What Actually Happens in an EMDR Session? A Therapist Explains

Written by Natasha Griffiths, Intern

Natasha Griffiths is a therapy intern at TherapyUtah in Lehi, Utah, working with children, teens, and adults on trauma, anxiety, depression, and grief from a trauma-informed, strengths-based perspective, with training in DBT, CBT, ACT, IFS, mindfulness, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy.

Almost every client who comes in for EMDR asks some version of the same question before the first session: “Do I have to tell you everything that happened?” The nerves make sense. EMDR has a reputation — eye movements, buzzers in your hands, something that sounds a little clinical and a little strange.

So let’s do here what a good therapist does in the room: slow it down, take the mystery out of it, and say plainly what a session actually looks like.

What EMDR actually is, in plain language

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a mouthful that doesn’t explain much on its own. Here’s the simpler version therapists tend to give clients. When something overwhelming happens to us, the brain sometimes stores the memory in a way that keeps it “stuck” — the images, body sensations, and beliefs attached to it stay just as raw as the day it happened, instead of settling into the past the way most memories eventually do. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation — usually side-to-side eye movements, but sometimes alternating taps or tones — while you briefly bring that memory to mind.

The working theory is that this back-and-forth stimulation taps your working memory, which is the same mental workspace you use to hold a phone number in your head for a few seconds. Working memory can only hold so much at once. When you’re using some of it to track the movement or the taps, there’s less bandwidth left for the memory to feel as vivid and overwhelming. Over repeated rounds, the emotional charge tends to soften, and the memory starts to feel more like something that happened rather than something that’s still happening to you.

What a session actually looks like

A lot of people picture EMDR as one dramatic event, but most of the work happens quietly, in steady steps. A session starts by identifying a target — a memory, a belief about yourself, a felt sense in your body — and your therapist will ask you to notice what image, emotion, and body sensation go with it, plus a belief like “I’m not safe” or “it was my fault.” Then comes a set of bilateral stimulation, usually 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a simple question: “What do you notice now?” You answer briefly — a word, a phrase, a shift in tension in your chest — and then another set. That’s really it, repeated in rounds, following wherever your mind goes next.

From the outside it can look almost ordinary. A person might come in with a specific memory that still tightens the chest whenever it surfaces, rate how disturbing it feels right now, and then, across several sets, notice the image getting smaller or further away, the tightness loosening a little, or a new thought arriving on its own. The shift is usually gradual rather than cinematic.

Why you don’t have to narrate every detail

This is the part that relieves people the most. You do not need to describe the trauma out loud in detail for EMDR to work. Your therapist needs to know enough to help you target the right memory and to keep you oriented, but the processing itself happens internally — in your nervous system and your own associations, not in a verbal account you’re giving someone else. Clients are often surprised that they can do full sets of reprocessing while saying almost nothing about what they’re actually seeing or remembering. That’s normal, and honestly it’s often better — you don’t have to relive it out loud to heal it.

What you might feel during and after

EMDR can feel strange the first time, and most therapists say so up front so it doesn’t catch anyone off guard. During a session, it’s common to feel a little foggy, to notice memories or images pop up that seem unrelated, or to feel emotion rise and then unexpectedly ease off mid-set. Some people cry. Some people feel almost nothing and wonder if it’s “working” — it usually is; processing isn’t always dramatic. Afterward, people often describe feeling tired, like they’ve done real work, or oddly lighter. Dreams can get more vivid for a night or two, and old memories sometimes surface between sessions as the brain keeps sorting things out. None of that means something’s wrong.

The most common reaction afterward is some version of “I didn’t expect to feel this wrung out” — or, just as often, surprise at how much less charged the memory feels the next time it comes to mind. Both are ordinary.

You’re in control of the pace, always

Here’s the direct version: EMDR is not something that happens to you. You set the pace. If a memory feels like too much, there are tools to slow down or step back — a “container” exercise to set it aside, a return to a calm, resourced place before going further, or simply stopping the set early. A memory should never be processed faster than your system can handle, and if EMDR isn’t the right fit on a given day, a session can shift into talk therapy or parts work through individual therapy. You can always say “let’s pause,” and that’s the end of it.

Pacing matters more than speed. It is completely normal for an early session to spend most of its time on grounding and resourcing rather than reprocessing, and choosing to slow down is part of the protocol, not a setback.

A closing thought

EMDR isn’t magic and it isn’t scary — it’s a structured way of helping your brain finish something it got stuck on. Most people who try it say they wish they’d known sooner how manageable it actually feels once they’re in the room. If you’ve been curious about it, or if something from your past still feels closer than it should, we’d be glad to walk through it with you.

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