Module 9 — Desensitization and Reprocessing | EMDR Course
- Jun 5
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 8
Free Course by Everything IFS Academy | Therapeutic Modalities Series
Module 9 — Desensitization and Reprocessing
With the target set up and measured, the work reaches its center. The fourth phase of EMDR, desensitization, is the reprocessing itself: the part where a frozen memory is finally worked through and its charge drains away. It is the longest phase, the most distinctive, and the one the whole protocol has been building toward. This lesson covers how it unfolds: the rhythm of the work, what happens in the mind while it runs, the stance that makes it possible, and how strong feeling is handled when it arises.
The Basic Loop
At its core, desensitization is a simple, repeating cycle:
The person holds the target in mind, the image, the negative belief, and the feeling identified during setup, while a set of bilateral stimulation is delivered.
The set stops, and the therapist says something close to "go with that," or "what do you notice now."
The person briefly reports whatever has come up: an image, a thought, a sensation, an emotion, a new memory.
Without dwelling on it, another set begins, following wherever the mind has gone.
That report stays brief, often only a word or a phrase, enough for the therapist to follow where things are heading, and it can even be kept private when the material is too tender to say aloud. The processing happens internally, in the person's own mind, not in the telling, which is one of the ways EMDR differs from talk-based therapies: it does not depend on putting the worst of an experience into words.
That is the whole engine: a set, a brief check of what arose, then another set. What makes it work is that the therapist mostly stays out of the way. The instruction is not to figure anything out or to talk the memory through. It is to notice what happens and let the next set carry it forward. The processing is the person's own, and the therapist's job is largely to keep the rhythm going and to follow, not to lead.
Free Association and Channels of Association
The striking and powerful thing about desensitization is what the mind does on its own once the loop is running. It associates. Left to follow the sets without being steered, the mind jumps: from the original image to a related one, from a thought to a body sensation, from one memory to an older memory that shares its feeling. This spontaneous movement is called free association, and in EMDR it is not a distraction from the work. It is the work.
These chains of association have a name: channels. A channel is a line of connected material that opens from the target and runs until it reaches a natural stopping point, a resolution, a calmer thought, or simply a place where nothing more comes. When a channel plays out, the target is returned to, and often a new channel opens, leading somewhere else. Over a session, the memory is processed channel by channel, each one draining off a little more of the charge.
In the model's terms, this is the stuck memory finally linking up with the rest of the mind. The associations are the isolated network connecting to the adaptive information it was cut off from, which is exactly what reprocessing is meant to do. What looks like the mind wandering is the memory being metabolized. Some of what surfaces can seem to have nothing to do with the target, even memories not thought about in years. This is not the process going off track. Following where the mind goes, rather than dragging it back to the official memory, is part of how reprocessing reaches everything tied to the same wound.
The "Just Notice" Stance
For the associating to happen freely, the person has to take up a particular inner posture, and it is the opposite of how people usually approach a painful memory. The instruction is to just notice: to watch whatever arises without grabbing it, analyzing it, judging it, or trying to push it in any direction.
The classic image is a train. Material passes by like scenery seen from a moving train, the person watching it go without getting off to inspect any of it. Some clinicians use a movie instead, letting the memory play on a screen rather than climbing into it. Either way, the point is the same. The person stays in the position of an observer, letting the mind do its own work, rather than gripping the memory or steering toward an outcome.
This stance is what keeps the processing moving. The moment a person starts forcing a result, holding on to a thought, or arguing with what comes up, the natural flow stalls. Trusting the process enough to simply watch is, paradoxically, what lets it go somewhere. Noticing is active, and controlling is not required.
Returning to Target
Channels do not run forever. When one plays out and the associations settle, the therapist brings the person back to the original memory, the target set up at the start, and checks it again. This is where the SUD scale, the 0-to-10 measure of how disturbing the memory feels, comes back into use.
Returning to target does two things. It checks progress: is the memory less disturbing than it was, and by how much? And it reopens the work: if charge remains, holding the target again often launches a fresh channel, and the sets continue. This back-and-forth, follow a channel, return to target, check the number, follow the next channel, is the structure underneath the apparent free flow. The aim is to bring the SUD down to 0, the point at which the memory, brought fully to mind, no longer disturbs. When it holds there, the desensitization of that target is complete.
Abreaction and the Window of Tolerance
Reprocessing can stir strong feeling. As a memory is contacted and worked through, a person may cry, shake, feel a surge of fear or grief, or briefly re-experience some of the original distress in the body. This intense emotional release has a name: abreaction. It can look alarming, but in the right conditions it is often a sign that stuck material is finally moving.
It is also common for distress to rise before it falls. As reprocessing makes contact with material that has been sealed away, the SUD can climb, sometimes sharply, before it starts coming down, and a temporary spike is usually a sign the work is reaching something real rather than a sign of failure. Feeling worse for a stretch, inside a supported and carefully paced process, is very different from being made to suffer, and it is most often a stage on the way down.
The key word is conditions. EMDR is not built on the idea that a person should push through overwhelming distress, and that is a crucial distinction. The work is meant to stay inside what is sometimes called the window of tolerance: the zone in which a person can feel and process distress while still staying present, still aware of the room, neither flooded past coping nor shut down and numb. Inside that window, difficult emotion can be processed. Outside it, in full overwhelm, processing does not happen, and the person is only being re-traumatized.
So the rule is not endurance. It is regulation. The grounding built during preparation, the dual awareness that keeps a person anchored in the present, and the stop signal that lets a person halt at any moment all exist to keep the work inside that window. The feeling that something is becoming too much is not a test to be passed. It is information, and the right response is to slow down, steady, and return to the work when it is tolerable again. Strong emotion in EMDR is worked with carefully, never forced.
Below this lesson, you'll find an EMDR practice along with a few ways to begin noticing and practicing it in everyday life this week.
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