Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (E.M.D.R.) therapy is a highly effective psychotherapy treatment method proven to help people recover from trauma and other distressing life experiences, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. Rather than focusing on changing the emotions, thoughts, or behaviors resulting from the distressing issue, EMDR allows the brain to resume its natural healing process by resolving unprocessed traumatic memories in the brain. 

Stress responses are part of our natural fight, flight, or freeze instincts. The brain’s information processing system will naturally move toward mental health. But if the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a traumatic event, the emotional wound will persist and cause intense suffering in the individual. EMDR therapy helps the brain process these memories, allowing normal healing to resume. The experience is still remembered, but the fight, flight, or freeze response from the traumatic event is resolved. This process involves communication between the amygdala (the alarm signal for stressful events), the hippocampus (which stores memories about safety and danger), and the prefrontal cortex (which analyzes and controls behavior and emotion). 

During EMDR therapy, the individual addresses emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed lateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus, but a variety of other stimuli (including hand-tapping and audio stimulation) can be used as well. hypothesizes that EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations can lead to complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insight