There are things that happened to us that we understand perfectly well in our minds, but that still live in the body as if they never quite finished. A car accident that still makes the chest tighten at certain sounds. A childhood experience you have processed in therapy for years and yet something still activates in you when the right trigger appears. A relationship that ended, that you know logically is over, but that still pulls at something.
For a long time in therapy, the primary tool was language. And language is powerful. Naming things, understanding their origins, finding the connections between past and present, these matter. But for some experiences, talking about them only takes you so far. The understanding is there. The relief is not.
This is where EMDR comes in.
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. The name is clinical and, honestly, does not quite capture what the experience of it is actually like. At its core, EMDR is based on the idea that some experiences, particularly overwhelming or traumatic ones, do not get processed the way ordinary memories do. Instead of becoming integrated into the narrative of your life, they stay stored in a kind of unfinished state, still carrying the original emotional charge. When something triggers them, it does not feel like a memory. It feels like it is happening again.
What EMDR does is help the nervous system complete that process. In sessions, we work with bilateral stimulation, typically eye movements or gentle taps, while bringing the experience gently to mind. This sounds strange before you try it. But something shifts. The memory does not disappear, but it loses the grip it had. It becomes something that happened, rather than something that keeps happening.
I trained in EMDR through an EMDRIA approved program, and what struck me most during the training was how different the experience is from what I expected. It is not about talking through every detail of what happened. It is not about reliving it. It is more like accompanying something that has been stuck, and letting it move.
People often come to EMDR after years of other work. Sometimes they have had useful therapy but hit a wall. Sometimes they know exactly what their patterns are but feel unable to change them. Sometimes they are not sure whether what they experienced counts as trauma. It does not have to be dramatic to have left a mark.
I offer EMDR online, across British Columbia. If you have been curious about it, or feel like something has not quite shifted despite other work you have done, you are welcome to reach out and ask whether it might be a good fit.