Key takeaways:
- EMDR therapy helps individuals reprocess traumatic memories to reduce emotional distress and regain control.
- Scientific research shows EMDR can cut PTSD symptoms by up to 50% and reduce addiction relapse triggers linked to unresolved trauma.
- Buckeye Recovery Network utilizes EMDR within its outpatient programs, combining it with holistic care approaches such as CBT, fitness, and family support.
EMDR is especially effective in treating complex trauma and shame that often underlie addiction, promoting lasting emotional healing.
Most individuals who have gone through trauma or addiction become stuck in a cycle of flashback symptoms, racing thoughts, and cravings that make recovery difficult. EMDR is a therapy process that reprocesses the traumatic memory, decreasing the emotional intensity and allowing the individual to regain control.
Clinical study demonstrates that EMDR therapy has been proven to reduce PTSD symptoms by as much as 50% and reduce relapse stimuli connected with addiction, particularly those linked to unresolved emotional pain. This reduces suffering, which gets in the way of recovery.
Imagine your traumatic memories being rewired weeks from the start of treatment. You can then apply real-life recovery skills in a supportive, family-style outpatient environment. Buckeye Recovery Network in Huntington Beach, California, features a compassionate staff that guides you through this transformation, enabling you to build resilience and achieve long-term recovery.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is an effective therapy that assists in dealing with trauma. In EMDR therapy, the therapist has you move your eyes or uses tapping or sounds while you remember upsetting or traumatic experiences. This allows your brain to process the said memories in a less upsetting manner.
EMDR was created in 1987 by psychologist Dr. Francine Shapiro and has been backed by more than 35 scientific PTSD studies. The World Health Organization and the US Department of Veterans Affairs recommend EMDR as a premier treatment for trauma. It is among the most researched therapies.
At Buckeye Recovery Network, our therapists are trained in EMDR to help patients heal deep-rooted trauma that can lead to addiction. By working through these memories, patients can break the cycle of self-medication, strengthen themselves, and recover from addiction.
How Does EMDR Therapy Work? Inside the Eight Phases
How does EMDR therapy work to create such profound changes? The treatment follows eight distinct phases, each designed to build safety, process trauma, and strengthen positive beliefs about oneself.
The process begins with history taking and treatment planning, where you and your therapist map a “roadmap” of trauma hotspots and current triggers. During preparation, you’ll build safety and coping skills through grounding, breathing, and resourcing techniques that ensure you feel secure throughout the process.
Assessment involves pinpointing specific images, beliefs, emotions, and body sensations connected to traumatic memories, rating the distress on a scale from zero to ten. This baseline measurement helps track progress throughout treatment.
The heart of reprocessing EMDR therapy occurs during desensitization, where your therapist guides sets of eye movements while you notice whatever surfaces. This bilateral stimulation helps the brain process stuck memories, gradually reducing their emotional charge. Installation follows, strengthening positive beliefs to replace negative self-perceptions like “I am powerless” with empowering thoughts such as “I can handle it.”
Body scanning clears any leftover tension from head to toe, while closure returns you to a calm state at each session’s end using the coping skills you’ve learned. Finally, reevaluation checks progress at each visit, adjusting targets until distress stays at zero or one.
Many Buckeye clients complete a full EMDR sequence in six to twelve weekly sessions, often alongside Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and holistic activities like boxing or surfing for whole-person healing.
Evidence of Effectiveness: Research and Real-World Outcomes
The question of whether EMDR therapy truly effective has been answered resoundingly through extensive research. A large VA review found EMDR delivered the “strongest recommendation” among trauma therapies and typically achieved significant PTSD relief within three months. A 2024 randomized trial reported greater than 80% symptom reduction versus wait-list controls, demonstrating the therapy’s remarkable power to transform lives.
For individuals struggling with both trauma and addiction, EMDR’s effectiveness extends beyond post traumatic stress disorder treatment. Unresolved trauma serves as a primary driver of relapse, creating emotional triggers that lead people back to substances as coping mechanisms. By lowering the emotional “charge” of painful memories, EMDR can decrease craving intensity linked to trauma cues, improve mood and anxiety levels, and boost engagement in outpatient programs.
At Buckeye Recovery Network, clinicians consistently observe that processing a single traumatic event often unlocks breakthroughs in group therapy and life-skills practice. This cascade effect demonstrates how addressing core trauma can accelerate overall recovery progress across multiple areas of life.
