EMDR Therapy in Berlin, NJ

A memory that still makes you flinch is not a weakness. It is an unfinished process. EMDR is a method for finishing it.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing sounds strange the first time someone describes it, and the name does not help. The method is well defined, the guidelines behind it are strong, and its place in addiction treatment is specific: it treats the trauma that is driving the use, so the substance has less work to do. This page explains how EMDR works, what the evidence supports, when it is the wrong time, and how it fits at South Jersey Recovery Program in Berlin, NJ.

What is EMDR?

EMDR was developed by the psychologist Francine Shapiro, who published the first controlled study in 1989. It is a structured, trauma-focused psychotherapy delivered in eight phases.

The working theory is that a traumatic memory can get stored in a raw form: the images, body sensations, and beliefs from the event stay linked and unprocessed, so a present-day cue can bring the whole package back. EMDR pairs brief, focused attention on the memory with bilateral stimulation, most often a therapist’s fingers moving side to side that you follow with your eyes, sometimes alternating taps or tones. Over repeated short sets the memory loses its charge and gets refiled as something that happened rather than something still happening.

EMDR does not erase the memory. It changes what the memory does to you.

Exactly why the eye movements help is still argued in the literature. The clinical result is not. That is common in medicine, and it is a reason to trust the trials rather than the theory.

What happens in EMDR sessions?

The eight phases, in the order they run:

Phase	What happens
1. History	Your therapist maps the memories, triggers, and beliefs that matter, and decides together with you if the timing is right
2. Preparation	You learn grounding and calming skills first, so you have an exit at every step
3. Assessment	You pick one target memory and name the image, the negative belief (“I am powerless”), the body sensation, and the belief you would rather hold
4. Desensitization	Short sets of bilateral stimulation while you notice what comes up, with no need to narrate every detail
5. Installation	The preferred belief is strengthened against the memory
6. Body scan	Checking for residual tension linked to the memory
7. Closure	Every session ends stable, whether or not the target is finished
8. Reevaluation	The next session starts by checking what held

Phase 2 is the one people skip in their imagination and the one that matters most in addiction treatment. Nobody here processes trauma in the first week. Stabilization comes first.

Why do trauma and addiction travel together?

Because substances work. Alcohol quiets hyperarousal. Opioids blunt everything. Stimulants push through numbness. For a person carrying an unprocessed trauma, the substance is the first thing that ever reliably made the intrusion stop, and that lesson gets learned fast and deep.

The connection shows up in the population data. In the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, PTSD was associated with elevated lifetime rates of substance use disorders (Pietrzak and colleagues, 2011). In clinical practice, people carrying both conditions are generally harder to keep in treatment, which is why the two get treated together here rather than in sequence.

Treat only the substance, and the reason for the substance stays.

Treat only the trauma while the use continues, and the work does not hold.

That is why trauma-focused treatment belongs inside addiction treatment rather than after it. Our trauma therapy page covers the wider approach; EMDR is one of the specific tools inside it.

What does the research say about EMDR?

For post-traumatic stress disorder, the evidence is strong. The 2023 VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for PTSD gives its highest recommendation to three manualized psychotherapies: prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and EMDR, and recommends them over medication. The World Health Organization’s 2013 guideline reached a similar conclusion. The American Psychological Association’s 2025 guideline is the outlier: it rates EMDR second-line, behind cognitive processing therapy, prolonged exposure, and trauma-focused CBT. Read together, EMDR is a well-supported PTSD treatment, and it is not the only one.

For substance use itself, the evidence is much thinner: small pilot studies rather than large trials. So we do not present EMDR as an addiction treatment. We use it to treat the PTSD that is fueling the addiction, which is the claim the evidence actually supports. Verify the fit with the clinical team at your assessment; EMDR is a strong answer to a specific problem, not a general one.

When EMDR is the wrong time

Trauma processing is demanding, and there are situations where starting it would do harm:

• Active withdrawal or the first days of abstinence, when the body and mind are not stable enough for the work
• Ongoing daily use, because the processing does not consolidate and the person often uses to manage what the session stirred up
• Acute suicidal thinking. If you are in immediate danger or someone has been hurt, call 911. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 before anything else
• Unsafe living situations, where the trauma is still happening

In those cases treatment starts with stabilization, skills, and often medication assisted treatment, and EMDR waits until the ground is solid. Waiting is not refusing. It is sequencing.

Where EMDR fits at South Jersey Recovery Program

We are an outpatient provider in Berlin, NJ. We do not offer medically supervised detox or residential treatment; if you need either, we will say so and help arrange it.

EMDR is delivered in individual therapy, inside whichever level of care you are in. It works alongside CBT for the thinking that surrounds the use and DBT skills for tolerating what comes up between sessions. In partial care and intensive outpatient, the daily structure gives the processing somewhere to land. In outpatient care, EMDR often continues after the structured programs end, because trauma work has its own timeline.

Questions people ask about EMDR

Do I have to describe the trauma in detail?

Less than in most trauma therapies. EMDR asks you to hold the memory in mind, not to narrate it. Many people choose it for exactly that reason.

What if I do not remember the event clearly?

EMDR can work with fragments, body sensations, or the belief the event left behind. A complete narrative is not required.

How many sessions does EMDR take?

A single-incident trauma sometimes resolves in a handful of sessions once preparation is done. Repeated or childhood trauma takes longer, and the pace is set by stability, not by a calendar.

Is EMDR hypnosis?

No. You are awake, in control, and can stop at any point. Nothing is suggested to you.

The bottom line

The memory is not the problem. What the memory still does to you is.

The substance was the first thing that made it stop. EMDR is a way to make it stop without the substance.

Call (856) 788-6914 or contact us online to ask whether trauma-focused treatment belongs in your plan. The assessment is free, and we can verify your insurance on the same call.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense. VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder, 2023.
• World Health Organization. Guidelines for the Management of Conditions Specifically Related to Stress, 2013.
• American Psychological Association. Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Adults, 2025 update.
• Pietrzak RH, Goldstein RB, Southwick SM, Grant BF. Prevalence and Axis I comorbidity of full and partial posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States: results from Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 2011.
• Shapiro F. Efficacy of the eye movement desensitization procedure in the treatment of traumatic memories. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 1989. doi:10.1002/jts.2490020207

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This page is for general education and is not a substitute for individualized medical advice. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988. For free, confidential treatment referrals, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.