What Is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach designed to help individuals process and heal from traumatic experiences, including those experienced during childhood or adolescence. EMDR works by engaging the brain’s natural healing mechanisms with bilateral stimulation (BLS) to reprocess distressing memories. For children who have experienced trauma, EMDR therapy provides a safe and structured way to address painful memories, reducing their emotional intensity and fostering healthier coping mechanisms. EMDR has been shown to be an effective psychotherapy for alleviating symptoms of anxiety, fear, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other trauma-related disorders.
To learn more about EMDR therapy for children or adolescents from a licensed and skilled EMDR therapist at Balanced Mind of New York, please contact us for a free and confidential 15-minute consultation.
How Does EMDR Work?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy works by helping the brain process traumatic memories that have become “stuck” in the nervous system. For children and adolescents, these unprocessed traumatic memories can manifest as emotional or behavioral problems. During EMDR, guided rapid eye movements, tactile taps, or auditory tones activate both hemispheres of the brain while the child recalls the distressing memory in small doses. This dual-attention process appears to mimic the brain’s natural REM sleep cycle, allowing traumatic memories to be processed and integrated into normal memory networks. As this occurs, the emotional charge associated with the memory diminishes, negative beliefs transform into positive ones, and symptoms decrease, allowing the child to respond to current situations adaptively rather than through the lens of past trauma.
How Is EMDR With Children Different From EMDR With Adults?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for children and adolescents follows the same eight-phase protocol as with adults but incorporates age-appropriate modifications to match developmental stages. For younger children, therapists often use creative approaches such as storytelling or play therapy elements to engage them in the process. The bilateral stimulation may involve butterfly taps, puppet play, or tactile alternatives instead of eye movements.
Sessions are typically shorter for children, with more frequent breaks. Older children and adolescents generally engage in a process closer to the adult protocol but may benefit from more concrete examples and technology integration. Throughout the process, parents or caregivers play a much more significant role than in adult EMDR, often participating in sessions and supporting the therapeutic work at home, especially with younger children who may not have the verbal or cognitive abilities to fully articulate their experiences.
What Is a Typical EMDR Session Like?
A typical EMDR session for a child or adolescent begins with establishing safety and comfort in the therapeutic environment. The EMDR therapist will check in about the child’s or adolescent’s current emotional state and review coping skills practiced in previous sessions. Depending on the treatment phase, the session might focus on history-taking, preparation (learning self-regulation techniques), or active processing. During processing phases, the child or adolescent focuses on a specific memory or issue while experiencing bilateral stimulation. For younger children, this might be incorporated into play or storytelling.
Throughout the session, the EMDR therapist checks in frequently with the client to review symptoms. The child reports any changes in thoughts, feelings, body sensations, or other symptoms. Sessions typically last 30-45 minutes for children (compared to 45-90 minutes for adults) and conclude with a “closure” phase using calming techniques to ensure the child or adolescent leaves feeling regulated and safe.
Is EMDR Safe for Children and Adolescents?
EMDR is generally considered safe for children and adolescents when conducted by specially trained clinicians who have expertise in child development and trauma. EMDR for children has minimal side effects compared to some pharmaceutical interventions, with temporary increases in emotional distress during processing being the most common concern.
Therapists carefully titrate exposure to distressing material based on the child’s tolerance and developmental stage. The structured, phased approach allows clinicians to proceed at an appropriate pace and stop if a child becomes overwhelmed. However, EMDR should only be conducted after a thorough assessment determines it’s appropriate for the child’s specific circumstances, and it may need to be modified or postponed for children with acute psychiatric instability.
EMDR Treatment For Childhood Trauma
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment for childhood trauma addresses both acute traumatic events and the cumulative impact of ongoing adverse experiences. The approach is particularly effective because it doesn’t require children to extensively verbalize their traumatic experiences, which is often difficult for young people who lack the vocabulary or emotional awareness to describe complex trauma. Instead, EMDR allows for processing through sensations, images, and feelings. EMDR typically targets specific traumatic memories but also addresses attachment injuries and negative core beliefs that may have formed as a result of trauma.
