Stop Believing the Lies: Debunking EMDR Myths | Hey Tabi Podcast

🚨 Is EMDR just hypnosis? Is it unbiblical? Is it dangerous? 🚨

In this episode of Hey Tabi, we dive deep into the myths and misconceptions surrounding EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a powerful trauma therapy. If you've heard skepticism—especially from Christian circles—about EMDR, this episode is for you!

🔹 What You'll Learn:
✅ The science behind EMDR and how it rewires the brain
✅ Why the Veterans Administration and leading trauma experts endorse it
✅ How EMDR aligns with Christian faith and biblical healing
✅ Why it’s not hypnosis, New Age, or demonic
✅ How trauma is stored in the body and why healing must be holistic

💡 Additional Resources & Show Notes:
🔗 Learn more about EMDR: EMDRIA.org
🔗 Find an EMDR therapist: The Journey & The Process

👉 Subscribe for more trauma healing, faith-based mental health discussions, and practical strategies for recovery. Don’t forget to hit the LIKE button & share this with someone who needs it! 💙

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Hey Tabi Podcast
• 0:35 Understanding EMDR Therapy
• 2:48 How EMDR Works
• 7:16 Addressing Criticisms and Misconceptions
• 11:25 Integrating Faith and EMDR
• 18:22 Personal Stories and Experiences
• 21:57 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Welcome to Hey Tabi, the podcast where we talk about the hard things out loud with our actual lips. We'll cover all kinds of topics across the mental health spectrum, including how it intersects with the Christian faith. Nothing is off limits here, and we are not take two verses and call me in the morning.
I'm Tabitha Westbrook, and I'm a licensed trauma therapist, but I'm not your trauma therapist. I'm an expert in domestic abuse and coercive control, and how complex trauma impacts our health and well being. Our focus here is knowledge and healing. Trauma doesn't have to eat your lunch forever. There is hope.
Now, let's get going.
Welcome to this week's episode of Hey Tabi, I'm really glad that you are here with me today. We are going to talk about a question that I get asked a ton. So if you've already read that title, you know, we are going to be talking about EMDR. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which I know is a bit of a mouthful for people.
It was developed by Francine Shapiro,  gosh, back in the eighties. And she discovered that when she moved her eyes back and forth during,  processing a traumatic event that she actually felt relief. And like any good researcher, she tried it on all her friends first. And then decided to do a bunch of research studies.And what we found out is that it's actually really good for helping deal with traumatic events and helping folks process traumas that they have been through. And it has  Undergone quite a considerable amount of research over the years. So we are gonna talk about some of the myths and some of the lies that get spread about EMDR, especially among Christian circles.
I know that it can be a little bit of a controversial therapy for folks, so I wanted to talk about that and really explain a few things today. So full disclosure, I am EMDR certified. I am also an approved consultant. I have practiced EMDR in my practice for about the last 10 years now, and so I am very well versed in it, very well versed in the research, and I'm also very well versed in scripture.
So we are going to talk about all of those things here today. And I totally understand that folks might be skeptical about this or very nervous about it or not understand it. And I just want to tell you how well I have seen it work for clients. I have seen clients really be able to work through some hard things utilizing EMDR.And we're going to talk a little bit more about how and the why and what all that looks like. First of all, it is one of the evidence based trauma treatments and even the Veterans Administration says, hey, this is definitely one of the ways to go for post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, they were one of the chief folks to start using it with the veterans who had been traumatized in various situations.
Basically, what EMDR does is it sort of refiles your stuff and desensitizes it in your brain. So what happens is you don't forget, you don't forget bad things like bad things happened, right? But you basically refile them. The way that I describe it to clients. When trauma happens, it's like taking the file cabinet of your brain and shaking it up and dumping everything out on the table.
Nothing makes sense. Everything is everywhere, and you can just touch one part of it at any given point in time. What EMDR does is it really helps your brain kind of rewire and refile your stuff. So instead of all your papers being all over the place all the time, they go back into the filing cabinet in a way that makes some sense.The way that it works is this thing called bilateral stimulations. Basically, there's eight phases to EMDR and I'm not going to go through all of them.  I will have some links in the show notes for you so you can go take a look at all of that and understand all of the eight phases, but I really want to keep it more practical here.
 one of the phases is that reprocessing phase. So you're bringing up either bad memories, traumatic memories or feelings or sounds, or even smells. It doesn't necessarily have to be a memory and you don't necessarily have to talk about it. Although some clients Choose to.
