Trauma isn’t simply about what happened to you. EMDR therapy for trauma can help you process these experiences and the way you internalised them, supporting emotional healing and self-understanding.
What is particularly common (especially in childhood trauma) is asserting self-blame as a way to cope with the pain of the traumatic event. What do I mean by that? Often, it feels easier to emotionally digest that something happened because of you, because you weren’t vigilant enough, or because of your behaviour, your timing, or perhaps because you weren’t good enough and so “of course this happened”, rather than accept the painful truth that sometimes the world is unfair, unpredictable, and out of our control.
Because sometimes there is no greater meaning. And sometimes it isn’t about you. This is deeply disturbing for the mind to accept. A loss of agency equals a survival threat. If nothing you did caused it, then nothing you could have done would have prevented it. So one way of coping with this pain is to ruminate in self-blame. At least then, there is an illusion of control.
The problem is that this keeps the traumatic wound alive. It also shapes how you relate to others and to the wider world. If you carry the belief that you are “not good enough,” your behaviour will be shaped by that belief. You may miss out on opportunities for growth; professionally and personally, and remain anxious or stuck in a persistently low mood.
So working through trauma requires two things. First, identifying how you are currently coping with the pain. Second, understanding how that coping mechanism is maintaining the very symptoms that led you to seek support in the first place. From there, the work involves engaging with the underlying pain of the traumatic event, while slowly re-integrating a new sense of self. This means letting go of a belief that may have shaped your worldview and self-worth for a long time. As surprising as it may be, this isn’t always simple.
Trauma often shapes identity. Even when a belief has caused harm, letting it go can feel unsettling. There is loss in releasing what is familiar. And it also means leaning into uncertainty, and into the unknown of the next chapter of your life.
So how on earth do we work through this? This is how I do this with my clients: I use an Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing Therapy to work through this. It’s a NICE and WHO Guideline recommended treatment for trauma, but it can also be used for any distressing memories that do not qualify for PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction and phobias. What does it entail?
1. Resourcing in EMDR Therapy for Trauma
This is what we clinicians call resourcing. It involves reinforcing experiences you have had, accessing (and strengthening) neural pathways associated with safety, nurturing, protection, warmth, and comfort. Anything that brings the nervous system into a sense of safety. Many trauma survivors feel they have lost this ability completely, or never experienced it at all. We build it together. Often, even beginning to experience these sensations in the body brings enormous relief:
a) It restores a sense of control and empowerment. You can feel this, in your body. It is always accessible to you and depends on nobody but you. And I teach you how to do this.
b) This, in itself, is already trauma work. You are meeting needs that were once missing or insufficiently reinforced: safety, nurture, protection, worth, and a sense that you matter.
2. Practising Regulation in EMDR Therapy for Trauma
I then get you to practise this, both at home and in sessions. Once a sense of safety has been reinforced, I may ask you to recall memories that bring up emotions such as anger, annoyance, or frustration; things that aren’t traumatic (for example, someone who annoyed you at the supermarket). I observe how connected you are to these emotions and your ability to name them in the body: “I’m recalling this moment… I feel X… in Y part of my body.”
This is important because emotions live in the body. When trauma has been overwhelming, accessing them can result in blocking them out. Being able to notice and name sensations shows that you are present with your internal experience.
If there is an ability to be in the body from time to time, that’s great. If I notice this is difficult, it tells me we need to take a step back and prioritise naming emotions in the body until it begins to feel easier and requires less effort.
This doesn’t mean that, when we later work with trauma-related stimuli, the body won’t become somewhat defensive at times and shift attention out of the body. Rather, it’s about ensuring you have a template; a lived, embodied experience, of being able to return to safety in your body and truly connect with it. Especially when your body is asking for “time out” because it feels too much. If that happens, we honour the needs of the body, bring it some safety, and then try to process the traumatic pain again. Mini breaks during the later reprocessing stage (where we work with trauma-stimuli) is not uncommon. But there needs to be capacity to be present in the body, whether we feel pain or safety.
This step is essential. Without the capacity to feel in the body, trauma work cannot move forward.
So, you will recall an annoying experience, name emotions and sensations in the body, and then I will ask you to soothe your nervous system and shift back into safety. We repeat this several times. This allows me to assess whether you can move between emotional states and trust your ability to regulate without my guidance. At this point, you are ready to move forward and process the traumatic experience itself.
3 – Processing the trauma (desensitisation)
This is the part most people associate with EMDR. You bring up a memory we have identified as linked to your current symptoms or negative belief, while receiving bilateral stimulation (such as guided eye movements or tapping).
The aim is desensitisation.
EMDR is based on the idea that the body has an internal system (the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) system) that knows how to process pain. Trauma overwhelms this system and causes memories to become “stuck.” In the right conditions: safety, containment, and trust, the system can restart. My role is to facilitate that process. Once it begins, the brain and body do the work.
In practice, distress that once felt like a 9/10 gradually reduces to 0. The memory is no longer experienced as something happening now. The body recognises: this is in the past, the threat is over. As a result, triggers lose their emotional charge.
4. Integrating New Beliefs Through EMDR Therapy for Trauma
Once desensitisation has occurred, we integrate an alternative belief to replace the negative core belief. We establish this together. You then bring up the memory again while holding the new belief in mind and receiving bilateral stimulation. We repeat this until the belief feels true, not just cognitively, but emotionally and somatically.
About the Author
Dr. Pauline Chiarizia is a Counselling Psychologist specialising in trauma. She offers online therapy and EMDR for individuals who are ready to address challenges like anxiety, depression, trauma, 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.