EMDR explained by comparing PTSD to your immune system.
Written by an EMDR Therapist in Long Beach
This is one of the best explanations I have heard for how EMDR works. (A fellow therapist explained this and gave me permission to post)
When our brain senses danger, it develops an antibody (which is your trauma response, called PTSD) and so typically FLIGHT, FIGHT or FREEZE is the antibody to the trauma. The PTSD is there to try to protect us from future danger. Our brain holds on to the memory of the trauma in a similar way as your immune system holds on to a particular disease and the way to treat it. This is why immunizations work. They put a small portion of dead disease into your system so that your system recognizes it and knows how to protect you from it so that if you ever encounter that disease, your body kills it on contact. When you have a trauma, your body holds on to every aspect of the trauma (what you were seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and sensing) so that when your body sees anything similar, it tries to protect you in the same way your body protects you with immunizations. The problem is when we encounter triggers in our environment it is typically not the dangerous thing that we are encountering again, but our brain (the “reptile” survival part of our brain) sends the antibody out “just in case” and we then have our flight, fight or freeze response (whichever your brain decides will be most effective at the time of encountering the trigger).
The whole point of EMDR is to train the brain to recognize what is actually dangerous and what is not dangerous so that we are not triggered at inappropriate times. The reprocessing part (the “r” in EMDR) is helping the brain figure out how to let go of the things we don’t need to be triggered about. When the brain learns this, it then allows the memory to be stored in memory banks in our long-term memory like all of our other “non traumatic” memories are stored. So we remember them, but we don’t experience the memory as though it just happened.
EMDR allows you to metabolize the information that has thus far been trapped in the survival part of the brain because the brain says “that is danger, don’t forget about it” in case you see it again you need to know what to do with it.