You know the memories are there. Some of them you can recall clearly. Others show up as fragments: a feeling in your chest, a reaction that does not match the situation, a sudden need to leave a room without knowing why. What they have in common is that they still affect you, sometimes decades after the events that created them. Childhood trauma does not expire on its own. It stays stored in the brain and the body until something helps you process it, and for many people, that something turns out to be EMDR.
If you have tried talk therapy and found that you can describe what happened to you but still feel stuck in it, EMDR offers a different pathway. It works at the level where the trauma is actually stored, which is often deeper than words can reach.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based psychotherapy designed to help the brain process traumatic memories that have been stored in a fragmented or unresolved way. Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR does not rely primarily on conversation. It uses bilateral stimulation, typically guided eye movements, to activate the brain’s natural processing system and help it complete the work it could not finish at the time the trauma occurred.
The process was developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s and has since been validated by extensive research. It is recognized as an effective trauma treatment by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. EMDR is typically completed in 6 to 12 sessions for a specific traumatic memory, though complex or developmental trauma may require a longer course of treatment.
How Does EMDR Work?
EMDR works by helping your brain reprocess traumatic memories so they lose their emotional charge and become integrated into your normal memory system. A traumatic memory that has not been fully processed stays “stuck” in the brain in its original form, complete with the emotions, physical sensations, and beliefs that were present at the time. This is why a childhood memory can still produce a full-body fear response in adulthood: the memory was never resolved, so your brain still treats it as current.
During an EMDR session, your therapist will guide you to focus on a specific traumatic memory, including the images, feelings, body sensations, and beliefs associated with it. While you hold that focus, your therapist will direct your eyes to follow their hand movements back and forth, or use another form of bilateral stimulation such as tapping or auditory tones. This bilateral stimulation appears to activate the same processing mechanisms that your brain uses during REM sleep, helping the memory move from its “stuck” state into a fully processed one.
As the memory is reprocessed, the emotional intensity decreases. The memory does not disappear. You still remember what happened. But the overwhelming fear, shame, or helplessness that was attached to it diminishes, and you are able to hold the memory without being destabilized by it. Many people describe the shift as the difference between reliving something and simply remembering it.
Why Is EMDR Effective for Childhood Trauma Specifically?
Childhood trauma is stored differently than adult trauma because a child’s brain does not have the cognitive capacity to make sense of what is happening. The memory gets encoded as raw sensory and emotional data, fragments of images, sounds, physical sensations, and overwhelming feelings, without the narrative structure that an adult brain would impose. This is why childhood trauma often shows up not as a clear story you can tell but as a feeling, a body reaction, or a pattern you cannot explain.
Talk therapy works well when you can articulate what happened and process it verbally. But childhood trauma is often pre-verbal or sub-verbal. The child who was abused at age three does not have a coherent narrative of the event. What they have is a nervous system that learned the world is not safe, a body that braces for impact in situations that resemble the original threat, and beliefs about themselves (“I am bad,” “I deserve this,” “I am not safe”) that were formed before they had the capacity to evaluate them critically.
EMDR reaches this material because it does not depend on talking through the trauma in detail. It works at the level where the memory is actually stored: in the sensory, emotional, and somatic systems. This is what makes it particularly effective for developmental trauma, childhood abuse, neglect, and early attachment wounds that traditional talk therapy may not fully resolve.
What Does Childhood Trauma Look Like in Adults?
Unprocessed childhood trauma often does not look like “trauma” from the outside. It shows up as patterns, reactions, and difficulties that seem disconnected from any identifiable cause, which is why many people live with the effects for years without recognizing their origin.
Depression, anxiety, and chronic stress that do not fully respond to standard treatment may be rooted in childhood experiences that were never processed. Your nervous system is still responding to a threat that ended years or decades ago, and your brain is still allocating energy to keep the unresolved material suppressed.
Relationship difficulties including fear of intimacy, difficulty trusting, abandonment patterns, or a tendency to shut down when closeness arrives are common adult expressions of childhood trauma. The child who learned that attachment was dangerous carries that learning into every adult relationship.
Being easily triggered by situations that others seem to handle without difficulty can indicate that a current event is activating unresolved material from the past. The intensity of your reaction is not about what just happened. It is about what happened before, and what your brain never finished processing.
Negative beliefs about yourself that feel deeply true, such as “I am not good enough,” “I am not safe,” or “Something is wrong with me,” often trace back to conclusions you formed as a child in response to experiences you could not understand. EMDR specifically targets these beliefs as part of the reprocessing work.
What Should You Expect From EMDR Treatment?
EMDR follows a structured eight-phase protocol that your therapist will walk you through before any processing begins. You will not be asked to process traumatic material until you feel prepared and your therapist has assessed that you have the internal resources to handle what comes up safely.
The early sessions focus on building stability: your therapist will learn your history, identify the memories to target, and teach you self-regulation skills that you can use both during and between sessions. Processing sessions follow, where specific memories are targeted using bilateral stimulation. After processing, sessions focus on integration and reinforcement, making sure the changes hold and that new, healthier beliefs are taking root.
Some people notice significant shifts after just a few sessions. Others, particularly those with complex developmental trauma involving multiple events over a long period, need more time. Your therapist will pace the work to match what your nervous system can handle. EMDR should never feel like you are being retraumatized. If it does, your therapist needs to know so the approach can be adjusted.
Between sessions, you may notice changes in your dreams, your emotional responses, or your body sensations. This is a sign that your brain is continuing to process. Your therapist will check in on these experiences at the start of each session.
EMDR Therapy in Lakewood and Longmont, Colorado
At Self Care Impact Counseling, our therapists are extensively trained in EMDR therapy, including work with complex childhood trauma and developmental attachment wounds. Our Clinical Supervisor, Alayna Baillod, LCSW, is an EMDRIA Approved EMDR Consultant, which is the highest level of EMDR credentialing available. We also incorporate somatic therapy, Internal Family Systems, and attachment-focused approaches alongside EMDR when the clinical picture calls for it.
We offer both in-person sessions at our Lakewood and Longmont offices and online sessions for anyone in Colorado. If you are ready to address childhood trauma that has been affecting your life, we invite you to call us at 720-551-4553 for a free 20-minute phone consultation, or try our Find-Your-Therapist tool to get matched with an EMDR therapist. You can also reach us through the contact page on our website.
Self Care Impact Counseling envisions a new age of counseling for adolescents, adults, couples and groups that makes a REAL difference with core values of GROWTH | BALANCE | COMPASSION | INNER HARMONY.
About the Author
Alayna Baillod, LCSW, is a Clinical Supervisor and the Owner of Self Care Impact Counseling. She is an EMDRIA Approved EMDR Consultant and EMDR Therapist, extensively trained in Gottman Couples Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), DBT, Somatic Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Attachment Theory. Alayna specializes in couples counseling, EMDR trauma therapy, and codependency recovery. Schedule an appointment with Alayna.
