Nov. 18, 2025
EMDR Explained: A Trauma Therapist’s Guide to Safe, Effective Healing with Laurel Roberts-Meese I Ep. 95
Your brain can remember the past without reliving it—that’s the power of EMDR therapy. In this episode of the 1 in 3 Podcast, Ingrid sits down with licensed therapist Laurel to break down what EMDR is, how it works, and why it’s become one of the most effective trauma therapies for survivors of domestic violence, PTSD, and complex trauma.
We explore how traumatic memories get “red-flagged” in the brain, why hypervigilance sticks around, and how EMDR helps your nervous system finally believe you’re safe. If EMDR has ever sounded confusing, intense, or too simple, this conversation brings together the science, the structure, and real clinical experience to make it clear and accessible.
You’ll learn:
- The eight-phase EMDR model and why preparation and resourcing are essential
- How targeting, bilateral stimulation, eye movements, alternating tones, or butterfly tapping actually reduce distress
- How negative core beliefs, body sensations, and mental imagery anchor traumatic memories
- The truth about common concerns—fatigue, headaches, medication, and myths about EMDR being hypnosis or a “quick fix”
We also dive into complex trauma and C-PTSD, including attachment-informed EMDR, parts work, and the idea of “linchpin memories” that hold entire belief systems like I’m not safe or I’m unlovable. Laurel explains why dissociation may have once protected you, how to build grounding skills that keep you present, and how simple tapping techniques can reinforce positive experiences for long-term resilience.
Whether you’re a survivor exploring trauma therapy, someone curious about EMDR, or a listener searching for a grounded next step in healing, this episode offers a clear, compassionate, and practical guide.
If this episode helped you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so others can find it.
Laurel’s Links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/laurel-roberts-meese/
https://www.laureltherapy.net/
https://www.instagram.com/laureltherapycollective/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmtQve6GOsJt2z9XZ02nZA
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
- Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok @1in3podcast
- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
00:47 - Welcome And Guest Background
03:43 - Choosing Trauma Therapy As A Calling
06:58 - Early Work And Sexual Trauma Specialization
11:15 - Hospital Crisis Work And Reactions To Trauma
15:06 - Referrals And What Makes EMDR Different
18:47 - How EMDR Rewires Memory And Safety
24:20 - Preparation, Coping Skills, And Phases
29:34 - Targeting, Bilateral Stimulation, And Relief
35:11 - Feeling Safe In The Body, Not Just Mind
39:43 - Dissociation, Adaptive Coping, And Presence
44:29 - Side Effects, Medications, And Fatigue
WEBVTT
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Hi Warriors, welcome to One and Three.
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I'm your host, Ingrid.
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Today we're diving into a powerful healing modality that's been changing lives.
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EMDR therapy.
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Joining me is my guest Laurel, a licensed therapist, who's going to walk us through what EMDR is, how it works, and why it can be such an effective tool for trauma recovery.
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Here's Laurel.
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Hi Laurel, thank you for joining me today.
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Hi.
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So before we get into our topic, I would like to for you to give a background just so listeners can get to know you a little bit.
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Yeah, well, as therapists go, I'm kind of uh one of the weirdos in that I always knew this was the plan for me.
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That I always knew that I was going to be involved in helping people build their and identify their resilience, tell and reframe their story, and really make the journey from victim to survivor in some capacity.
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And I knew this at age 12 after I had my first therapy session.
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And that, you know, I know very few people that are still on plan A, my father being one of the only other people, because most of us have many careers in our lifetime.
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Um, but you know, knowing that early on, um, all the choices that I was making as a young adult were putting me on this path towards being a therapist and having this trauma specialty.
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And I think that's probably the most important thing for people to know because it feels like the most salient part of my professional identity is like this was plan A and no regrets at all.
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Yeah.
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That's crazy because at 12, I don't I don't know that I even thought about the future at all.
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And I know that I'm I laugh at myself because I went just I went on to become a nurse practitioner.
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But at one point in one of the yearbooks, I put that my goal was to be a housewife.
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So that was even after 12 years old.
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So it's pretty amazing that you already knew.
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I think I've always been a future-oriented person, which sometimes pulls me out of the present moment, which is not always a good thing.
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So aiming for more mindfulness.
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Right.
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I can relate to that.
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I'm always looking toward the future too.
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So okay.
