An EMDR Timeline: How Long is EMDR Therapy?

Guidance on EMDR Treatment Planning and Support at Catalina

Everyone wants that magic treatment that will resolve their past traumas and hang-ups. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) is a relatively new treatment with significant benefits. What does the EMDR timeline look like and when can you expect to graduate or see results?

There are eight phases of EMDR therapy: treatment planning, practice, assessment, EMDR, installation, body scan, wrap-up, and re-evaluation.

While there are no hard and fast rules about how long EMDR therapy takes, most people have six to twelve sessions before a new evaluation. Customized treatment plans are a necessity.

Catalina Behavioral Health offers the support you need with clinicians trained in EMDR therapy. Take the time and space you need to heal from a traumatic event or PTSD in one of our programs. You can learn more about the timeline of treatment in this comprehensive guide.

What is EMDR Therapy?

Before we dive into the EMDR timeline, it’s important to understand how it works. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing surfaced in the 1980s by Dr. Francine Shapiro. She found that the brain often struggles to process traumatic memories, but it can reprocess the event with the use of bilateral stimulation like left-to-right eye movements.

It follows a very structured protocol but doesn’t necessarily require a client to be open about what they have experienced. In many situations, they can hold the memory in their mind as they work through the movements with their clinician.

Eventually, the memory loses some of its power, and people don’t get stuck or hung up on it anymore. It can be replaced with new, more positive beliefs which change how you feel. In fact, 84 to 90 percent of clients with a single trauma no longer have PTSD after three 90-minute EMDR sessions.

Better yet, gains are maintained at the six-month follow-up on these clients.

Why is this therapy so powerful and effective? In part, it’s due to the highly structured program that our clinicians move through with EMDR therapy. Understanding what to expect can help you anticipate the outcomes.

Timeline for EMDR Therapy Sessions: 8 Phases to Overcome a Traumatic Event

At Catalina Behavioral Health, we understand that each client is unique. A traumatic memory impacts every person differently, which is why we believe in tailoring treatment to each client. Despite the differences in how a traumatic event is handled and processed, EMDR is a structured therapy.

There are eight phases of EMDR that your qualified clinician will assist you in working through so that you can reprocess your memory and move beyond trauma.

Phase 1: Treatment Planning

The EMDR therapy process isn’t going to be the right fit for every client, even if post-traumatic stress disorder is the presenting diagnosis. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy might require more work on coping mechanisms before you’re ready to face trauma head-on.

During treatment planning, your clinician will collect information about your traumatic experiences and struggles. They will develop targets for each treatment session and set goals for your overall treatment. EMDR sessions should be entered with care and lots of planning to ensure you’re prepared.

Phase 2: Practicing for Upcoming EMDR Sessions

Once a comprehensive treatment plan has been developed, it’s time to enter the preparation phases of EMDR. Clinicians will give you some background on how the process will work and prepare you for the body sensations and mental health concerns that might arise throughout treatment.

If you don’t yet have calming techniques in your toolbox, they might help you develop coping skills. This is particularly true if you’re entering treatment for the first time. You might learn to do a body scan and to combat negative feelings with positive beliefs about your strength and tenacity to stick with it.

It may take several sessions to put coping skills in place, a necessity for the therapeutic process.

Phase 3: Assessment Phase

It may only take one session to decide on a starting point for your therapy sessions. Phase three is about identifying the specific event, memory, negative beliefs, or body sensations that you want to work through. The therapist utilizes the Subjective Units of Disturbance and Validity of Cognition (VOC) to assess the memory.

Phase 4: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR Therapy)

By the time you get to phase four, you’re likely eager to get into those distressing memories so that you can start to move forward. This phase will implement the actual desensitization phase with your EMDR therapist where you will use bilateral stimulation to reprocess and combat current symptoms.

The therapist will assess both your physical response and the new emotions tied to the resurfacing of a particularly traumatic memory. Depending on what negative emotions come up in the course of EMDR therapy, they might revise your mental health goals and change memories for the next session.

