Anxiety Therapy
EMDR Therapy for Anxiety
When Anxiety Starts Running Your Life
Is your mind racing? Are you overthinking and playing out different worst-case scenarios? Do you find yourself exhausted, waking up in the middle of the night, because you can’t turn off your thoughts? Over time, anxiety can feel exhausting and overwhelming.
If you’ve tried medication to manage your anxiety or talking to a talk therapist but still feel trapped in cycles of worry and emotional overwhelm, EMDR therapy may help.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy designed to help people process the difficult and traumatic memories that have caused their distressing symptoms.
EMDR therapy works differently than traditional talk therapy. Rather than focusing only on managing symptoms, EMDR helps identify and process the core memories, negative beliefs, and physical sensations that keep their anxiety stuck within them.
During EMDR therapy, we use bilateral stimulation - for example, tapping on two sides of the body - to process and release the underlying fears and limiting beliefs that are holding you back about the core memory, in a safe and structured way.
Over time, EMDR therapy can help clients feel less anxious, more grounded, and more able to respond calmly and insightfully to situations that previously felt overwhelming.
How EMDR Can Help with Anxiety
Anxiety is often rooted in life experiences, both in childhood and/or adulthood, where one’s nervous system learned that the world is unsafe, unpredictable, or overwhelming. EMDR helps the brain update its programming so that you can safely process and release the anxiety - one memory at a time, and to be able to access logic, reason, and insight around the situation.
EMDR therapy can help with:
Generalized anxiety
Social anxiety
Health anxiety
Performance anxiety
Public speaking anxiety
Airplane flying anxiety
Anxiety in crowded spaces
Chronic worry and overthinking
Anxiety related to trauma or childhood experiences
Anxiety connected to relationships or family members
Rather than simply teaching coping skills, EMDR focuses on treating the distressing memories that are the source of the deeper patterns driving the anxiety symptoms.
Why Anxiety Sometimes Persists, After Everything You’ve Tried
Many people with anxiety are intelligent, thoughtful, and self-aware. You may already understand why you feel anxious — but insight alone does not always calm the nervous system. That’s because anxiety is not just cognitive. Sometimes, we can’t talk ourselves out of feeling anxious. It stays stuck in the body and nervous system.
Experiences such as criticism, neglect, bullying, unpredictable parents, controlling relationships, or traumatic life events can program the brain to stay alert for danger long after the threat has passed. EMDR helps the brain and body recognize that you no longer have to remain in survival mode.
What EMDR Therapy Looks Like
EMDR therapy is collaborative and paced intentionally and carefully. We do not jump immediately into painful memories. The process begins with building mutual trust and safety.
There are eight phases in EMDR therapy. Below is a brief description of each phase. You can find more in-depth information about the eight phases on my EMDR Therapy page:
During phase 1 of EMDR, we begin by taking your history around anxiety and develop treatment goals. Most importantly, we choose the memory you’d like to process.
In phase 2, we focus on getting you comfortable using grounding tools to help you feel resourced and supported throughout treatment.
In phase 3, we briefly assess your thoughts, feelings, and sensations before moving to phase 4.
Phase 4 is focused on desensitizing the memory using bilateral stimulation, effectively processing and releasing your anxiety and distress regarding the chosen memory until you have a distress level of 0.
In phase 5, now that you no longer have distress with the memory, you can connect that memory with a positive belief, like “I did the best I could” or “I can create my sense of safety.”
Phase 6 is ensuring that your body is positively aligned to the memory, releasing any remaining discomfort in your body when you think of the memory.
Phase 7 is a phase where I help you feel calm and safe before returning to your life outside of session.
Re-evaluation is where we ensure there is no longer any distress for the chosen memory, and we apply the insight you’ve learned from processing to prepare for any future scenarios where you may be triggered again.
Topics EMDR Can Help with
As you begin to feel more comfortable with EMDR therapy, we may work on:
Dysfunctional relationships with caregivers or loved ones
Childhood experiences connected to fear or shame
Negative beliefs such as “I am powerless”, “I am not safe”, “I’m not good enough,” or “I can’t show my emotions”
Physical sensations connected to anxiety, such as tightness that lives in your neck and chest
Patterns of avoidance
You Don’t Have to Stay Stuck in Anxiety
You don’t have to accept anxiety as the only way to live life. Healing is possible.
EMDR therapy can help you feel more in control, more grounded, and less controlled by fear.
Let’s Talk
If you’re interested in EMDR therapy for treating your anxiety symptoms, I invite you to reach out. Together, we can explore what’s contributing to your anxiety and whether EMDR may be a good fit for your healing process.
