EMDR Glossary:

Common Vocabulary Clients Will Encounter in Therapy

curated by EMDR International Association
https://www.emdria.org/

Acculturation Stress
The psychological impact experienced when adapting to a new culture, often including identity conflict, isolation, and pressure to assimilate.

Acute Trauma
Trauma resulting from a single incident.

Adaptive Information Processing Model (AIP Model)
The Adaptive Information Processing (AIP model) is the underlying theoretical model of EMDR therapy. It guides clinical practice, explains psychopathology, and predicts EMDR treatment effects. One of the important premises of the AIP model is that the body has an intrinsic capacity for psychological self-healing. The AIP model hypothesizes that current difficulties are caused by disturbing experiences that are inadequately processed and improperly linked memories that hinder our brain’s ability to process information. The AIP model provides a framework for treatment, understanding development of pathology, making associations, coming to a resolution, and guiding future actions.

The AIP model explains that clients are not biologically broken but rather overwhelmed by past experiences and circumstances. Effective reprocessing of disturbing experiences using EMDR treatment can reduce or eliminate symptoms by accessing neuro-physiological networks that contain adaptive information and allow for a more positive and empowering view of self in relationship to past events. Treatment results and improvement in one’s mental health are posited to be the byproduct of adaptive reprocessing.

When an event has been sufficiently reprocessed, clients remember it but do not experience the old emotions or sensations in the present. Clients are informed by their memories, not controlled by them (Shapiro, 2018).

Affect Dysregulation
Difficulty managing emotional responses to situations or stress.

Attachment
The emotional bond formed between individuals, particularly between children and caregivers, which can be impacted by trauma.

Bilateral Stimulation
Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) in EMDR Treatment typically means alternating lateral (side-to-side) eye movements and/or alternating auditory or tactile stimulation, which has been shown to enhance information reprocessing (Amano, T., & Toichi, M., 2016; Hase, 2021; Laliotis et al., 2021).

Channels of Association
Channels of association refer to the various pathways through which a target memory connects to related experiences, sensations, emotions, images, and/or beliefs. These connections might be revealed in consciousness during the reprocessing of EMDR therapy. Reprocessing of these channels is evident when the forms of information (such as images, emotions, thoughts, sounds, sensations, or beliefs) change while the client focuses on the target memory. Some clients experience these shifts through the awareness of related events or a series of insights. Many clients experience different associations between sessions. The clinician should provide appropriate reassurances for the client's comfort when needed but should also aim to let the reprocessing proceed without unnecessary interference (Shapiro, 2018).

Chronic Trauma
Trauma resulting from repeated and prolonged exposure to highly stressful events.

Collective Trauma
Trauma experienced by a group of people, community, or society, often due to war, disaster, or systemic violence.

Community Healing
Collective, culturally grounded processes that address trauma through shared rituals, storytelling, ceremony, and support.

Complex Trauma
Exposure to multiple, varied traumatic events, often of an invasive, interpersonal nature, typically over a long period.

Cultural Humility
A lifelong process of self-reflection and learning, acknowledging power imbalances and striving to understand and respect clients’ cultural identities and experiences.

Cultural Safety
Creating a therapeutic environment where clients feel safe expressing their cultural identity without fear of discrimination or judgment.

Cultural Trauma
The impact of historical and systemic oppression, marginalization, or violence experienced by a group, affecting collective identity and functioning.

Developmental Trauma
Trauma experienced in childhood that affects physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development.

Dissociation
Dissociation is a mental disconnection from one’s thoughts, emotions, memories, body, sense of self, or sense of identity. It is often a protective mechanism that develops in response to trauma, enabling individuals to distance themselves from overwhelming or traumatic experiences. It is typically the downregulation version of an abreaction. While it can be adaptive in the short term, unresolved dissociation can interfere with trauma reprocessing.

EMDR Treatment
EMDR treatment is the broad term used to describe the umbrella encompassing EMDR psychotherapy, EMDR treatment protocols, and EMDR derived techniques. They are used in various contexts and treatment settings with diverse populations and are integrative, client-centered, and based on neurobiological principles and established theory. They are rooted in the Adaptive Information Processing model (AIP), which provides the theoretical framework and principles for treatment.

Feeder Memory
An earlier memory that contributes to a client’s current problem and blocks the reprocessing of other memories. Feeder memories can be identified using direct questioning, floatback, or affect scan, and targeting them can get the processing moving again.

Flashback
A sudden, intense re-experiencing of a past traumatic event.

Flashforward
A flashforward refers to a distressing or catastrophic future-oriented thought or image that triggers anxiety, fear, or avoidance. It is an irrational and anticipatory imagined scenario of something bad happening in the future (Logie, R.D.J. & Jongh, A.D., 2014).

Grounding Techniques
Strategies used to help individuals stay connected to the present moment and reduce dissociation or distress.

Hypervigilance
A state of heightened alertness and sensitivity to potential threats.

Indigenous Healing Practices
Traditional ways of addressing trauma and restoring balance, which may include ceremonies, connection to land, storytelling, and involvement of elders.

