Is EMDR Therapy Safe?

claireplumbly
Dec 9, 2025
6 min read

Updated: Dec 30, 2025

By Dr. Claire Plumbly, Clinical Psychologist, EMDR Consultant & Founder of Plum Psychology.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a structured, eight-phase therapy that has been extensively researched and is considered a safe and effective psychological treatment when delivered by a properly trained therapist.

Because EMDR involves working with traumatic memories, it’s very common to wonder whether it is safe, what it feels like, and how therapists ensure people are not overwhelmed during the process. This article is written by an EMDR Consultant who has carried out hundreds of EMDR sessions (without anyone coming to any harm!) - it explains how EMDR works, what happens in sessions, the safeguards built into the therapy to support your safety as a client, and most importantly - how to find a therapist who is qualified to deliver EMDR safely.

How does EMDR therapy work?

Unprocessed traumatic memories can resurface in the form of intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, unexplained pain, or repetitive behaviours. These experiences are often accompanied by intense emotions such as anxiety, anger, or shame. In EMDR, you work with the therapist first to trace these current difficulties back to the trauma-wounds from which they stem.

The aim of EMDR is to help these memories become “processed” — meaning they are filed into the appropriate parts of the brain (and body) so they no longer feel so vivid, immediate, or emotionally overwhelming. This phase of therapy is known as trauma processing.

A key safety feature of EMDR is that processing does not begin immediately. Considerable time is spent preparing you for the work so that your nervous system has the resources it needs before traumatic material is revisited.

Bilateral stimulation and why it isn’t harmful

During the trauma-processing phase, the left and right hemispheres of the brain are stimulated in quick succession - known as bilateral stimulation. This is done through rapid eye movements (following the therapist’s finger or watching a lightbar), tapping, or beeps played alternately through a headset.

This process is not painful and does not involve hypnosis or loss of control. You remain fully awake, aware, and able to stop at any time. Your therapist will help you choose the method that feels most comfortable and regulating for you.

The mechanism of EMDR is often compared to the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep, when our eyes move back and forth beneath our eyelids as we dream. During REM sleep, the brain naturally processes emotional experiences, reducing their intensity over time. EMDR appears to harness a similar process while you are awake and supported by the therapist.

Creating safety before trauma processing

After a traumatic event, the body’s natural ability to process memory can be disrupted by the overwhelming physical and emotional intensity of the experience. EMDR therapy explicitly accounts for this.

Before any trauma processing takes place, therapy focuses on:

Creating a sense of safety
Teaching grounding and soothing skills
Strengthening your ability to regulate emotional and physical responses

Only when these foundations are in place do you revisit trauma-wounds, using bilateral stimulation to help the brain release what has become stuck. This phased approach is a central reason EMDR is considered safe.

What actually happens in an EMDR session?

Memory processing only begins once you and your therapist have:

Identified the key traumatic memories that are maintaining your difficulties (assessment phase)
Practiced techniques to calm and stabilise your nervous system (preparation phase)

Early sessions therefore involve discussing your background, understanding how past experiences have shaped current difficulties, and learning coping skills such as visualisation, grounding, and soothing breathing.

During trauma-processing sessions, your therapist asks questions that activate the neural networks linked to the memory - including images of what happened, emotions, body sensations, and beliefs about yourself. Once these networks are activated, the bilateral stimulation begins.

Most people talk very little during this phase. The process is free-associative, meaning the brain moves between thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions in its own way. This can feel unfamiliar at first - sometimes a little like dreaming -and your therapist will guide and support you throughout.

Staying in control during processing

A metaphor often used in EMDR is that of sitting on a train, watching scenery pass by through the window. The scenery might include images, thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations. Sometimes it moves slowly; sometimes it speeds up.

You are always in control. You can pause or stop the session at any point. The therapist helps you stay anchored in the present, aware that you are observing memories from the safety of the “train,” rather than reliving them.

Bilateral stimulation is paused regularly so the therapist can check in with you, ask what you noticed, and ensure the process feels manageable. If the material becomes intense or feels stuck, the therapist adjusts the pace or uses additional grounding techniques.

Closing EMDR therapy sessions safely

In some sessions, you may fully process one traumatic memory so that it no longer causes distress. At other times, the same memory may need to be revisited in future sessions.

If processing is still ongoing when a session ends, the therapist ensures the work is carefully closed using the soothing practices and visualisations learned earlier. Clients are often advised to note any insights, emotions, or dreams that arise between sessions, as memory processing can continue gently in the background.

Outcomes of EMDR therapy

Most people notice that traumatic memories become significantly less emotionally charged. The memory remains, but it is held differently within the brain and nervous system.

Common changes include:

Reduced panic or overwhelm
Less self-blame or shame
More balanced emotional responses
Healthier beliefs about yourself (e.g. moving away from “it was all my fault” or “I’m not good enough”)

As a result, self-esteem often improves and unhelpful coping behaviours reduce.

How effective - and safe - is EMDR?

EMDR is an evidence-based therapy for PTSD. In the UK, treatment recommendations are guided by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which recommends EMDR as a trauma-focused therapy for PTSD.

You may be deciding between EMDR and other trauma-focused therapies such as Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT) or Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). A large meta-analysis in 2018 found EMDR to be more effective than CBT in reducing intrusive symptoms (such as flashbacks and nightmares) and heightened anxiety, with strong short- and long-term outcomes.

EMDR is also increasingly used for difficulties beyond PTSD, including social anxiety, health anxiety, depression, and pain — particularly where trauma is a contributing factor. While the evidence base here is still considered emerging, reviews in 2021 found encouraging results and called for further research.

Recent studies suggest EMDR may be helpful for:

If you’d like to explore whether EMDR is suitable for you, you may find my guide helpful: Will EMDR work for me?

Most important - Choosing an EMDR therapist so therapy is carried out safely

Whenever I've worked with clients who have had a negative previous experience of EMDR therapy they have one thing in common - they worked with a therapist who didn't have proper EMDR training or supervision in place.

EMDR should only be delivered by therapists who 1) have a core mental health training, such as psychologists, psychotherapists, or counsellors, and 2) did EMDR training with a training body approved by the EMDR Association or EMDR-Europe - these are the recognised courses that build in supervision, and reflective practice.

You can find an accredited EMDR therapist via the EMDR Association. EMDR can be offered as weekly sessions or in an intensive format involving longer sessions over a shorter period. Both approaches have a strong evidence base when delivered appropriately. You can read more about EMDR Intensives here.

A final consideration is to work with an EMDR therapist who has experience working with the nature of your difficulties. This is because the therapist will have extra training that will support their EMDR work. At Plum Psychology we have trauma-trained therapists with different specialisms including burnout, sexual assault, work-related traumas, health issues, moral injury, peri- and post-natal, and attachment trauma.