What Are the Eight Phases of EMDR Therapy? A Step-by-Step Guide

EMDR therapy moves through eight phases, and knowing what each one involves can take much of the mystery out of getting started. Each phase has a clear job, from the first conversation to the check-in after you’ve worked on a memory.

Phases One and Two: Building the Groundwork

The first phase is history taking and treatment planning. Your therapist asks what brought you in, what you’re dealing with now, and what you’d like to change. Together you pick out targets for the work: past events, present-day triggers, and situations you dread in the future. You also decide together whether the timing is right. You don’t need to share every detail of what happened for this to work.

Phase two is preparation. You learn how EMDR works and practice ways to settle your body as distress rises, like slow breathing or picturing a calm place. Processing can stir up strong feelings, so you want those tools in hand before you start. Steadying yourself in a difficult moment is much harder if you’ve never practiced when things were quiet.

Phases Three Through Five: Working With a Memory

In phase three, assessment, you and your therapist choose one specific memory to focus on. You name the image that captures the worst part of it, the negative belief about yourself that goes with it (something like “I’m not safe” or “It was my fault”), and a positive belief you’d rather hold. You rate how true that positive belief feels on a scale of 1 to 7, then name the emotion you feel and where you notice it in your body. Finally, you rate your distress from 0 to 10, giving you a starting point to measure against.

Phase four is desensitization, the part most people picture when they hear “EMDR.” While you hold the memory in mind, your therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation. This could be side-to-side eye movements, alternating taps, or tones. This happens in short sets. Between sets, you simply report what you notice, whether that’s a thought, a feeling, an image, or a physical sensation, and your therapist guides the next step. The aim is to help the memory lose its charge.

Phase five, installation, strengthens the positive belief you chose earlier. Once the memory feels less distressing, you pair that belief with the memory and keep going until it feels true to you.

Phases Six Through Eight: Closing and Checking In

Phase six is the body scan. You bring the memory and the positive belief to mind together, then move your attention from head to toe, looking for leftover tension or discomfort. The body often holds on to what the mind has already let go of, so you can work with any lingering sensation before you finish.

Phase seven is closure, and it happens at the end of every session, whether or not the memory has been fully processed. Your therapist helps you ground yourself so you leave feeling steady. You may be asked to jot down anything that comes up between sessions, and you’ll go over how to use your calming skills if something feels intense.

Phase eight, reevaluation, opens the next session. You and your therapist check how the memory feels now, whether the old distress has shifted, and what still needs attention before choosing what to work on next.

Why the Order Matters

The phases don’t always line up one-to-one with sessions. Preparation might take several visits, and a single memory might take more than one session to process, so the pace depends on you rather than a fixed calendar. That structure is what keeps the work from feeling like being dropped into the hardest material before you have your footing.

Trauma therapy with EMDR can give you a paced, organized way to work through experiences that still weigh on you. Reach out today to talk with one of our clinicians about how EMDR can work for you.