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And is there a specific area of therapy that you were going for that you definitely wanted to get into?
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Um I had to dabble a bit because you don't know till you've done it if it's your thing.
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So uh in graduate school, I you you have to do a bunch of different placements, much like nursing, I assume you kind of do, you know, rotations.
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And um, I worked in a family medical clinic, which in California there's the public health insurance.
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So working with low-income families and kids, working in a middle school as the therapist.
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And that I I did have some regrets then.
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I was like, I don't know if I should have become a therapist.
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Like middle school is rough.
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But then I started working with adults, and I'm like, oh no, this is great.
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I love this.
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It's it's just those middle school years are rough.
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Oh yeah.
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I have I have two middle school boys right now.
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So yes, I can't.
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But um even before I was in graduate school, um, I I knew this was the path.
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And so I was a psych major and like looking at um wanting to get some more hands-on experience.
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And I ended up doing an internship at the local rape crisis center.
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Um, we don't call them that anymore.
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We usually give them a little bit more of a kind of vague name, but you know, it was right across the street from my college.
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I had a great relationship with the person that was supervising and training me there.
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And that really set me on the path towards working specifically with trauma and having somewhat of a niche in sexual trauma.
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I imagine that's a very specific niche.
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Um, not a lot of people specialize in those areas.
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But I also feel like it shouldn't be because, you know, one in three.
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Right, right.
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And, you know, if you're a therapist worth your salt, you have to be trained in trauma.
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And if you work with, I mean, I'm not even gonna say women, like you're going to encounter sexual trauma on your caseload.
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So I feel like I think probably a lot of therapists are have some skill.
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It's just not something that they've sought out like specific training and had specific experience around hospital accompaniment and like the kind of initial crisis period right after a trauma.
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But, you know, many of our clients come in with sexual trauma.
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Do you have you ever, even in your training or or now, have you had to go into hospitals or get calls or anything from emergencies?
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Very briefly, yes.
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I I I only went in a couple of times.
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Um, but I'm really glad that I had that experience.
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I think it helps to have that kind of like immediate aftermath experience to understand that like there's no normal in terms of how someone acts or behaves or thinks.
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Like there would be people who would be like laughing the whole time they were in the hospital, and some people who were completely dissociated, and there's some people who were like just so overwhelmed or like beside themselves, and and all of those are normal and okay.
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Right.
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So just understanding that you go into a part of your brain that is just you know reptilian.
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Oh yeah.
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And the people say that all the time, you know, everyone is always judging how others react to different traumatic events, you know, especially the ones that the big news ones.
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Um do you do people refer to you like if you are a therapist and you're seeing somebody and then you realize that this trauma might be too much for me, I need to refer them out to someone who specializes more?
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Sometimes, yeah.
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Um I mean, trauma tends to manifest in a way that like it's very rare that it would just like suddenly be uncovered because there would be symptoms that would be showing up in relationships or sleep or something like that we can kind of tell.
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So it would be pretty rare that it would surprise a therapist after they've already been working with them for a while.
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And um, but what I do see a lot of in my practice, and I actually have um multiple clinicians in my practice, we've just a very small little group, and we all specialize in EMDR therapy, which is totally research-backed, looks and feels totally weird, but it it does work.
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And we do get a lot of people that refer to us for adjunct EMDR work.
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So they'll be doing talk therapy with someone else and then coming for this very specific type of trauma processing with us.
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So, yes, that we definitely get plenty of referrals for because it's there's so much research specifically on EMDR for sexual trauma, um, that like you don't want to just be throwing spaghetti at the wall.
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Like you want to try something that's like very likely to work on the first try.
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Yeah.
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And I'm I'm glad that people are referring out to it and not trying to just, you know, watch a YouTube video and go and jump in and say, I can do it.
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It's actually a very nuanced modality.
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Like it looks very simple on the outside, but like the neurobiology of trauma and how do you actually rewire the brain, yeah, that that's that's gonna be more than watching a YouTube video.
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Right, right.
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Um, okay, so let's let's talk about EMDR because it is so detailed.
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Um, I I did it twice.
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Same therapist, uh two different memories, but um, and did it, it was amazing.
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So yeah, let's let's talk about it.
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Yeah, I love it.
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I love it because it feels I mean, it feels so good as a provider to have something that is so effective that people can often see like pretty tangible results quickly, and that actually allows them to like just feel free, to feel like they are like not carrying it around with them anymore.
