Have you ever understood why you feel a certain way, but still struggled to change your reaction?
Maybe you know you're capable, but you still feel inadequate when someone criticizes you. Maybe you know you're safe, but your body reacts as if something bad is about to happen. Or maybe you've spent years talking through an experience, understanding where your feelings come from, and trying to move forward, but something still feels unresolved.
This is one of the reasons I love Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.
As an EMDR-trained therapist, I often work with people who have a good understanding of themselves. They can explain their patterns, identify where certain beliefs came from, and recognize how their past affects their present. Yet they still experience anxiety, self-doubt, or emotional reactions they wish they could change.
EMDR can help you work through experiences that continue to affect how you feel about yourself, how you respond to stress, and how you show up in your relationships.
But how do you know if EMDR is right for you? Let's talk about what it can help with, what the process actually looks like, and what I want you to know before getting started.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR is a structured form of psychotherapy that helps people process distressing memories and experiences using bilateral stimulation, such as side-to-side eye movements or alternating taps.
The goal isn't to erase your memories or pretend something never happened. Instead, EMDR helps reduce the distress associated with those experiences so they may have less influence over your present-day emotions, beliefs, and reactions.
Think about it this way: you can logically understand that you're safe now, but still experience anxiety when something reminds you of a time you weren't safe.
You can know that a past experience wasn't your fault, but still carry feelings of shame or self-blame.
You can understand that you are capable, but still feel like you're not good enough when someone questions you.
Sometimes, understanding something intellectually isn't enough to change how it feels emotionally.
EMDR works with the experiences connected to those feelings, rather than relying on talking and insight alone.
7 Signs EMDR Therapy Might Be Right for You
You don't have to have experienced one major traumatic event to consider EMDR. Trauma can be part of the picture, but EMDR may also be helpful for anxiety, negative self-beliefs, distressing memories, and experiences that continue to affect your daily life.
Here are some signs that it may be worth exploring.
1. You Keep Replaying the Same Experience
Do you find yourself going over a conversation, a mistake, or something someone said to you?
Maybe you keep thinking about what you should have done differently. Maybe a memory brings up embarrassment, shame, anger, or sadness every time it comes to mind.
When an experience continues to carry a strong emotional charge, it may be worth exploring as a potential EMDR target.
For example, imagine someone who made a mistake at work months ago. Logically, they know it wasn't the end of the world. Their supervisor has moved on, and their job is secure. But every time they think about the incident, they feel embarrassed and question their abilities.
Rather than simply telling themselves to stop overthinking, we might explore the memory and the beliefs associated with it.
What did that experience mean to them? Did they walk away feeling incompetent, inadequate, or afraid of being judged?
The goal isn't to convince them that the experience was pleasant. It's to help the memory feel less distressing and reduce the power it has over how they see themselves today.
2. You Experience Anxiety That Feels Difficult to Control
EMDR can be helpful for some forms of anxiety, particularly when current symptoms are connected to distressing past experiences.
You might notice your heart racing before a presentation, feel intense anxiety when someone is upset with you, or become overwhelmed in situations that other people seem to handle easily.
Sometimes, we begin by focusing on the anxiety itself and noticing how it shows up in the body. As we explore the experience, memories or associations may emerge that help us understand what the anxiety is connected to.
For example, someone who experiences intense anxiety around criticism might discover that the feeling connects to earlier experiences of being harshly judged, shamed, or made to feel inadequate.
We don't have to assume that every anxious reaction comes from trauma. We can start with what you're experiencing now and assess whether EMDR is an appropriate approach.
3. You Struggle With Negative Beliefs About Yourself
Pay attention to the beliefs about yourself that seem to show up repeatedly.
Maybe you often think:
I'm not good enough.
I'm not safe.
I'm going to fail.
I'm not important.
I can't trust myself.
Something is wrong with me.
I have to get everything right to be accepted.
These beliefs can affect how you handle challenges, relationships, and everyday situations.
You might have plenty of evidence that you're competent and capable, but when something goes wrong, the same old belief takes over.
In EMDR, we can explore the experiences connected to these beliefs and work toward a more adaptive understanding of yourself.
For example, rather than continuing to carry the belief that you're incapable because you made a mistake, you may begin to recognize that you can make mistakes and still be competent.
The goal isn't to replace every negative thought with forced positivity. It's to help you develop a more balanced, appropriate belief about yourself that feels genuine.
4. Your Past Still Affects Your Present Relationships
Our early experiences can influence how we respond to closeness, conflict, rejection, and emotional vulnerability.
Maybe you feel overwhelmed when someone pulls away. Maybe you struggle to trust people, find it difficult to ask for support, or feel especially sensitive to criticism.
You might even recognize that your reactions feel bigger than the situation in front of you.
