Why Isn’t EMDR Standard Practice Yet?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) has been around for decades and has consistently proven to be a powerful, efficient trauma treatment. It’s widely recognized as a breakthrough in psychotherapy—enabling therapists to help clients process trauma more thoroughly and with greater efficiency than many traditional methods.
Research and clinical experience have long supported EMDR’s effectiveness. By now, it seems reasonable to expect that EMDR would be a standard part of most therapists’ repertoires. But is it?
It doesn’t appear to be—at least not yet.
Trauma’s Central Role in Mental Health
Trauma—broadly defined to include loss, family dysfunction, neglect, and other adverse life experiences—is a root cause or major contributor to a wide range of emotional, behavioral, and even physical health problems.
Core therapeutic factors like empathy, warmth, and the therapeutic alliance are essential for successful therapy outcomes. But these common factors are not usually enough on their own. Research consistently shows that the most significant therapeutic change comes from facing and processing avoided emotional experiences—especially those tied to unresolved trauma.
When it comes to trauma-focused care, EMDR stands out. It is among the most cost-effective, efficient, and well-tolerated trauma treatments available.
So, why isn’t EMDR a standard part of therapy practice? Several factors may help explain this.
The Therapy Field Is Complex and Fragmented
Psychotherapy is not a unified discipline. Unlike medicine, where a new treatment can often be adopted with minimal disruption to routine practice, psychotherapy is extraordinarily diverse.
There are more than 1,000 recognized therapy approaches (many of which are not evidence-based), spanning orientations such as psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, humanistic, systemic, and more. Even therapists who describe themselves as eclectic tend to work within familiar combinations of these frameworks.
Integrating EMDR typically requires more than just adding a new tool—it often means adopting a new way of conceptualizing and delivering therapy. This can demand a significant investment of time, money, and training. For many therapists, especially those who already feel competent within their existing methods, that becomes a barrier to entry.
Additionally, many therapists function as generalists. They may not seek out trauma-specific training if their current approach seems to be helping, even if a trauma-focused method like EMDR could deliver deeper, faster, or more lasting results.
The Problem of Unfamiliarity: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
It’s common for therapists to hear about EMDR and assume they understand what it offers, but the method often surpasses expectations when experienced directly. Many practitioners don’t fully appreciate EMDR’s potential until they witness it in action or undergo it themselves.
Additionally, many therapists focus on trauma symptom management—using tools like mindfulness, DBT skills, yoga, or medication—or engage in more gradual trauma processing through traditional talk therapy. These approaches can certainly be helpful, but managing symptoms or slowly working around trauma isn’t the same as efficiently healing it.
Therapists who are seeing reasonable success may not feel compelled to seek out additional training. They may not realize that they could help their clients heal more quickly or completely. I can’t even begin to count how many times my clients, after experiencing EMDR, tell me, “I wish I had done this a long time ago.”
Training Is a Significant Commitment
Learning EMDR is a serious investment. It’s not just a protocol; it’s an entire trauma-focused treatment approach with its own theory, structure, and skillset. The cost, time, and effort required to learn and practice EMDR competently can be a hurdle—even for therapists who are experienced and interested.
That said, trauma is relevant to almost every mental health issue—whether anxiety, depression, addiction, anger, relationship difficulties, or something else. Having an effective trauma resolution method like EMDR is broadly applicable and worth the investment for many therapists.
For those seeking lower-cost or faster-to-learn options, emerging treatments like Progressive Counting (PC) and the Flash technique are showing promising research support. PC, for example, has demonstrated comparable effectiveness to EMDR in several studies and can be learned in less time.
Moving Toward Standard Practice
Given the central role trauma plays in so many mental health challenges, trauma-healing methods like EMDR—or similarly effective approaches—should ideally become a standard part of most therapists' skill sets.
The question is how to make these powerful methods more accessible:
Can training be made more affordable or flexible?
Can cross-disciplinary awareness be improved?
Can new, efficient trauma treatments be more widely disseminated?
Hopefully the field doesn’t need another thirty years to make this shift.
Interested in finding out more about my EMDR approach? Learn more about EMDR therapy here, or reach out to explore whether therapeutic work could support the personal changes you’re working toward.
Dr. Rosemary Rukavina is a licensed psychologist based in Burnaby, BC, specializing in EMDR and Couples therapy. She helps individuals work through trauma, anxiety, burnout, relationship issues, and other mental health concerns using evidence-based techniques. Dr. Rukavina offers a compassionate and grounded approach to support clients on their journey toward healing and growth. Learn more.
*This blog post was developed with the assistance of AI, which helped organize and enhance the content. The final content has been reviewed and refined to ensure it aligns with our values and to ensure it provides valuable insights to our readers.