How many sessions will EMDR therapy take to see a difference? While the process is very tailored to an individual, most clients will have one to two sessions a week for a total of six to twelve sessions.

Phase 5: Installation of New Thoughts

Once you finish the fourth phase, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re ready to complete treatment. Instead, your clinician is going to spend just a few sessions working on a new positive cognition that you want to replace the old thoughts that no longer serve you. What does this look like in practice?

As you think about your negative experience, you’ll associate it with new and more positive beliefs. It shifts the focus away from the traumatic event in your memory network. How long EMDR therapy takes at this stage is hard to say. It might take a few sessions to develop positive beliefs instead of traumatic memories.

It’s worth noting that the goal here is not to eradicate the negative memory. Instead, you’ll be able to better cope with it when triggers and memories arise.

Phase 6: Body Scan for Physical Sensations

At the end of each session, the client focuses on a body scan to round out EMDR treatment. Often, you might hold tension and stress in a specific area of the body. The therapist will ask you to check in with the physical sensations you feel so that you can resolve them.

You’ll focus on those negative feelings while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation like the left to right eye movements. This is part of what makes it such an effective treatment. Your past traumas don’t get stored in the body and can be released from the first phase to the final phases of EMDR.

This should be done at the end of all EMDR sessions. Eventually, you will see a significant improvement in the tension you hold as you near the end of treatment.

Phase 7: End of the Session

Every session should end with a check-in to ensure clients feel supported and cared for throughout the experience. Depending on the client’s history, the therapist may ask pointed questions about how you feel. They do their best to manage a controlled environment where you feel safe so that you can move ahead with a peaceful life.

If you need any other forms of therapy, this is the time to implement them. A therapist might work through relaxation techniques with you so that you don’t leave with negative cognition but rather feel lighter than when you started the session.

Phase 8: Re-Evaluation of Treatment Effects

EMDR therapy isn’t designed to be an unending framework for you to participate in for months or years to come. Instead, it’s meant to be a short-term therapy for disturbing memories and their remaining emotions. Once you have had twenty sessions or so, your therapist will want to re-evaluate how these sessions are serving you.

They won’t have to conduct another thorough history, but they will monitor your ability to discuss and think about past memories to see if you can do so calmly. If you still struggle with negative beliefs or haven’t yet installed your new positive cognition, then you might return to the fifth phase.

Get Help at Catalina with EMDR and Trauma Treatment Programs

How long does EMDR therapy take for our clients? The answer truly depends on you and the level of support needed to get to a place where you can tolerate traumatic memories. However, a clear and structured therapy approach helps, and our clinicians follow the eight phases above.

Many people need a safe space to land while working through the difficult emotions of trauma or PTSD. At Catalina, you have the option of residential treatment or intensive outpatient. Both programs can give you the structure to focus on treatment fully. We hold a safe emotional space for you while you do the heavy lifting in EMDR.

Let us guide you on the path to healing. Our enrollment team can verify your insurance benefits, talk with you about treatment options, and help you enroll in the program that’s right for you today!

References

1. Shapiro F. (2014). The role of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in medicine: addressing the psychological and physical symptoms stemming from adverse life experiences. The Permanente journal, 18(1), 71–77.
2. Hase, M., Balmaceda, U. M., Hase, A., Lehnung, M., Tumani, V., Huchzermeier, C., & Hofmann, A. (2015). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in the treatment of depression: a matched pairs study in an inpatient setting. Brain and behavior, 5(6), e00342.
3. Menon, S. B., & Jayan, C. (2010). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: a conceptual framework. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 32(2), 136–140.
4. Hase, M., Balmaceda, U. M., Hase, A., Lehnung, M., Tumani, V., Huchzermeier, C., & Hofmann, A. (2015). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in the treatment of depression: a matched pairs study in an inpatient setting. Brain and behavior, 5(6), e00342.