And so when you do that, you are allowing your body basically to process all of the things that it didn't get to process in the moment when the trauma occurred or over the time that trauma occurred for complex trauma. And you're allowing it basically to digest through your system and to let your brain really kind of work with it and build some new neural pathways essentially.Since our bodies really keep the score when you think about how trauma works, right? It really does get written into our cells in a lot of ways. It's more of a bottom up than top down therapy. And let me explain that. So when I'm thinking top down, I'm thinking our prefrontal cortex, our thinky thinky part in the front of our brain.
And we can do that and engage that in talk therapy. And it is very good and can be very valuable. But when we have those body based traumas, when we have those things that are really, truly like we can have a  Smell or a taste or a memory and our whole body responds, we kind of need to go from the bottom up, which is the amygdala.
Our trauma is basically filed there and it doesn't have time, date, chronology, linear, anything, right? So if you like are asked to give a timeline and you've had a lot of trauma, you might get things out of order and that's really super normal. I always tell my clients that you are having a perfectly normal reaction to a very abnormal situation when you are having a trauma response to something. So with EMDR, we're really kind of going bottom up and we're going like from the amygdala forward. So we are engaging the prefrontal cortex, because we do have to have memories.
We're going to have a positive cognition or like the thing we're moving toward that that we need to believe,  as opposed to a lie that we might be believing and that sort of thing. But we are going to engage our bodies and our somatic experience in it as well. And that I think is what makes it a bit of a game changer for a lot of clients.When you are looking at the research for EMDR, we are finding that it stimulates neuroplasticity. So that is all of the rewiring that our brain can do. Way back when we used to think that the brain was like super static and like, that was it, that you had what you had. But we have found over time through things like functional MRIs, where we can  EEGs, which are like another like type of brainwave movement scan that we can see the brain actually changing. So it's one way before EMDR and it's a whole other way after EMDR. And that is really interesting because it's showing that the brain itself is changing through that intervention. And really, again, it's desensitizing. So it's reducing that emotional impact of whatever the event or events were for you.
One of the big criticisms and fears that I hear about EMDR is, well, you just don't need it, right? Scripture is sufficient for everything and you just don't need it. You just need to renew your mind with God. And I will put it to you this way that a biblical counselor friend of mine said to me, Scripture is sufficient, but it is not exhaustive, right?We cannot find every word that we talk about theologically in Scripture. Take, for example, rapture or Trinity or a lot of other things. They are not necessarily in scripture, but we can infer things about them. We can, but that doesn't mean that everything ever is in the Bible.
Now it is a wonderful guide. It tells us a lot of things. It definitely gives us what we need for life and godliness, but that doesn't mean that it gives us literally everything, right? Luke was a physician, and at one point, I'm pretty sure that Paul told Timothy, take some wine for your stomach, and so we know that there are things outside of scripture that can be helpful.
And EMDR is just one of them. And I think that scripture is amazing and I absolutely think that we should meditate on it. And I use it pretty often in EMDR with my clients when they want that. And it's really powerful in that way as well. So I'm not at all saying scripture isn't useful, but I'm saying it isn't necessarily only.When we look at healing, we have to look at it from an embodied perspective. Take two verses and call me in the morning is not going to be sufficient. In fact, it's spiritually bypassy and it really negates the pain for somebody and what their experience of things are. So we really do need to engage the body when we are healing trauma.
That is really important.
Also, just want to remind you that the brain is itself in the actual body. So I can't take my brain out and put it on a shelf or put it in a jar or, I actually have to know that my brain is part of my body and it is stimulating the neurochemicals that get released when I am traumatized. It's all interrelated.
And so healing needs to be all interrelated as well. Another criticism I sometimes hear is well, it's dangerous because it might unlock repressed memories. First of all, No good therapist is going to be leading in terms of memories. We are not going to be planting things. We are not going to be saying, Oh, this must have happened.
Now there are some constellations of symptoms that when I see them together, I might say, I think maybe there's something here on this, particularly, sexual abuse, developmental traumas, things like that. There are certain things that show up that make me go, I wonder if that's there.I'm not going to be the one to tell you that it's there. I'm not going to lead you in that direction. If you end up there, it's probably because it's true. One of the things that Victoria Ellis on my team talked about recently in a training that she did was that you can tell when a memory is basically authentic.