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It's not that it's like we've erased the memory and it's like that eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
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It's not that, it's just like what happened was not okay, and I'm okay now, even though that happened.
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That's what EMDR does, like truly on like a body level, feeling that way.
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I'm okay even though that happened.
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So yeah, I love talking about it because it's it's incredible.
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Well, and so you mentioned rewiring the brain.
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So can you talk a little bit about what trauma does and then what EMDR hopes to do, I guess when you're when you're doing EMDR?
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Yeah, yeah.
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So interrupt me at any time that I start using like jargon.
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Okay.
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I'm gonna try and explain it like really simply.
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So when something that is a real or perceived threat to your safety or your livelihood or your kind of homeostasis happens, the brain categorizes it differently.
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It flags it and says, Oh, this is something important.
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We need to remember this.
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So it's kind of like putting a big, you know, red flag on this memory because we need to remember this to protect you in the future.
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And so you become hyper-vigilant because of this.
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And that hyper-vigilance, it's exhausting, it interrupts your sleep, it disrupts your relationships, and it can, I mean, I don't need to tell listeners how you know disruptive trauma can be.
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But if you're thinking if you kind of have this like cartoonish visualization of the brain, that there are these memories that have these big red flags on them, you're gonna devote disproportionate resources to those memories.
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Even if something is likely to never happen again, the brain is like, this is still important, this is still important, right?
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And what EMDR does is basically like take the red flag off of that memory and be like, you know what?
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Yes, we needed this information to protect us and to get through at the time.
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And we can also store this with all the other memories because we don't need your body to suddenly get totally like jacked up and activated every time you think about this.
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That's no longer necessary.
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So it really cuts that tie between the memory and that like physiological reaction that you have.
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So you can think about something upsetting and feel physically neutral.
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That's what EMDR can do by storing the memory in multiple places in the brain rather than just in that one flagged spot.
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Okay, so it like it sprinkles it out.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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And it ties it to other memories that are somewhat neutral to positive.
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So I like to say we create these little trauma islands, and once we find ourselves on trauma island, it's hard to get off that island.
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And EMDR either like gives you a boat or like builds bridges so that anytime you end up on the island, you can get off the island with no problem.
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You don't feel trapped and scared.
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Now, there's a little bit of work you need to do before you jump into EMDR.
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Yeah.
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To right.
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Yes.
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And actually for some people, it's a lot of work.
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But um, and this is actually the number one red flag that I would say if you're doing EMDR and your therapist skips this, that's a big problem.
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I totally understand the desire to get to the cool part of EMDR, which is the reprocessing, which is the thing with the eye movement or the tapping or the beeping or whatever bilateral stimulations being used, which we can talk about.
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But I get people wanting to get to the part where they're actually going to see some results.
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But the problem is if you've not done the prep work and you don't yet have coping skills to handle the intensity of EMDR, because EMDR hinges on you being able to fully access what happened without it being kind of muted or pushed away to like really sit with the discomfort of the memory.
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If you have not prepared at all and you have no coping skills and self-soothing strategies, EMDR is going to be too intense and you're likely to drop out and not want to continue and not see the benefit.
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So that preparation and resourcing phase, which EMDR has eight phases, and that's phase one and two.
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And some people think, oh yeah, I'll just come in and we'll like talk for a few minutes and then I'll move my eyes and then the trauma will go away.
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No, no.
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No.
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It I would say it's it's not super common, but um, we definitely have had people in our practice that we spend a year on those first two phases.
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Because um, with complex trauma, with relational trauma, particularly complex childhood trauma, you're not gonna have those coping skills ready to go.
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And it's gonna be way too difficult to just okay, let's talk about all your trauma.
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That's gonna be a really negative experience.
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So it is uncommon to spend that long, but I've definitely seen it a handful of times in the uh, let's see, almost seven years that I've been doing EMDR.
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Okay.
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And can you talk what happens when you get to the point of EMDR?
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The the processing.
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Yes.
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So um first you do what's called targeting, which is you you talk about the memory.
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Now, you don't have to be super detailed in what you tell your EMDR therapist.
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So if there's something that feels like, yeah, I just can't say it out loud, but it's very present in my mind and I'm very much with it, then then that's okay.