The therapy proves particularly valuable for dual-diagnosis recovery, where PTSD, depression, or anxiety overlap with substance use disorders. Rather than treating these conditions separately, EMDR addresses the underlying trauma that often connects them all, creating more comprehensive and lasting healing.
EMDR in Buckeye Recovery Network's Comprehensive Care
Buckeye Recovery Network integrates EMDR across several outpatient levels, ensuring clients receive trauma-informed care regardless of their treatment intensity needs. The Partial Hospitalization Program provides up to six hours per day of trauma-informed groups with twice-weekly medical oversight for medication support, creating a robust foundation for EMDR work.
The Intensive Outpatient Program and Evening IOP offer three hours a day with flexible schedules, making EMDR accessible to those balancing work or educational commitments. After 45 days in IOP, clients become eligible for vocational coaching, demonstrating how trauma processing through EMDR supports practical life rebuilding.
Outpatient treatment provides step-down support as clients gain independence, with EMDR sessions spaced to accommodate work and family life. This graduated approach ensures that trauma processing continues as clients transition back to independent living.
Because Buckeye Recovery Network operates as a family-run organization, clients never feel like “just another number.” Weekly family updates, alumni mentoring, and sober living partnerships through The Chadwick House for women and Ohio House for men wrap each EMDR course in genuine community support.
Addressing Complex Trauma in Addiction Recovery
EMDR’s effectiveness extends to various forms of trauma that commonly underlie addiction. Childhood abuse, neglect, accidents, military combat, domestic violence, and medical trauma all respond well to EMDR processing. Many clients discover that what seemed like separate issues—anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and substance use—actually stem from unprocessed traumatic experiences.
The therapy proves especially powerful for addressing shame, a core emotion in both trauma and addiction. Traditional talk therapy might intellectually address shame, but EMDR helps clients feel the shift at a visceral level, replacing shame-based beliefs with genuine self-compassion and empowerment.
Buckeye’s EMDR clinicians work collaboratively with medical staff to ensure clients are stable enough for trauma processing. While contraindications are rare, untreated psychosis or mania may require stabilization first, demonstrating the center’s commitment to safe, individualized care.
Getting Started with EMDR at Buckeye Recovery Network
EMDR therapy at Buckeye Recovery Network begins with an initial consultation with our therapists for each patient. This helps us develop an optimal treatment plan for each patient and individualize it accordingly.
Along the journey, staff assess substance use, trauma history, co-occurring mental illness, and support system. This enables us to create personalized treatment plans tailored to each patient’s unique needs.
In the initial sessions of EMDR, patients are taught grounding and self-regulation skills to ensure their safety during therapy. These skills are adjunctive to EMDR and may help manage stress, cravings, and emotional difficulty in recovery.
Buckeye’s EMDR therapy is nicely complemented by evidence-based therapies such as CBT, Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT, fitness, and family therapy, which provides a comprehensive treatment that takes into consideration trauma, addiction, mental health, and life skills.
In Huntington Beach, the center provides a serene and recovery-friendly environment. Clients can continue their beach walks and surfing outside while undergoing indoor EMDR therapy. It is easier for them to recover and feel relaxed by mixing beach activity with trauma therapy.
Take the Next Step Toward Healing
EMDR isn’t magic, but it represents a scientifically proven way to calm the past so you can embrace the present. At Buckeye Recovery Network, licensed EMDR clinicians, warm family culture, and comprehensive outpatient programs provide a safe foundation for lasting freedom from trauma and addiction.
The center’s commitment extends beyond treatment completion through robust alumni services, ongoing family support, and connections to the broader recovery community. This long-term approach recognizes that healing from trauma and addiction requires ongoing support and community connection.
Ready to experience the relief that EMDR can provide? Contact Buckeye Recovery Network’s Huntington Beach team today to begin your recovery journey with expert guidance, evidence-based care, and the genuine family support that makes lasting transformation possible.
FAQs
Many people notice relief within 6–12 sessions, though complex trauma may need more time.
Yes—when delivered by trained clinicians, EMDR is gentle and pairs well with other outpatient treatments.
Virtual EMDR is possible, but Buckeye recommends in-person sessions for richer support and safety.
You’ll recall them briefly, but bilateral stimulation quickly lowers distress so you stay grounded.
Most major plans cover EMDR as part of outpatient mental health benefits; our staff will verify your coverage for free.
