What is EMDR therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from post-traumatic stress.
How is EMDR different?
EMDR therapy does not require talking in detail about the distressing issue or completing homework between sessions. EMDR therapy, rather than focusing on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the distressing issue, allows the brain to resume its natural healing process.
EMDR therapy is designed to resolve unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain. For many clients, EMDR therapy can be completed in fewer sessions than other psychotherapies.
How does it work?
Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. When distress from a disturbing event remains, the upsetting images, thoughts, and emotions may create an overwhelming feeling of being back in that moment, or of being “frozen in time.” EMDR therapy may help the brain process these memories, allowing normal healing to resume so the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved.
EMDR is endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs/Dept. of Defense, the World Health Organization, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Dutch National Steering Committee for Health Care, the French National Authority for Health, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, the Clinical Resource Efficiency Support Team of the Northern Ireland Department of Health, the Israeli National Council for Mental Health, the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS), the United Kingdom National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and many other international health and governmental agencies.
Source: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/