Reviewed and Updated, September 2026 by Iris Hogan, MSW, LICSW
If you’ve been considering EMDR therapy, you may already know the basics. You focus on a distressing memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation—often eye movements, tapping, or alternating sounds—and somehow this is supposed to help your brain process what happened.
That explanation is accurate.
It also doesn’t tell you very much about what EMDR actually feels like when you sit down and do it.
People often come into EMDR wondering: Am I going to relive everything? What if nothing happens? What if I do it wrong?
So let’s talk about that part.
EMDR Doesn’t Feel Like Reliving Everything
One of the biggest fears people have about EMDR is that they will have to relive a traumatic experience in vivid detail.
That isn’t the goal.
You do need to connect with the memory enough for your brain to know what we’re working with, but you don’t necessarily have to tell me every detail. In fact, there are times when I know very little about the specifics of what happened.
During processing, you are aware of the memory while also aware that you are sitting safely in my office—or, in my practice, in your own space on Zoom.
This is sometimes called dual awareness: part of your attention is connected to what happened then, while another part remains connected to what is happening now.
We aren’t trying to put you back into the experience. We are helping your brain recognize that you can remember what happened without actually being there again.
If the idea of beginning trauma processing itself makes you nervous, I’ve written more about that in How Do I Know if I Am Ready for EMDR?
It Often Feels Like Your Body Finally Gets to Settle
Our responses to traumatic experiences aren’t limited to what we consciously remember.
They can show up as a tight chest, clenched jaw, nausea, heaviness, shakiness, numbness, an urge to run, or a sense that something terrible is about to happen even when you know intellectually that you’re safe.
During EMDR, those sensations may change.
Your chest may loosen. Your breathing may become easier. Something that felt physically close may begin to feel farther away.
It can begin to feel as though your nervous system is realizing:
Oh…I don’t have to hold everything so tightly right now.
Sometimes that shift happens before you have words for it.
Your Mind May Wander — and That’s Part of the Process
EMDR can feel surprisingly strange because you aren’t necessarily thinking about the original memory the entire time.
You may start with one image and suddenly remember something from middle school. Then a conversation from last year. Then your grandmother’s kitchen. Then you notice that your shoulders don’t hurt anymore.
People sometimes stop at this point and wonder whether they’re doing it wrong.
The Adaptive Information Processing model—the theory underlying EMDR—proposes that distressing experiences can remain insufficiently processed and connected to the emotions, beliefs, sensations, and other memories associated with them. EMDR appears to help those networks become connected with more adaptive information.
If you’re interested in more of the theory and science behind the treatment, I explain it in more detail in EMDR Therapy: How It Helps Painful Memories Feel Like the Past.
In the room, it can look much less technical.
I may simply ask, “What are you noticing now?”
And whatever comes up is where we start again.
You aren’t forcing anything. You’re allowing.
You Stay in Control the Entire Time
This is one of the things I wish more people knew before starting EMDR.
You are not handing control over to the therapist or to the process. You can slow down, stop, take a break, ask a question, or tell me that something isn’t working for you.
If I ask you to notice something and your response is, “I have no idea,” that is useful information too.
EMDR isn’t something I do to you. We are paying attention together to what is happening in your mind and body, and I am helping guide the process.
Sometimes people worry that once they start working with a difficult memory, they will somehow be stuck in it until the session is over. That isn’t how I work.
Part of good EMDR therapy is continually paying attention to whether you are still able to stay connected to the present while also noticing what is coming up. If we need to stop processing and help your nervous system settle, we do.
What Change Can Actually Feel Like
One of the interesting things about EMDR is that improvement doesn’t always arrive with a dramatic Aha! moment.
People say things like:
“It feels farther away.”
“I can still see it, but it doesn’t bother me.”
“It’s weird—I know it happened, but I don’t feel like I’m there anymore.”
“The picture is blurry.”
“I don’t understand why I was so scared.”
And sometimes the shift is about how they feel toward the person they were when it happened:
“I feel lighter, like I’m not carrying so much of it anymore.”
“It doesn’t feel alive anymore.”
“I feel peaceful.”
“I actually feel compassion—even affection—for the younger me.”