For complex childhood trauma, treatment often progresses from establishing safety and building resources to processing traumatic events in a sequential manner, starting with less distressing events and gradually addressing more difficult experiences over several sessions. Traumatic stress studies have shown EMDR can significantly reduce symptoms of trauma in children, including nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance behaviors, and emotional dysregulation, often in fewer sessions than traditional talk therapy approaches.
Autism
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy can be beneficial for children with autism by helping them process traumatic or distressing experiences that may exacerbate their symptoms. For children with autism who struggle with emotional regulation, sensory sensitivities, and anxiety, EMDR provides a structured approach to addressing underlying traumatic memories without requiring extensive verbal communication. By using bilateral stimulation techniques adapted to accommodate sensory sensitivities, EMDR can help these children reduce anxiety, improve emotional regulation, decrease challenging behaviors, and potentially enhance their ability to engage socially and learn new skills.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
For children with ADHD, EMDR therapy can be particularly helpful in addressing the emotional components that often accompany the condition, such as low self-esteem, frustration, and negative self-beliefs developed from repeated failures or criticism. By targeting distressing memories and negative cognitions related to their ADHD symptoms and experiences, EMDR can help reduce emotional reactivity, improve self-regulation, and enhance focus.
The structured therapeutic approach of EMDR aligns well with the needs of children with ADHD, as it provides clear expectations and incorporates physical movement through bilateral stimulation, which can help maintain engagement during sessions and lead to improvements in attention, impulsivity control, and overall functioning.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
For children and adolescents with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), EMDR offers a particularly effective treatment option that addresses the core symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and hyperarousal. Young people with PTSD often experience developmentally-specific manifestations of these symptoms – nightmares may feature monsters rather than realistic trauma content, hypervigilance might appear as behavioral problems or difficulty concentrating in school, and avoidance may present as refusal to participate in previously enjoyed activities.
EMDR is effective in treating PTSD by reprocessing distressing memories that trigger these symptoms, reducing their emotional intensity and transforming related negative beliefs. This therapeutic approach is especially valuable for children with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because it doesn’t require detailed verbal descriptions of traumatic events, which can be retraumatizing or simply beyond young children’s verbal abilities.
Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DESD)
EMDR therapy offers a promising approach for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), a condition characterized by difficulties forming healthy emotional attachments due to severe neglect or maltreatment during early development. It is also an effective therapy for Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DESD), a condition characterized by overly familiar behavior with strangers and a lack of appropriate social boundaries resulting from severe neglect or disrupted attachments in early childhood.
EMDR can address the underlying traumatic experiences that contributed to their attachment difficulties while simultaneously building new, positive attachment experiences. The EMDR therapist begins with extensive resource development and stabilization before any trauma processing, focusing on installing positive experiences and strengthening the therapeutic relationship. When working with RAD or DESD, EMDR therapists typically incorporate attachment-focused modifications, potentially involving parents and caregivers in the treatment process to foster healthy attachment patterns, appropriate boundaries, greater security, and improved relational capacities.
Abuse or Neglect
EMDR therapy provides a particularly effective treatment approach for children and adolescents who have experienced neglect or physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, addressing both specific traumatic incidents and the pervasive effects of chronic maltreatment. For these young people, EMDR helps process the traumatic events while simultaneously targeting the negative self-perceptions that often develop in response to abuse.
EMDR with children typically progresses carefully, with substantial preparation and resource-building before addressing the most distressing experiences. For children with ongoing or recent abuse histories, safety planning and stabilization take precedence, with trauma processing beginning only when the child is in a secure environment. EMDR is an effective therapy that can reduce abuse-related symptoms including anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and traumatic stress, while improving self-esteem and social functioning, often more rapidly than traditional talk therapy approaches for this vulnerable population.
