Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

[phkrause]

EMDR goes mainstream

Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios

A pair of recent essays made a powerful case for "EMDR," the trauma therapy formally known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, Axios' Natalie Daher writes. Neither writer was subtle about the stakes. For both, the treatment altered lives that had been knocked severely off balance. 🔎 Zoom in: In The Wall Street Journal, health journalist Michael Waldholz writes that EMDR helped pull him back from the brink after a divorce in his mid-'60s (gift link). In The New Yorker, music critic Amanda Petrusich describes turning to EMDR after the sudden death of her husband in 2022, when their daughter was just 13 months old. 🔭 Zoom out: Their essays are not clinical endorsements so much as personal testimony. Waldholz describes a long-tail shift in his nervous system: "Stress no longer triggered overwhelming reactions. A newfound flexibility in the face of life's normal challenges made me feel like I had acquired a superpower." Petrusich is more cautious, but no less moved by the possibility of relief. "EMDR can help the brain to process trauma in a more adaptive way," she writes, "thereby lessening its capacity to completely capsize a person." 🖼️ The big picture: EMDR is not new. Psychology student Francine Shapiro began developing it in 1987, and the treatment has since become one of the better-studied therapies for PTSD. It typically asks patients to focus briefly on a traumatic memory while also engaging in bilateral stimulation — usually guided eye movements, though therapists may also use alternating taps, tones or hand-held buzzers. The full protocol is structured around eight phases, from history-taking and preparation to desensitization, body scan, closure and reevaluation. 📈 What's new is its cultural momentum. The Cut reported earlier this year that Zocdoc users "booked 79% more EMDR appointments in 2025 compared to the previous year." Once easy to dismiss as strange or fringe, EMDR is now recognized in PTSD treatment guidance from major organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Psychological Association. Celebrity mentions have helped, too: Prince Harry was filmed using bilateral tapping in an EMDR session in his mental-health series with Oprah Winfrey, and Miley Cyrus credited the therapy with helping her overcome stage fright. 🧩 The paradox: Many clinicians are confident that EMDR works, while researchers continue to debate exactly why. 🧠 One theory is that the bilateral stimulation helps the brain reprocess traumatic memories in a way that resembles aspects of REM sleep. Another, known as the "working-memory theory," suggests that recalling a painful memory while performing a second task reduces the memory's vividness and emotional charge. 🌱 The bottom line: Even if the origin story sounds improbable, the results, for many patients, have been harder to dismiss.