The event hasn’t disappeared. You know what happened. But it no longer feels as if part of you is still living there.
EMDR Can Be Sneaky — and Sometimes It Isn’t
I often tell the women I work with that EMDR can be sneaky.
Sometimes it feels like nothing much is changing. You are just sitting there, thinking and feeling, noticing what comes up. There may be no big breakthrough and certainly no dramatic movie moment where everything suddenly makes sense.
And then, at some point, you look back and realize you have landed somewhere different.
There are insights you didn’t have before. You see yourself, another person, or what happened from a different perspective. Something that carried a tremendous amount of emotional weight feels lighter. The memory may still be there, but the distress around it has changed.
Sometimes the most interesting part is that you didn’t notice the change while it was happening.
But EMDR can also be dramatic.
There can be big waves of emotion—grief, fear, anger, relief—sometimes with thoughts, memories, images, or words and sometimes without words at all.
There is no one right way to experience EMDR. And I think that is actually part of what can make it so powerful.
This isn’t about performing therapy well. There is nothing to succeed at or fail at. You don’t need to come up with the right insight, have the right emotion, or make something happen.
For women who struggle especially with the feeling that they have to get things “right,” I wrote more about how EMDR can work with that pattern in When One Mistake Feels Huge: How EMDR Helps Heal the Fear of Getting It Wrong.
EMDR is about honoring your own process and allowing your mind to go where it goes.
Sometimes that process is quiet and sneaky.
Sometimes it most definitely is not.
What Happens After an EMDR Session?
Sometimes the processing seems to continue after the session ends.
You may notice a new thought or connection later that day. A memory might pop up that you haven’t thought about in years. You might have an interesting dream, feel more emotional than usual, or suddenly recognize that you are looking at something differently.
And sometimes…nothing much happens.
I usually encourage people to notice rather than analyze. You don’t need to turn the days between EMDR sessions into another assignment or figure out what every thought or dream means. If something seems important, make a quick note and bring it back to therapy.
Some people also feel tired after EMDR. It can be surprisingly demanding work, even though from the outside it may look like you spent an hour sitting in a chair.
A woman I worked with once asked me after a session:
“Is it normal to want to eat an entire chocolate cake?”
Yes.
Maybe not the entire cake. But definitely have a piece.
You deserve it.
Mostly, I want you to go back to your life. We can pay attention together to what changed—or didn’t—the next time we meet.
So, What Does EMDR Actually Feel Like?
There really isn’t one answer.
It can feel strange at first. It can be quiet, emotional, surprising, tiring, relieving, confusing, or even a little boring.
Sometimes there are words and insights. Sometimes there are just feelings, images, or sensations. Sometimes you leave a session knowing something shifted, and sometimes EMDR is sneaky and you don’t recognize the change until later.
You don’t have to find the right words, produce an important insight, or have a breakthrough. There is no prize for having a particularly impressive EMDR session.
This is not about performing, succeeding, or failing.
It is about having enough safety and support to let your own process unfold—and discovering where it takes you.
Considering EMDR Therapy?
If you’re curious about EMDR but aren’t sure whether you’re ready for it, that’s a reasonable place to start.
EMDR doesn’t begin with processing the hardest thing that has ever happened to you. It begins with understanding you, what brings you to therapy, what you want to change, and what you need in order to approach difficult material safely.
I’ve written more about this in How Do I Know if I Am Ready for EMDR?, including the questions I think are more useful than simply asking whether you’re “ready.”
You can also learn more about how I provide EMDR therapy for women in Seattle and throughout Washington.
I provide online EMDR therapy for women throughout Washington State.
Research & Sources
Department of Veterans Affairs & Department of Defense (2023). VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder.
Learn more about recommended psychotherapies for PTSD
Wright, S. L., et al. (2024). EMDR v. other psychological therapies for PTSD: A systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine, 54(8), 1580–1588.
Read the systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis on PubMed
EMDR International Association (EMDRIA). Experiencing EMDR Therapy.
Read EMDRIA’s overview of what happens during EMDR therapy
EMDR International Association (2024). Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) Model.
Read about the AIP model
Until We Meet Again
Until we meet again — breathe gently, walk slowly, and treat yourself with kindness.
— Iris