These patterns can sometimes be connected to attachment experiences, including times when your emotional needs weren't consistently met.
For example, if you frequently felt alone or dismissed growing up, you might find yourself feeling particularly distressed when someone doesn't respond to you or seems emotionally unavailable.
That doesn't mean your past determines your future. It means understanding your history may help us identify experiences worth working through.
My approach to EMDR is attachment-focused, so I consider how your experiences across your lifetime may have shaped your beliefs about yourself, other people, and your ability to feel safe and connected.
5. You Carry Shame or Self-Blame About Something That Happened
Sometimes, the hardest part of a painful experience is what you came to believe about yourself because of it.
You might blame yourself for not recognizing warning signs, not speaking up, or not doing something differently. You might continue to feel responsible for something that wasn't within your control.
This can happen after childhood experiences, abusive relationships, frightening events, or other situations in which you felt powerless.
EMDR may help you process the experience and develop a more accurate understanding of your responsibility.
One distinction I consider important is the difference between taking appropriate responsibility and carrying unnecessary self-blame.
Processing an experience doesn't mean denying what happened or avoiding accountability. It means being able to look at the experience with greater perspective and less distress, rather than continuing to punish yourself for it.
6. You Have Experienced Trauma or Abuse
EMDR is an established, evidence-based treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and may be appropriate for people who have experienced abuse, accidents, frightening events, or other traumatic experiences.
You might notice intrusive memories, nightmares, avoidance, heightened alertness, or strong emotional reactions to reminders of what happened.
You don't have to share every detail of a traumatic experience to begin exploring whether EMDR could help. Your therapist should work with you to determine an appropriate approach, prepare you for processing, and help you feel supported throughout treatment.
It's also important to know that trauma doesn't affect everyone in the same way. You don't need to compare your experiences with someone else's to decide whether you deserve support.
7. You Understand Your Patterns, but You're Still Struggling to Change Them
This is something I see in therapy.
You may already know why you react a certain way. You might have spent years reflecting, reading books, talking with friends, or discussing your childhood in therapy.
You can explain your patterns beautifully. But when something happens in real life, you still feel anxious, shut down, become overwhelmed, or fall into the same response.
That doesn't mean you've failed at therapy or that you haven't worked hard enough.
Sometimes, gaining insight is an important part of the process, but it isn't the only part.
EMDR offers another way to work with the experiences that may be contributing to those reactions. Instead of only talking about what happened, we work directly with a selected target and the emotions, body sensations, and beliefs associated with it.
Do I Have to Have Trauma for EMDR to Work?
No. You don't have to identify with the word trauma to explore whether EMDR could be helpful.
Some people come to therapy with a specific traumatic experience they want to address. Others want help with anxiety, confidence, shame, or a recurring emotional reaction they don't fully understand.
Sometimes, people don't realize how much an earlier experience still affects them until we begin exploring it.
In my practice, I might ask you to notice which beliefs about yourself bring up an emotional reaction. We might identify several beliefs, narrow them down, and explore the memories connected to them.
We can also create a timeline of significant experiences across your life. This can help us identify memories that still carry emotional charge and may be relevant to what you're experiencing today.
In attachment-focused EMDR, I may also explore your developmental history and early relationships, including what you learned about safety, connection, and getting your needs met.
We don't assume that every difficult experience needs to be processed. We look for what is relevant to you, what still affects you, and what makes sense to work on together.
What If I'm Afraid EMDR Will Be Too Intense?
This is a very common concern, and I want you to know that EMDR isn't supposed to be about overwhelming you.
Some people worry that they will have to relive their worst experiences in vivid detail or that they won't be able to manage their emotions.
Preparation is an important part of the process.
Before beginning memory reprocessing, we work on understanding your history, identifying potential targets, and developing skills that can help you manage distress. We also consider your current circumstances and whether you feel ready to begin.
You don't have to start with your worst memory. Sometimes, we begin with a less distressing experience to help you become familiar with the process.
And if you're going through an especially overwhelming period in your life, we may decide to focus on stabilization and coping skills first.
There are also approaches, such as the Flash technique, that may be appropriate for some people who are particularly apprehensive about engaging directly with distressing memories. Whether this is a good fit depends on your needs and clinical circumstances.
As your therapist, my job is to guide you, explain what we're doing, and help you feel comfortable asking questions. We work together to determine the pace and approach.
What Does EMDR Therapy Actually Look Like?
One misconception about EMDR is that you begin working on your most distressing memory in your first session.
That's not how I typically approach it.
I want to understand you as a person before we decide what to work on. With new clients, we might spend several sessions exploring your history, understanding your current concerns, identifying relevant memories, and preparing for processing.