Intergenerational Trauma
Trauma passed down from one generation to the next, often through behaviors, attachment styles, or epigenetic changes.

Intrusive Thoughts
Unwanted, distressing thoughts, images, or memories related to the trauma.

Memory Networks
A memory network is an interconnected system of related information. Although the exact appearance of memory networks is unknown, we can metaphorically imagine them as a series of channels where related memories, thoughts, images, emotions, and sensations are interconnected (Shapiro, 2018).

Microaggressions
Subtle, often unintentional, discriminatory comments or behaviors that can accumulate over time and contribute to trauma, particularly in marginalized communities.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
A mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event, causing flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety.

Racial Trauma (Race-Based Traumatic Stress)
The emotional and psychological harm caused by experiences of racism, discrimination, and microaggressions.

REM Sleep
Stickgold (2002) proposed that bilateral stimulation puts the brain into a mode of memory processing similar to REM sleep, which then helps the brain to integrate episodic traumatic memories into general semantic networks.

Reprocessing
The “R” in EMDR refers to reprocessing. Reprocessing refers to the process (phases four to six) facilitating the brain’s ability to link distressing memories and experiences with more adaptive information. The reprocessing component largely relates to the spontaneous, adaptive connections achieved as the target memory is desensitized resulting in symptom relief, positive changes to thought quality and beliefs, and/or a sense of closure from a traumatic event. Reprocessing to an adaptive resolution is the goal of EMDR Treatment.

Resourcing
Resourcing refers to the activities during Phase 2, Preparation, which focuses on building coping skills and strategies to tolerate and manage challenging emotions or memories. The term comes from using the client’s existing resources or developing new resources. These resources, including guided imagery, mindfulness, or simple practices like deep breathing, are used during and outside sessions to promote state change.

Safe/Calm Place
Safe/Calm Place is a resourcing exercise whereby the client is guided to identify positive imagery and other associated good thoughts, emotions and body sensations which evoke a feeling of safety or calm. This exercise assists the client to strengthen access to this state of mind which can become a positive internal resource for the client when needed. It is recommended as part of Phase two: Preparation to reassure clients they can recover emotional stability during any disturbance.

Secondary Traumatic Stress
Symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that result from indirect exposure to trauma (e.g., hearing detailed trauma accounts).

Set
A Set is the period of time the client is engaged in bilateral stimulation during reprocessing. This includes round trip passes of eye movements or other forms of bilateral stimulation, i.e., tactile and auditory, that lasts for an average of 20 to 60 seconds but may vary.

Somatization
The expression of psychological distress through physical symptoms.

State Change
State Change is a temporary shift in one’s emotional state facilitated by a change in focus of attention. This is achieved through the use of resourcing or coping exercises. For example,  using a Safe/Calm Place to shift from a state of relative distress to a state of relative calm.

Target Memory
A target memory is any life experience identified during treatment for reprocessing. The client considers these memories disturbing by the client and are identified as contributing to present symptoms. These memories are worked on during assessment and reprocessing phases of EMDR treatment; however, alternative target memories may take priority as treatment progresses, or other associated memories not previously identified may arise.

Three-Pronged Approach
The Three-Pronged Approach refers to the principle of EMDR psychotherapy that identifies and reprocesses (a) Memories of past adverse life experiences that underlie present problems, (b) Present-day situations that elicit disturbance and trigger maladaptive responses; and (c) Anticipatory future scenarios that require adaptive responses.

TICES Log
A tool to help clients become more aware of their internal experiences and to record disturbance that occurs between sessions, generally on a chart. TICES stands for trigger, image, cognitions, emotions, and sensations.

Trait Change
Trait change refers to a sustained or permanent shift in an individual’s personality, viewpoint, or perception. It occurs when a client reprocesses and reshapes their relationship to a memory or resolves a traumatic experience.

Trauma
Trauma refers to an emotional and psychological response to an event or a series of events that exceeds an individual’s ability to cope either by direct experience or witnessing (indirect) exposure.

These event(s) impact thought quality, behavior, emotions, neurological fight/flight/freeze/fawn reactivity, or other aspects of functioning and healthy regulation. This can result in lasting symptoms of fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or others and disrupts a person’s belief about themselves or the world around them. Traumatic experiences may be singular events or chronic and persistent environmental states, which include human actions (e.g. rape, accidents, war, oppression, childhood abuse), natural forces (e.g. earthquakes), sudden or unpredictable losses (e.g. death of loved one), and medical experiences (e.g. medical diagnosis, progression of symptoms).

Triggers
Internal or external cues that remind someone of a traumatic event and provoke a response.

Vicarious Trauma
Emotional residue from exposure to others’ trauma, often experienced by caregivers or professionals.

Window of Tolerance
The optimal zone of arousal where a person can function effectively; outside of it are states of hyperarousal and hypoarousal.

Working Memory Hypothesis 

The hypothesis posits that bilateral stimulation overloads working memory capacity, causing the target image to diminish/fade due to the competition for limited resources. The belief is that the brain struggles to retain the vividness of the traumatic memory while also focusing on the bilateral stimulation, which causes it to become less distressing over time (van den Hout, et al., 2012).