 Instead of becoming more agitated, usually people calm down. You may not like the memory that you had. You may not be super glad that you remembered something from a traumatic experience, but your body will settle. And that is the experience I've had with so many clients. And I'm also not super stressed most of the time, I really do trust that God is going to reveal what he intends to heal. I am pretty secure in that. Sometimes people don't have any memories and sometimes they do. And it's really up to the path that God has for them when they're healing. So I don't get real stressed about it. I've not had anybody remember something that wasn't accurate or wasn't really true.And there's enough stuff around it that we can verify that it's true. So, I don't really get stressed about that, and I'm certain that bad things could happen with therapists who don't know what they're doing, but generally speaking, I don't see a lot of that. Another criticism is that EMDR is new age or demonic, and I'm going to tell you it is none of that.
It is neuroscience, and I think it's really wonderful that as we understand more about how we are fearfully and wonderfully made, that we are able to really, I also just want to encourage that we're also not bringing up theology ideas or any of those things during EMDR. EMDR at its core for someone who is a Christian is taking a lie that you believe about yourself that is not founded in God's word and moving toward the truth of what God's word says about you.
And we do that all the time. Biblical counseling does that all the time, but they just do it a little bit differently. So I'm engaging the body, I'm engaging neuroscience as I do that, but I'm still within that normal biblical counseling realm, which is. It's a really interesting thing because I know that there are biblical counselors who would very vehemently disagree with me because the founder of EMDR was not a Christian, but I can tell you as a Christian who practices this, there's nothing outside of God's word that we do at all.
Biblical counseling often prioritizes finding sin. And I'm not saying that sin isn't a problem. I'm saying though that maybe a hyper focus on it in some cases, particularly around trauma is not helpful. If someone's been traumatized because of something that was done to them, that is not their sin. Now, there is obviously going to be sin in every person, right?We're human. That happens. But the trauma response is not sinful. It is not because of sin in the person that was traumatized. It's the sin of the traumatizer. And I think that we owe it to people to bring relief where we can. And  let's take care of the oppressed and the harmed and, help them heal versus anything else.
It also does help renew our minds. There is right in line with Romans 12:2. It is replacing things that are driven by trauma with truth. So, we are taking those thoughts captive, in essence, and holding them up to the Lord by allowing it to also process through our body, which again, we're fearfully and wonderfully made.
We also can look at Psalm 46:10, where it says, Be still and know that I am God. And really EMDR helps us regulate. It helps us settle in. It helps us connect with the Lord in a different way. I cannot tell you how many times I have been in the middle of EMDR with someone and they either invite Jesus, you know, into the space in a more tangible way.Just,  Hey, can you notice Jesus in the room? That sort of thing.  and have these powerful experiences with the Lord where he really does show up and does some things with them in ways that are utterly fascinating. And we know that Jesus himself cared for emotional wounds. He cares for all of us.
We are mind, body, and spirit, and the Lord cares about all of those pieces. And he is not deprioritizing our emotional health over our physical health. He thinks they're both equally important.
When we take away the ability or make it super fearful for someone to get good help, then we are spiritually bypassing their pain. We are just saying from this theological level, you should not get EMDR. There must be sin in your camp, which I would like to remind people was actually the fallacy that Job's friends had.
 Job asked a lot of questions, he was like, what is going on? What is happening? And they're like, Oh, there must be sin in your camp. There must be something,  they started off strong, like just sitting shiva with him. And then they were like, and what are you doing wrong? And at the end, if you read all the way through job, God goes, look, job, your friends, they don't know.And. So the Lord never chastises Job for asking questions, but he does chastise his friends for giving poor information. And when we just become sin detectors for someone, we are saying, what did you do to cause the trauma to you? And man, that is not how Jesus sees that at all. It also really helps folks crystallize and internalize their faith.
I have seen people working through really difficult traumas in EMDR and coming to a much deeper faith in God because they've had an experience with him through that process. That was opened up and made available because of the reprocessing that we were doing now. Look, could God do that any other way?