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But to to fully target something, you access the memory and then you identify the negative thought, the emotions, the body sensations, and the visuals that go with it.
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And um, please don't do this at home.
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You cannot self-EMDR.
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No.
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And then the therapist talks you through a series of exercises while there's either tapping or beeping or a light that you follow.
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Uh, and over time the intensity of the feeling around that target goes down.
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And if it doesn't go down, you're not doing anything wrong.
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Your therapist needs to figure out what what the stuck piece is.
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Um, because in an uncomplicated EMDR scenario, let's say I'll pick one that's unlikely to resonate with with listeners.
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Let's say uh a college athlete has an injury and they the their target is like lying on the field looking up and like their they can they know that their ACL is torn or something.
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And um they come into EMDR therapy and uh the disturbance they feel when thinking about lying on the field um is like an eight out of 10.
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And then over time, over several sessions, it gets down to a zero.
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And they can truly access the memory.
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They still remember it.
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They often say it's fuzzier, it's harder to access.
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They're like, Yeah, I mean, I know I was on the field, I know the grass was green, I know my teammates were there, but like I it's it's a lot blurrier to me now.
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And they can think about it and be like, yeah, but I'm still here in this room and like I'm actually kind of hungry and thinking about what I want to have for dinner, which usually when we think about a trauma, like we get hijacked back into the trauma.
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So it can go from a 10 down to a zero, and that's the goal.
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Now, always be honest with your EMDR therapist.
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Don't just say it's going down to a zero because you think it should.
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Like, be honest about the level of disturbance that you feel.
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Um, and that's of course a very textbook case.
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It goes from a 10 to a zero immediately, and it's definitely not usually within one session.
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Um, although sometimes.
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Yeah.
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I uh I remember my therapist asked how familiar I was with EMDR before we started.
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And I said, I'm a little bit, but the way my brain works is it will put a stop to anything if I can figure out what's supposed to happen.
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So I said, give me what I need to know.
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And but don't go into too much detail because otherwise my brain's just going to be like, no, we're not doing this.
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And you know, at first, good insight.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Oh, I know my brain's a pain in the butt a lot of times.
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Um, but I remember when we started at first and and she did the finger movement back and forth.
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And I remember watching and I was like, this is ridiculous.
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I know.
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Oh, it to I still feel that way, and I've been an EMDR therapist for years.
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Yeah.
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It it's totally bizarre.
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It is so bizarre.
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You you're gonna do what?
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And it's gonna make my trauma go away.
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Like it takes a lot of blind faith.
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And for people who, you know, if their trauma is, you know, a 10 out of 10, that is a big ask to like be that uncomfortable in a room with a therapist, and they're waving their hand saying it's gonna make it like it, it's absurd.
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It looks and sounds absurd.
00:18:36.380 --> 00:18:37.500
Yeah, it really is.
00:18:37.660 --> 00:18:42.220
And I remember thinking, like, yeah, yeah, I'm at my trauma and I'm there.
00:18:42.460 --> 00:18:56.619
And I'm like, but I'm not because because I'm not I'm blocking myself, and it took a while for me to really get into it, and um it's so emotional, like every single emotion, not all right away.
00:18:56.779 --> 00:19:06.859
This was multiple, multiple sessions, but yeah, yes, it went through um all sorts of emotions, emotions that I didn't even know were there.
00:19:07.099 --> 00:19:09.980
Um, but yeah, it was a very, very vivid memory.
00:19:10.220 --> 00:19:10.859
Yes.
00:19:11.420 --> 00:19:31.019
I think one of the strengths of EMDR is that it puts you into a feeling and reacting state that sometimes we mentally override, particularly, you know, people that are smart, academic, you know, driven, that we can be a a little cerebral.
00:19:31.180 --> 00:19:33.579
And that sometimes gets in the way of our healing.
00:19:33.660 --> 00:19:41.099
That if we actually tap into reactions and our body sensations, then we're like, oh yeah, yeah, there's something here.
00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:41.500
Yeah.
00:19:41.740 --> 00:19:42.859
Well, and that's what she kept saying.
00:19:43.019 --> 00:19:51.420
She's like, that was a lot of work that we had to do before we started EMDR was for me to recognize in my body when I was feeling certain things.
00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:58.460
And that was very strange for me because I'm a very head thinker, you know, everything's from my head.
