You’ve probably heard about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Re-processing), and the research supporting its effectiveness addressing symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and complex trauma (cPTSD). It might come as a surprise that EMDR can be effective for a much wider range of presentations including panic attacks and anxiety, and even Eating Disorders and food and eating concerns can be targeted with EMDR treatment.
What is EMDR?
EMDR is a trauma-focused therapy that helps the brain reprocess distressing memories so they reduce their emotional intensity. When we carry painful memories, they can shape the stories we tell ourselves: “I’m not worthy of love”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t trust my body”; “I’m not enough as I am”; “I can’t handle this”.
EMDR helps to interrupt personal narratives, allowing you to reconnect with memory from a place of self-compassion, enabling these stories lose their grip, allowing more helpful thoughts such as: “I’m safe [now]”; “I’m allowed to make mistakes”; “People who matter understand and love me”; “I’m enough just as I am.” By changing how we understand our past selves, EMDR re-processing can allow us to change beliefs about ourselves in the present.
How Can EMDR Help with Eating Disorders?
Eating Disorders and body image concerns are typically about much more than food. While we now know neurobiology plays a role, these challenges also often connect to early attachment wounds, childhood bullying, single or repeated incidents of trauma, or other painful experiences.
Restriction, binge eating, and harsh self talk are frequently powered by shame, fear of losing control, or deep beliefs about not being “enough”.
How EMDR Works With Eating Concerns
EMDR can be used to target self-beliefs and memories that perpetuate poor body image and/or eating concerns. EMDR doesn’t focus directly on food or eating behaviours, but rather focuses on healing the emotional wounds that drive patterns of behaviour. As those wounds soften, people often find it easier to:
- Make choices that support their wellbeing
- Eat with more freedom and flexibility
- Treat their body with kindness
- Access self-compassionate reframes, as opposed to self-criticism
This makes EMDR a powerful complement to other approaches like CBT-E, because it removes the emotional barriers that can make cognitive reframes and behaviour change feel out of reach.
EMDR and Embodiment
Our relationship with food and our bodies is deeply connected to how we think and feel. Unresolved emotional pain can show up in how we treat ourselves, through food restriction, over-control, or self-criticism. EMDR helps restore balance by calming the nervous system and allowing the body to feel safe again.
When your body feels safe and you’re more connected to your emotions, it can become easier to nourish the body with care rather than control, and to experience deeper self-acceptance.
What Happens During an EMDR Session
In EMDR, together with your therapist you identify memories or experiences that hold emotional charge. While focusing on these memories, you’ll engage in a technique called “bilateral stimulation”, which typically involves visually tracking your therapist’s hand movements side to side, like your eyes naturally do during REM sleep.
This technique works directly on the brain to overload working memory in a new way, enabling your brain to process the memory differently – with less emotional charge. You don’t have to relive the experience or describe past trauma in detail, but rather you observe it from a safer distance, allowing new insights and emotions to emerge. In EMDR you don’t even need to describe verbally to the therapist the content of the memory, making it more accessible or comfortable for some people (compared to other trauma-focused treatments).
Funding Considerations for EMDR Treatment
EMDR is a unique treatment requiring specific training, and it’s used by some of the Psychologists at Mind Body Well. As a stand alone treatment, EMDR is not included as as evidence based approaches approved by Medicare for use under an Eating Disorder Management Plan. EMDR is however included as an approved approach by Medicare under a Mental Health Care Plan.
If you’re unsure what this funding differentiation means in your circumstances, our intake team or your Mind Body Well therapist can assist you in exploring your options.