currently available.
EMDR is recommended as a first-line treatment for PTSD by:
NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) — the UK's clinical guideline authority
The World Health Organization (WHO)
The American Psychological Association (APA)
The NHS, which offers EMDR for PTSD through specialist trauma services
This level of institutional endorsement across multiple countries is significant. Few therapeutic approaches have this breadth of independent validation.
Is EMDR evidence-based?
EMDR's applications have grown well beyond its original focus on PTSD. It is now used effectively for:
Trauma — whether a single incident (an accident, assault, or medical event) or complex, repeated, or childhood trauma
Anxiety and panic attacks
Phobias
Grief and bereavement
Persistent self-critical beliefs or patterns of thought
Excessive jealousy or emotional responses that feel disproportionate or hard to control
Disordered eating — where EMDR works with the underlying emotional patterns and past experiences rather than the behaviour itself
Chronic pain with a significant psychological or emotional dimension
An initial assessment is always the starting point — EMDR is not the right fit for everyone, and part of my role is to establish whether it is likely to be helpful before we begin.
What can EMDR help with?
EMDR follows a structured eight-phase protocol. Rather than being a single technique, it is a complete therapeutic process with a clear beginning, middle and end.
Assessment We begin by mapping out your history and identifying the specific experiences, memories or symptoms you want to address. This gives us a baseline to work from and return to as the work progresses.
Stabilisation Before any processing begins, we build a set of internal resources — grounding techniques, a mental safe space, ways of managing strong emotions if they arise. Nothing is rushed. Processing only starts once you feel steady enough to approach the material.
Processing With bilateral stimulation underway, you hold the target memory or difficulty in mind and allow your attention to follow wherever it naturally goes — other memories, images, physical sensations, shifts in how you feel. Your role is to notice, not to analyse. Mine is to guide the pace and check in between each set of stimulation.
Closure and review Every session ends with a grounding phase before you leave. In subsequent sessions, we review what has shifted since the last appointment before continuing the work.
The number of sessions varies considerably. A single contained issue may resolve in a small number of appointments; more complex or longstanding material takes longer. We keep that assessment ongoing throughout.
What happens in a session?
I use EMDR as a focused, targeted intervention — working on a specific issue rather than as a general background thread.
Clients come to EMDR with me in different ways. Some arrive knowing exactly what they want to address, and EMDR is the whole of the work. Others are already in counselling with me, and we identify a point where EMDR would help us go deeper into something specific — in which case we pause the broader therapeutic work, complete the EMDR, and return to counselling afterwards. Occasionally, following an initial assessment, EMDR turns out to be the right starting point, with counselling following on from it if needed.
Sessions are 50 minutes and are available in person in West Hampstead and Paddington/Lancaster Gate in London, and online.
My approach to EMDR
If you would like to find out whether EMDR might be the right approach for you, I am happy to answer any questions before you decide to go ahead.