EMDR therapy has a structured format.
In the first session of EMDR therapy, we discuss the following:
what is happening currently in your life
important parts of your history
your goals for therapy
what kinds of resources and support you have in your life
Depending on your needs, we may take some time to establish additional strategies that can help you feel grounded and able to manage overwhelming emotions. This is a very important part of the process, because EMDR sessions may feel emotionally challenging. We want to pace therapy so that you have the tools you need to feel grounded and emotionally safe at the end of every session, and between sessions too. We may spend a few sessions just focusing on this part, which can be very helpful and healing.
The next stage of therapy involves using structured questions to identify specific things to focus the reprocessing on, and we use a specific order to address these things. A few important notes about working with traumatic memories: you do not have to talk about details of a distressing memory out loud, nor do you need to explore or discuss every detail or aspect of a traumatic or stressful memory.
The use of eye movements (or other forms of bilateral stimulation such as self-tapping your shoulders) will then be introduced, to support the emotional processing stage of therapy.
Although the structure of the EMDR therapy model is helpful, sometimes we need to adapt the sessions or process, according to your needs that may arise. The number of sessions required to do EMDR is not specific, but can be anywhere from 4-20 sessions, depending on the issues we are working with. 90 minute sessions can accelerate the process.
Another helpful source of information can be found on the EMDR International Association website: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/