The Brain Leeds

There is a moment in EMDR work that I keep thinking about.

The session has been carefully prepared. The assessment questions have been asked: what is the image that represents the worst moment? What is the thought that comes with it? Where do you feel it in your body? It is structured, purposeful work. I have my framework, my checklist, the things I need to gather before we begin. It can feel, in those early minutes, almost clinical. Not cold, but focused in a way that is different from the more open, relational flow of other kinds of therapy.

And then we begin.

What happens next is not something that can be managed or directed. EMDR is not about making sense of a memory. It is not about finding the right words, constructing the right narrative, or leading a client to a particular insight. The brain does not need to be told where to go. It already knows. The Therapist’s job is simply to hold the space, follow the process, and trust.

I describe it to clients like getting on a train.

This image, right here, is our starting point. We step on at this station. And then the brain leads. It will take us wherever it needs to go, and we will stop at each station along the way and check in. We don’t know the route in advance. That is the point.

EMDR works by helping the brain reprocess distressing memories that have become “stuck,” reducing the emotional and physical charge they continue to carry in the present. It is recommended by both NICE and the World Health Organisation as a first-line treatment for PTSD. The bilateral stimulation, usually eye movements, invites the brain’s own adaptive processing to resume — the kind of processing that may have been interrupted at the time of the trauma itself.

What this means in practice is that the client does not need to narrate their experience in detail. They do not need to explain or analyse what comes up. They simply notice. We follow. Whatever arrives on that train is exactly what needs to be there.

When the Train Stops

Sometimes, in the middle of processing, something blocks. A client finds themselves thinking too hard, trying to force a path, searching for something that feels familiar or logical. The brain, under pressure, reaches for pattern. For order. For control.

This is where I might pause and ask them to look around the room and describe what they see — in detail, slowly, without rush. The texture of the cushion. The colour of the light through the curtain. It sounds simple. It is, in a sense. But it is a brief, deliberate step outside the processing itself. Not a therapeutic move within the EMDR, but a moment of gentle redirection: away from the effort of trying to make sense, and back to the present. Once that cognitive grip loosens, we return directly to the image, the eye movements, the flow. The client steps back on the train, this time without holding the rails quite so tightly.

The Honour in the Room

What I want to say, though, is not really about technique.

It is about what it means to sit with someone in the middle of all of this.

When a client moves into active EMDR processing, they are not behind glass. They are not observing their experience from a distance. They are in it. The memories are present. The feelings are present. The body is present. And I am there, alongside them, holding the space, tracking every signal, staying grounded so they can afford to be less so.

NICE guidance is clear that this kind of trauma work requires a trusting, therapeutic, and non-judgmental relationship before and throughout the process. That trust is not incidental to EMDR. It is the condition under which everything else becomes possible.

To be part of that — to be invited into someone’s most vulnerable moment, to hold the ground while they do the bravest thing — is, honestly, an honour. Not in a sentimental way. In a very quiet, very serious way. Every time.

I chose this work because I believe in it. I believe in the brain’s capacity to heal. I believe in the relationship as the container that makes that healing safe. And I believe that the structured, checklist-led beginning of an EMDR session and the profound, moving experience of what follows are not opposites.

They are the same thing. One just looks more like a map, and the other feels more like a journey.