Ana Gomez, a leading psychotherapist, author, and researcher, offers the following explanation of EMDR therapy in simplistic terms:

 

“Before defining EMDR, it is helpful to understand what EMDR does. When we go through painful or overwhelming experiences, our nervous system sometimes has difficulty processing them fully. We can be left with conflicting emotions, distorted beliefs, and lingering physiological tension. It’s as if we continue to carry heavy, disorganized material within us—emotionally, cognitively, and somatically. Over time, these unprocessed fragments can limit our capacity to access clarity, calm, and more adaptive responses.

 

EMDR helps reduce the weight of this unresolved material so there is more internal space for healthier, more grounded ways of thinking, feeling, and relating. Francine Shapiro, the founder of EMDR, named the approach Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Ana Gomez offers a more accessible way to remember it: Eyes Moving to Digest and Recover.

 

During EMDR, clients engage in bilateral stimulation—commonly through side-to-side eye movements or, alternatively, through alternating tactile taps or auditory tones—while recalling aspects of the distressing event. Interestingly, humans naturally engage in a similar neurological process during REM sleep, when the eyes move rapidly back and forth during dreaming. Ana poetically refers to this as “the eyes dancing in the night.”

 

When overwhelming events occur, the brain’s information-processing system can become disrupted. This can leave memories stored in a fragmented, unintegrated form. As a result, present-day experiences—words someone says, a sound, a smell, a sensation—can trigger the old memory networks, bringing forward emotional intensity, negative beliefs, and body-based distress as if the past were happening again.

 

EMDR supports the brain in completing the processing that could not occur at the time of the event. As the pieces integrate, the disturbing emotional charge diminishes, the body’s reactivity settles, and the meaning of the experience shifts toward something more adaptive. What is no longer useful or necessary can release, while the insights, strengths, and resilience gained from the experience remain.”

(This is based on an excerpt from Ana’s book: EMDR Therapy and Adjunct Approaches with Children: Complex Trauma, Attachment and Dissociation.)

 

https://www.anagomez.org/what-emdr-kids

​

​