Yes, he can, but he chose to do it the way that he did. He chose to use the EMDR that we were doing. And I think that's wonderful. And I don't think that we should ever take a tool off the table for healing that the Lord would definitely call good. Faith and science here are not in opposition, and we see that all the time, but sometimes I think that we as the church, the big C church, can take that as only parts, right?The parts we're comfortable with versus the parts that we're not comfortable with. And look, I don't mind skepticism and I don't mind questions. I think that we should be good Bereans. I think that we should search scriptures. I absolutely think we should critically evaluate all kinds of things because if we don't, then I think we're not really doing the right thing there.
But what I will say is that when you sit in the room with a survivor and you feel the Holy Spirit enter that place and you watch somebody heal and you watch what the Lord is doing through this treatment. It really changes your perspective quite a bit. God created us, and if this is a tool that he used to help heal deep trauma, then that is a beautiful thing.
I have worked with so, so many clients. I'll just tell one story where I was working with a client and it was a really, really difficult trauma. It was incredibly heartbreaking and just so much deep harm for this individual. And we were doing some EMDR and the client invited Jesus to be more present and more obvious as we were working.And  What this particular client experienced and saw was so healing. The client noted that Jesus was looking at her with such care and kindness and love and weeping with her. And for this particular client, that was just huge, it was huge and it was healing. And the one thing she knew in that moment was, Oh, it's not my fault.
It's not my fault. It wasn't my fault. And Jesus wasn't okay with it. And that was super powerful and healing. And you might be saying, they're going, Oh, I mean, we could have gotten there so many other ways. This client couldn't, there was no way I was going to speak that over this client. And they're going to be like, Oh yeah, you're totally right.
Can't believe I didn't get that. Like talk therapy was not going to work for this person. They had done tons of it, but whatever was going on in that moment with the EMDR, as we were reprocessing the Lord used powerfully. And I think it is so unkind when we say, Oh, you can't do that because it feels a little bit sus or, well, the person who developed it wasn't a believer, but what about the person who's administering it?What if I am a believer and I most definitely am, and what if,  that is something the Lord chooses to use much like an MRI or an antibiotic or a run, right? Sometimes I go hiking with my clients because that is bilateral movement and we know from all the science that bilateral movement is really good.
If you notice someone rocking to feel better and to self soothe, that's bilateral movement. And the Lord has And I think it is a beautiful thing when we can use those things and take them before the Lord and say, God,  let's work toward healing.
And it. That is so incredibly powerful. Now, I know I'm probably not going to convince the purists who think, Oh, EMDR is just not a good thing. And it doesn't line up with scripture and all of that, but I really hope that you will take a look, a deeper look and see what it really is, not what you've heard.
It does not go against scripture. It is not wicked. It's definitely not new age or demonic or any of those things. It is powerful. Now does it work for every living person on the planet? No. That is why if you are a decent trauma therapist worth your salt, you will have a number of tools that you can use with clients.We use All kinds of things in my practice. EMDR is just one tool. We do a ton of body based therapy. We do a lot of experiential therapy. We do some talk therapy. There's narrative therapy. We have an entire toolkit. EMDR works for lots of people, but not for every people. And that's because people are different.
So good therapists are going to have a good toolbox. We're going to do our very best with the wisdom of God to meet our clients where they are. Like I tell clients all the time, we may be in the valley of the shadow of death, but we are not making camp.
We are going out the other side. And that is truly a gift. Look, I have no illusions. I am not the healer. I'm a guide. I'm a facilitator. God's the healer, and it is really amazing to be on the front lines and get to see that every single day. if you're skeptical about EMDR, get more information, reach out.I am happy to talk about it, obviously ask, search the scripture for yourself. Don't just take it because it was in somebody's white paper somewhere. And that's true of everything. Don't just take my word for this. Go and look and pray. James says that if we want wisdom, if we seek wisdom, we can ask for it.
And God will give it to us liberally and without reproach. So I hope that you found that helpful. I hope that was some good information on EMDR. There's so much more that I could have said. So maybe we'll do a follow up episode sometime. But if you have questions, please feel free to reach out. Otherwise, please like this 
Subscribe, follow it, and please do rate it on your favorite podcast platform. It really helps people find it, and I would love for the people who need this information to be able to get it. Until next time, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me, and I'll see you on the next episode of Hey Tabi!Thanks for joining me for today's episode of Hey Tabi. If you're looking for a resource that I mentioned in the show and you want to check out the show notes, head on over to Tabitha Westbrook. com forward slash Hey Tabi. That's H E Y T A B I. And you can grab it there. I look forward to seeing you next time.