01/01/2026
Yup, the relationship in therapy always comes first. We hold the safe space for reprocessing WITH the client. Happy New Year to all you brave souls out there! Here’s to more trauma clearing badassery in 2026! We got you. 🪩🫶🏻
"Why I Am Skeptical of EMDR For Trauma Recovery" From an Interpersonal Neurobiology perspective, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) isn’t about eye movements or “reprogramming.” It’s a relational, neurophysiological process that uses bilateral stimulation as a way to engage both hemispheres of the brain while the person accesses distressing material in a context of safety and attunement.
The core mechanism isn’t the tapping or the eye movement itself, but the combination of dual attention and relational safety. The client holds one foot in the past (the traumatic memory) and one foot in the present (the attuned connection with the therapist and sensory awareness of being safe now). That state of simultaneous activation allows the nervous system to integrate experiences that were previously fragmented or frozen in survival mode.
When traumatic experiences happen without adequate relational support, the nervous system stores them as unprocessed threat responses--images, sensations, emotions, and impulses--rather than as coherent memories. EMDR can reopen those stored fragments within a safe enough window of tolerance, so they can finally link up with other neural and relational networks associated with calm, competence, and connection.
So, through an IPNB lens, EMDR is a co-regulated integration process. The eye movements are a gentle rhythm that supports regulation, but the true healing comes from:
The relationship (attuned, safe, co-regulating)
The activation (accessing the memory without being overwhelmed)
The integration (linking the traumatic memory with present safety and broader networks of meaning).
EMDR works when the nervous system learns, within a relational field, that it no longer has to live in the time of threat. The body gets to update its story.
Unfortunately, many EMDR practitioners are trained in the protocol but not in the underlying neurobiological and relational mechanisms that make it work. They’re taught to “follow the script,” but not how to track their own regulation or the client’s shifting state moment to moment. Without that understanding, they often mistake compliance for safety and procedure for healing.
From an IPNB standpoint, it’s the relational synchrony, the living, reciprocal connection, that allows the brain to integrate traumatic material. The therapist’s attunement regulates the client’s nervous system enough to tolerate activation. If that attunement is missing, the process becomes mechanical, disconnected, and sometimes harmful.
Many practitioners were trained in models that separate “technique” from “relationship,” as if the latter is secondary. But in truth, EMDR without deep interpersonal awareness is like trying to dance with someone who’s not actually in the room. The moves might look right, but nothing alive is happening between them.
