EMDR Therapy

EMDR Therapy London

EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing — is one of the most extensively researched trauma treatments available. At the Harley Street practice, Dr Jacquet offers EMDR with over twenty years of clinical experience in its application. He is an EMDR Europe-accredited practitioner at the highest level, having completed the full accreditation pathway including training, personal experience of the treatment, and supervised clinical practice.

What EMDR Treats

• Single-incident trauma — accidents, assaults, medical events
• Complex and developmental trauma
• PTSD and post-traumatic presentations
• Cumulative loss and prolonged adverse experience
• Childhood trauma and adverse early experience
• Anxiety and phobias with a traumatic component

How EMDR Works

EMDR works by engaging the brain’s natural processing mechanisms using bilateral stimulation — typically guided eye movements — while the client holds distressing material in mind. The process does not require the client to speak at length about the traumatic event, which makes it accessible for people who have found talk therapy difficult.

Over a structured course of sessions, memories that have remained frozen in a survival state begin to integrate. The emotional charge diminishes. The memory remains, but it no longer carries the same weight or triggers the same physiological response.

EMDR is also used as an adjunct to longer-term psychotherapy, where it can resolve specific material that talk therapy alone has not been able to move — allowing the wider therapeutic work to continue from a more settled ground.

EMDR at Harley Street — What to Expect

The first session is an assessment. Dr Jacquet will take a detailed history, identify the specific material to be processed, and prepare the client for the EMDR process. Preparation includes stabilisation techniques that can be used between sessions.

A standard EMDR course is typically eight to twelve sessions, though complex presentations require longer. Sessions are sixty to ninety minutes. Dr Jacquet works at a pace determined by the clinical picture — never rushing a process that requires careful containment.

“EMDR does not erase what happened. It changes what the memory does to you. After treatment, people often describe feeling as though the event is behind them rather than in front of them.”

— Dr Philippe Jacquet

EMDR therapy with 20+ years of clinical experience. Dr Philippe Jacquet is EMDR Europe-accredited at the highest level. See the full EMDR therapy London page.