00:19:58.619 --> 00:20:10.700
And so um tapping into actually the the feelings that my body was experiencing and where in my body and how to describe it, uh, that was very strange.
00:20:10.859 --> 00:20:14.220
Um, but it is like you said, you're in the present.
00:20:14.299 --> 00:20:21.019
So you do have to dive into that memory, but you know it's safe because you're not actually there.
00:20:21.740 --> 00:20:32.779
Well, and a lot of people don't feel safe because they they mentally go back into it and really feel fully in it and are having a very unsafe physical reaction.
00:20:33.099 --> 00:20:39.420
Um, but you can lot you can logically know you're safe and not feel safe.
00:20:39.819 --> 00:20:45.339
And I don't care if someone logically knows they are safe after a trauma.
00:20:45.579 --> 00:20:51.339
My goal is to get them to feeling safe, like actually believing with their body that they're safe.
00:20:51.500 --> 00:20:53.339
That's the goal of EMDR.
00:20:53.740 --> 00:20:58.859
Because we can all like logically look around and be like, yep, I'm in my house.
00:20:59.180 --> 00:21:09.740
And and yet, if you were to think of a car accident you were in, you would feel like you were in your car and it was happening, even if you logically know.
00:21:09.980 --> 00:21:18.700
So um, so yeah, it is that disconnect between what we logically know is true and what our body is telling us is true.
00:21:19.180 --> 00:21:29.259
And when we have a particular like mental defense against bridging that, uh, it it can be challenging.
00:21:29.420 --> 00:21:32.859
And EMDR is really good at overriding that.
00:21:33.259 --> 00:21:39.819
It also sounds uh maybe I I think I was picking up on like a little bit of dissociation that was happening.
00:21:40.059 --> 00:21:40.619
Oh yeah.
00:21:40.859 --> 00:21:41.420
Oh yeah.
00:21:41.740 --> 00:21:43.500
Which like no judgment.
00:21:43.579 --> 00:21:52.059
In fact, like let's thank dissociation for protecting us for so long because it is an adaptive coping strategy.
00:21:52.220 --> 00:21:58.460
Sometimes we have to dissociate to survive because the intensity of being in the present moment is unbearable.
00:21:58.700 --> 00:22:20.059
So, like, thank goodness dissociating is an option, and it can become maladaptive when it gets in the way of your life and enjoying like the depth of quality of relationships and work and like emotional presence with things, and it can interfere with trauma healing.
00:22:20.140 --> 00:22:36.619
Because if at the first sign, at the first sign of trauma you dissociate, well, yeah, then we really gotta build up that toolkit to handle um the intensity of the trauma so that we don't dissociate because we do have to be fully present with it to process it.
00:22:36.859 --> 00:22:37.420
Oh yeah.
00:22:37.579 --> 00:22:44.940
Um my my therapist had a lot of work cut out for her because you know, I got out of my relationship and I thought I was fine.
00:22:45.099 --> 00:22:49.660
I was like, oh, that was that was easy, you know, and carrying on life.
00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:53.019
And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, why is why are they saying that?
00:22:53.180 --> 00:23:03.980
Is that my true friends wondering what their intents were by intentions were by what they were saying, and like nothing was harmful.
00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:06.700
And then I realized I'm like, I don't think I'm okay.
00:23:06.940 --> 00:23:15.579
And so I went in, um, and I told her, I said, Listen, this happened and it's in a nice little box and it's up on a shelf in my brain.
00:23:15.819 --> 00:23:18.619
It's there, I know it's there, but I don't want to take it out of the box.
00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:20.220
I just want to leave it there.
00:23:20.539 --> 00:23:22.460
Like, let's just store it away.
00:23:22.700 --> 00:23:25.660
And yeah, it was a lot of work before we did EMDR.
00:23:25.740 --> 00:23:30.059
And then it got to the point she's like, Do you want to consider EMDR?
00:23:30.619 --> 00:23:49.019
And um, like when you said that light feeling, uh, the second time we did it was specific to that um trauma for my relationship, and it was all of a sudden just like this heavy weight just released, and I'm like, I almost feel like I'm floating.
00:23:49.259 --> 00:23:59.259
This is the weirdest feeling, and I couldn't, I was I had been crying profusely before, and then all of a sudden I'm smiling and I'm like, Whoa, this is the best feeling.
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