What is EMDR?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) EMDR is a wonderful therapy that has helped so many individuals overcome years of trauma. Much like the body’s natural ability to heal, the mind also has a natural capacity to process and recover.
This process often takes place during sleep, particularly in the rapid eye movement (REM) stage.

In 1987, Francine Shapiro developed EMDR by harnessing this natural healing mechanism to treat Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Since then, EMDR has proven effective in addressing a wide range of mental health challenges.

 
 

  • When we experience trauma, whether from a single overwhelming event (like a car accident) or repeated distress (such as childhood abuse or neglect), our natural coping mechanisms can become overloaded. This can cause traumatic memories and emotions to remain "frozen" in the brain, unprocessed. These memories are stored in the limbic system in a raw, emotional form, disconnected from the brain's language-based cortex. As a result, the traumatic memories are often triggered by similar experiences, causing emotional responses like anxiety, anger, or panic, even when we don’t consciously remember the event. This can make it difficult to live fully in the present. EMDR works by helping the brain create connections between memory networks, allowing the traumatic memories to ‘unfreeze’, be processed naturally, ultimately reducing their emotional charge.

  • After an initial thorough assessment, we will spend a few sessions exploring your current coping skills. Together, we will build on these strategies, equipping you with additional tools to better manage difficult emotions between sessions.

    Once this has been achieved, we will make a list of the different disturbing memories that fuel your current symptoms. During a typical processing session (which lasts around 75-80 minutes), we will focus on a specific disturbing memory. To stimulate the natural healing process, you'll be asked to follow my finger or a dot on the screen as it moves back and forth in front of your eyes, similar to the eye movements that happen during REM sleep. In some cases, we may use tapping or headphones instead. These eye movements typically last for a short period, after which you'll share any changes in thoughts, images, or feelings you experienced during the process.

    As we repeat these sets of eye movements, the emotional intensity of the memory tends to decrease, allowing it to become a neutral memory of a past event. Sometimes, other related memories may also heal in the process. It’s like your brain is adding all the missing pieces to the puzzle to fast track deep understanding and healing. This process can lead to significant improvements in various areas of your life, often more quickly than you might expect.

  • In addition to its use for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, EMDR has been successfully used to treat: 

    ∙ anxiety and panic attacks

     ∙ depression 

    ∙ stress 

    ∙ phobias 

    ∙ sleep problems 

    ∙ complicated grief 

    ∙ addictions 

    ∙ pain relief, phantom limb pain 

    ∙ self-esteem and performance anxiety

  • A typical EMDR session lasts for 90 minutes.

    Please note that for each 1.5 hour session, 1 hour and 15 minutes is of facetime and the rest is for note-taking.

“You cannot do EMDR wrong, everyone’s process is wonderfully unique.”

 

Feedback from past EMDR clients

  • “EMDR changed my life. It gave me perspective on all the trauma and how it continuously affects my daily life and my relationships with others. I realised that I hadn’t processed or healed from past memories. I hope more people will be open to embracing this kind of help because it has truly changed my life, and I feel even more motivated to continue healing. Healing is always a journey, and you must want to take the first step. EMDR has helped me do this, so thank you to the lovely therapist, Fay, who specialises in EMDR, for helping me on this journey of growth and healing.”

  • “The EMDR sessions with Fay were truly amazing and successful. I recommend increasing awareness about EMDR sessions, as they have a significant impact on improving mental health and reducing suffering.”

  • “I strongly recommend EMDR sessions, as they are very effective in healing traumas. The emotions related to two of my traumas were completely processed. I am so grateful to Fay for these sessions. I am 50 years old, and I always remembered those traumas and dreamed of deleting these memories from my mind.
    Now, I can talk about these two memories from a neutral perspective, just as past experiences, because the emotional charge related to these traumas has been processed”.

  • “I had an excellent experience and put it down to Fay being a fantastic therapist. She has solid principles and values with a caring demeanour.”

  • “Fay, I can't thank you enough for the time I have had through EMDR. You have been very kind, gracious and compassionate. I have a lot more confidence in myself now and my life is a lot brighter, I intend to chase all my dreams and goals. I will forever be grateful for this experience.”

  • “Fay was very helpful in showing how I can understand my thoughts and why I was having them and making sense of them, whereas before I would guess why this thing kept coming up and when I would fail to make sense of it I would try and brush it away. I would regularly get flashbacks but now I don’t and for that I’m so grateful for having Fay to help me.”

  • “EMDR is such a transformative and amazing therapy. Fay was validating, knowledgeable and extremely trustworthy. I never felt rushed and I felt she had my best interests at heart. EMDR is honestly game changing for those who intellectually understand their feelings and still struggle to change how they feel”

 
 

“Every human has a true, genuine, authentic self.

The trauma is the disconnection from it.  The healing is the reconnection with it.”

Gabor Maté, MD