Am I Ready for EMDR Therapy?

It’s a question many people ask when considering trauma therapy : sometimes with urgency, sometimes with hesitation. Some clients feel ready for EMDR right away and are surprised to learn there’s a preparation phase. Others hold back, assuming they need to be calm, emotionally “strong,” or fully stable before starting. The truth is: being ready for EMDR doesn’t mean being fixed or fearless. It means your system your body, mind, and environment is prepared enough to do the work safely.

This article outlines what readiness looks like from a clinical perspective, and how we can build it together.

What Is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a structured therapy designed to help people process distressing experiences that still feel “stuck.” Although it was originally developed to treat trauma and PTSD, EMDR is now also used to work with:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Grief

• Panic

• Low self-worth

• And memories that still carry emotional weight

One unique part of EMDR is the use of bilateral stimulation, like side-to-side eye movements or tapping, to help the brain reprocess what couldn’t be fully processed at the time an event happened. But EMDR isn’t just that technique. It’s a full therapy process made up of several phases. The part where you work directly with painful memories — that’s called reprocessing — doesn’t happen right away. First, we make sure you’re prepared to go there safely.

So What Does “Ready” Actually Mean?

You don’t need to feel totally steady or have everything in your life in order.But to begin trauma processing with EMDR, there are a few things you do need. You need to be able to:

• Notice when you’re overwhelmed

• Use tools to steady yourself (not perfectly — just enough)

• Stay connected to the present, even when talking about the past

• Feel safe enough in your body, in your life, and with your therapist, to do the work

Let’s break those down a little.

Emotional Regulation: A Key Sign You’re Ready for EMDR

Before starting EMDR reprocessing, it’s important that you have some ability to recognize when you’re getting overwhelmed  and take steps to help yourself return to a more manageable state. It means you can:

• Notice early signs of distress (like racing thoughts, muscle tension, or going numb)

• Use a simple strategy to steady yourself

• Regain enough control without needing your therapist to do it for you every time

These skills don’t need to be perfect, just accessible. That might look like:

• Taking a slow breath and grounding through your feet

• Taking a break and naming what’s happening in your body: “I feel my chest tightening”

• Using a familiar grounding tool : an object, a visualization safe place exercise, or orienting to your environment

• Stepping back from a situation to let your nervous system settle

These responses help shift the body out of fight, flight, or freeze. If regulation feels hard or only possible with help, that’s okay. It just means we’ll start by building those skills together, which is an important and valid part of the process.

Staying Present While Touching on the Past

EMDR asks you to bring up difficult memories, not in full detail, but enough for your brain and body to process them. That means we need to know you can stay connected to the present while remembering something painful. This is where something called affect tolerance comes in; your ability to experience uncomfortable emotions without becoming overwhelmed or disconnected. You don’t need to feel comfortable with distress. But you do need enough capacity to stay with the feeling, even briefly, rather than shutting down, going numb, or losing contact with your surroundings. This might look like:

• Feeling anxiety or sadness and still being able to speak, move, or stay in the room

• Staying aware of your body or breath even while recalling something upsetting

• Being able to pause when things feel too much, without completely shutting down

If you currently disconnect quickly during distress, or if you’ve experienced dissociation (such as feeling unreal, going blank, or losing time), that’s not unusual. It’s a protective response. In those cases, we start by working on grounding and stabilization, so that memory work can be done safely later on.

Your Life Is Stable Enough to Support EMDR

EMDR can stir things up emotionally, even between sessions. That’s why it’s important that your external life has enough consistency and safety to support the work. You don’t need a perfect situation  but the basics matter. It may not be the right time to begin EMDR processing if:

• You’re in an ongoing legal, housing, or relational crisis

• There’s frequent unpredictability in your daily life

• You’re using substances in a way that affects your ability to stay present or attend therapy

• You’re in active survival mode most of the time

If this sounds like your current situation, it doesn’t mean you can’t start therapy. It means we focus first on creating the conditions that will allow EMDR to be useful, rather than overwhelming. That might include strengthening daily routines, finding safe support systems, or learning new regulation strategies.

Feeling Safe Enough — Internally and Externally

Safety is a key part of readiness but it’s often misunderstood.

You don’t need to feel completely safe all the time. You don’t even need to feel “ready” in the emotional sense. You just need to feel safe enough to do focused emotional work, at least some of the time. That includes:

• Not living in a consistently chaotic or unsafe environment

• Feeling somewhat connected to your own body (even if that’s not always comfortable)

• Having at least one form of reliable support : a person, a routine, or an inner resource

• Trusting your therapist enough to allow emotions to show up in the room

If we don’t yet have that kind of safety in place, we start there. That might involve building trust in the therapy relationship, creating internal safety through imagery or parts work, or simply slowing things down.

Willingness to Feel — Not Just Talk

EMDR is not just a conversation. It involves noticing what happens in your body and emotions as you touch on past material and staying with those responses long enough for them to shift. That means you’ll likely experience discomfort at times. Not all at once, and never more than your system can handle, but some willingness to feel is part of what makes the work effective.

If you prefer to stay in problem-solving mode or intellectual insight only, that’s okay and sometimes protective. But to engage fully in EMDR, you’ll need to be at least open to emotional and sensory experience, not just verbal storytelling. This capacity can be strengthened gradually. Readiness doesn’t mean you’re eager to dive into pain: it just means you’re willing to feel something real in the room.

What If You’re Not Ready for EMDR Yet?

Not being ready isn’t a setback, it’s simply clinical information. We don’t begin EMDR reprocessing if:

• You can’t regulate without someone else’s help

• You disconnect or dissociate as soon as distress arises

• You feel consistently unsafe in your body or environment

• You’re in active crisis with no room to focus on therapy work

In those cases, we begin with preparation, not processing. That preparation phase might involve:

• Strengthening emotional regulation

• Building affect tolerance

• Creating external stability

• Developing internal safety resources

This isn’t about waiting for perfection: it’s about protecting your system and pacing the work in a way that’s effective and sustainable.

Want to Talk About Whether EMDR Is Right for You?

If you’re curious about EMDR but unsure whether now is the right time, it might help to talk it through with someone who can help you assess it thoughtfully.

📞 Book a consultation to explore:

• Whether EMDR is appropriate right now

• What readiness looks like for you

• What we can work on first if reprocessing isn’t the next step

About the Author

Dr. Pauline Chiarizia is a Counselling Psychologist specialising in trauma and eating disorders. She offers online talk therapy and EMDR for individuals who are ready to explore themselves more deeply, break free from unhelpful patterns, and address challenges like anxiety, low self-esteem, and burnout.

Dr. Chiarizia helps you develop resilience, strengthen self-trust, and build the confidence to navigate life’s challenges—personally and professionally. Her approach empowers clients to cope with adversity while also being fully present for moments of joy, love, and connection.

She offers therapy online, based in London, and is available to clients across the UK, EU, and US.

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