Loss of Parent or Caregiver
EMDR therapy offers significant benefits for children and adolescents coping with the loss of a parent or caregiver, whether through death, abandonment, incarceration, or other forms of separation. This therapeutic approach helps young people process both the traumatic aspects of the loss itself and any complicated grief reactions that may have developed. For children experiencing grief, EMDR can target distressing memories related to the loss as well as everyday triggers that provoke intense emotional responses.
EMDR for grief in children often incorporates age-appropriate modifications, including the use of drawings, storytelling, or play elements to help express feelings that may be difficult to verbalize. EMDR can reduce complicated grief symptoms in children and adolescents, helping them move toward healthy mourning while maintaining an appropriate internal connection to the lost caregiver.
Severe Illness or Invasive Medical Procedures
EMDR therapy provides valuable support for children and adolescents who have experienced trauma related to severe illness or invasive medical procedures. Young people undergoing medical care often develop traumatic responses to painful procedures, frightening hospital environments, or the loss of control they experience during treatment. EMDR helps process these medical traumas by targeting specific memories of traumatic events, such as painful procedures.
For children with ongoing medical conditions, EMDR can be integrated into their overall care plan, with sessions timed appropriately around treatments to avoid overwhelming an already taxed system. The therapy often includes medical personnel as targets for installation of positive resources, helping transform children’s relationships with healthcare providers from fear-based to trust-based. EMDR can significantly reduce medical trauma symptoms in pediatric patients, including procedure-related anxiety, anticipatory fear, depression, and medical non-compliance, while improving quality of life and psychological adjustment to chronic health conditions.
Accidents or Natural Disasters
EMDR therapy effectively addresses trauma in children and adolescents who have experienced accidents or natural disasters, events that can shatter a young person’s sense of safety in the world. Whether dealing with car accidents, falls, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, or floods, EMDR helps process both the frightening sensory experiences of the event itself and its aftermath, including injuries, displacement, or loss. The therapy targets not only the explicit memories of the disaster but also implicit, body-based memories that may manifest as physical reactions to reminders of the event.
How Do I Find a Suitable Child EMDR Therapist?
Finding a suitable accredited therapist for your child begins with looking for practitioners who hold dual qualifications: specialized training in both EMDR therapy and child/adolescent mental health. Start by consulting the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) or licensed psychotherapists, social workers, clinical psychologists, or counselors in your area, some of whom specialize in working with children. When evaluating potential therapists, inquire specifically about their experience treating children in your child’s age group and with similar presenting issues. Ask about their approach to modifying EMDR for children and how they involve both you as a parent/caregiver and the child in the treatment process.
Important questions include how they establish safety and rapport with young clients, their methods for explaining EMDR to children, and their typical treatment timeline. Consider practical matters like location, scheduling flexibility, and insurance coverage, but prioritize finding someone with whom your child feels comfortable. Finally, remember that the therapeutic relationship is crucial for successful treatment, so arrange an initial consultation to assess the fit between your child and the therapist before committing to a full course of therapy.
How Do I Pay For EMDR Therapy?
At Balanced Mind of New York, we offer multiple payment options to fit your needs and budget.
In-Network Insurance Provider: Balanced Mind of New York is proud to be an in-network provider for clients covered by Aetna insurance plans.
Out-of-Network Insurance Provider: For all other insurances, we provide superbills for reimbursement. We will contact your insurance company to confirm your eligibility and benefits, including the reimbursement rate for each session. We will also guide you through the process of sending superbills to your insurance.
If you have an out-of-network plan, any reimbursements will be sent directly to you from your insurance provider. Insurance typically reimburses 50-80% of the fee, but note that each policy is different.
Self-Payment Options: If no insurance coverage is available, clients may choose to pay for services out of their own pocket. If you need to pay out of pocket, we offer a sliding scale as part of our commitment to providing affordable care.
We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and HSA/FSA cards.
Contact Balanced Mind of New York to learn more about payment options and take the next step toward healing.
