EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing — is one of the most researched, evidence-based ways to help stuck, distressing memories finally settle. When trauma keeps replaying, EMDR helps the brain do what it wasn't able to do at the time: file the memory as the past.
I'm Keeley Taverner, a Psychotherapist, BACP Accredited and author of Why Love Hurts. With 14 years as a psychotherapist and trauma-focused training including EMDR, I offer EMDR within an integrative practice — never as a standalone technique, always inside a relationship safe enough to do the work in. This page explains what EMDR therapy is, who it's for and how a course of EMDR with me in Marlow or online tends to look.
What is EMDR therapy?
EMDR is a structured, eight-phase psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. Using guided eye movements (or alternating taps or sounds) while you briefly hold a distressing memory in mind, it appears to mimic the brain's natural processing during REM sleep — letting the memory finish processing and lose its emotional charge.
NICE (the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and the World Health Organization both recommend EMDR as a first-line treatment for PTSD. It is widely used by NHS trauma services, military veterans' charities and trauma-focused private practice.
EMDR is most associated with PTSD, but it's used for a wider range of work: single-event trauma, complex trauma from childhood or long abusive relationships, distressing medical memories, accidents, panic anchored to specific events, and grief that's become stuck.
Who is EMDR therapy suitable for?
EMDR works well for many people — but not in every situation, and not without proper preparation. We'll talk it through carefully on a free consultation, and we'll never start EMDR processing until we both think you're ready. People who often find EMDR useful include:
- People with PTSD or trauma symptoms from a defined event or short period
- People with complex trauma from childhood or a long abusive relationship
- People whose trauma is mostly held as a felt sense rather than a verbal story
- People who've tried talking therapy and feel stuck on a specific memory
- People who want a structured, focused trauma piece alongside longer therapy
- People recovering from narcissistic abuse or coercive control
- People with grief that has become trauma-shaped
- People with anxiety, panic or shame anchored to specific moments
EMDR isn't usually the first thing we do. It's something we do once you have the steadiness to come back from it comfortably.
How EMDR works for PTSD and trauma
I follow the standard eight-phase EMDR protocol, embedded inside a wider integrative practice. In broad shape, an EMDR course usually moves through:
- History and planning — understanding what you'd like to work on and what's brought you here.
- Preparation — building grounding, resources and a steady-enough baseline so processing is safe.
- Assessment — choosing the specific memory or theme to work with and noting its current charge.
- Desensitisation and reprocessing — short sets of guided bilateral stimulation while the memory is held briefly in mind, with pauses to check in.
- Installation, body scan and closure — strengthening a more adaptive belief, checking the body has settled, and closing the session safely.
- Re-evaluation — checking the next session what's shifted and what's next.
EMDR doesn't erase what happened. It lets the memory become the past — instead of something that keeps insisting on being the present.
EMDR for trauma after toxic relationships
For many of the clients I see, the trauma wasn't a single event — it was sustained psychological harm inside a relationship. EMDR can be particularly useful for the specific moments that keep replaying: the row, the discovery, the look on their face, the day you left. It works alongside the wider trauma and PTSD counselling we do together, not instead of it.
Your EMDR therapist in Marlow & Buckinghamshire
I offer EMDR in person at The Courtyard, 60 Station Road, Marlow SL7 1NX — a quiet, private space a short walk from Marlow town centre and easily reached from Bourne End, Maidenhead, High Wycombe, Henley-on-Thames and the surrounding Buckinghamshire villages. If you've been searching for an EMDR therapist near me, I offer in-person EMDR therapy in Marlow and online EMDR across the UK, using adapted bilateral stimulation that's well-established in remote practice. Sessions are £250 and completely confidential.
The simplest first step is a free, no-pressure 30-minute consultation — a brief call to ask questions and see how it feels.