With existing clients, we may already have a good understanding of their history and patterns. If we notice that a familiar reaction keeps coming up, I might suggest that EMDR could be helpful for working through what's underneath it.
My attachment-focused approach also includes exploring your history of connection and emotional support. Depending on your needs, we may work on developing nurturing, protective, or wise internal figures that can help you experience greater support and safety.
Once we identify an appropriate target, the processing phase involves working with the memory and its associated emotions, beliefs, and body sensations while using bilateral stimulation.
We monitor your experience throughout the process. As the memory becomes less distressing, we may work on strengthening an appropriate positive belief about yourself and checking whether the memory still produces a significant physical reaction.
Depending on your treatment goals, we may also work with a future situation that you anticipate will be difficult.
The exact process varies from person to person.
How Long Does EMDR Take?
There isn't one timeline that applies to everyone.
Your preparation, treatment goals, history, and response to processing all affect how long treatment takes. Some people are working on a specific event, while others have experiences across many years that they want to address.
In my own EMDR training, I practiced processing a childhood memory that was distressing but not what I would consider a major traumatic event. It took me approximately three and a half hours to work through that target.
That experience gave me a useful perspective on how much time processing can take.
When you're attending traditional 50-minute sessions, we may spend several sessions preparing and identifying targets before beginning reprocessing. Even once we start, we're usually working within a limited amount of time, with room for check-ins and transitions.
This is one reason I often recommend considering extended EMDR sessions of 90 minutes to two hours when they're clinically appropriate and feasible.
Longer sessions can provide more time for processing and reduce the need to stop in the middle of a session because time has run out. However, extended sessions aren't necessary or appropriate for everyone, and they don't guarantee faster results.
I generally have a better sense of someone's processing pace once we begin the reprocessing phase.
The goal isn't to rush through memories. It's to work at a pace that supports meaningful, manageable progress.
What Changes Might I Notice After EMDR?
People respond to EMDR differently, so I never promise that a particular outcome will happen for everyone.
Some changes people may notice include:
A memory feels less upsetting when they think about it.
They experience less shame or self-blame about what happened.
They feel calmer when something reminds them of the past.
They develop a more balanced belief about themselves.
They respond differently to situations that previously triggered them.
They feel more confident, capable, or emotionally grounded.
During processing, a memory may also begin to feel different. The image might seem less vivid, or the emotional reaction may decrease.
In my attachment-focused work, I also care about what happens beyond the memory itself. I want to help people develop a more supportive relationship with themselves, including the ability to access an internal sense of nurturing, protection, and wisdom.
The goal isn't to make you forget your past. It's to help you relate to it differently so it has less control over your present.
Why I Fell in Love With EMDR
My interest in EMDR isn't only professional. I've experienced the process myself.
Before my training, I had heard people talk about how much EMDR had helped them, but I didn't fully understand what that meant until I experienced it firsthand.
During training, I worked through a target and experienced the shift for myself. I remember thinking, Wow. I can't believe that this process helped me feel this differently about something that had been distressing.
I felt less weighed down by the experience. I felt calmer, more confident, and more at peace with it.
That experience helped me understand why EMDR can be such a meaningful part of therapy.
Of course, my experience isn't a guarantee of what someone else will experience. Every person and every target is different. But having experienced the process myself has informed the way I guide clients through it.
I understand that you're learning something new, that you might feel uncertain about what to expect, and that you may need reassurance along the way.
I offer clear guidance and encouragement while helping you move at a pace that feels manageable.
So, Is EMDR Therapy Right for You?
EMDR may be worth exploring if you feel stuck in recurring emotional patterns, continue to experience distress connected to the past, or find that understanding your experiences hasn't been enough to change how you feel or respond.
It isn't the right approach for every person or every situation. A good therapist will help you assess your needs, consider your options, and decide together whether EMDR makes sense for you.
My biggest recommendation is to find a therapist who has appropriate EMDR training, takes the time to understand your history, and helps you feel safe and supported throughout the process.
You don't need to know exactly which memory you want to work on before reaching out. You don't need to have the perfect explanation for why you're struggling. And you don't have to prove that what happened to you was bad enough.
We can start with what you're experiencing now and figure out the next steps together.
Interested in EMDR Therapy in Long Beach, California?
I offer EMDR therapy with an attachment-focused, compassionate, and collaborative approach. Together, we'll explore what's bringing you to therapy, identify the patterns you'd like to change, and determine whether EMDR is a good fit for your needs.
You don't have to figure it all out before your first session.
If you're curious about EMDR, I'd encourage you to reach out and start a conversation. Finding the right therapist and the right approach can make a meaningful difference.
Looking for EMDR therapy in Long Beach? Schuelde a consultation call with me to learn more about working with me!
