Sometimes your past shows up uninvited. A smell triggers a memory. A sound makes your heart race. Your body remembers things your mind tried to forget.
EMDR therapy offers a way through these moments, but getting the most from it means showing up prepared. The questions you ask yourself before, during, and after sessions can shape your entire healing experience.
This isn’t about having perfect answers. It’s about being curious, being honest, and allowing yourself to explore what’s been holding you back.
EMDR Therapy Questions to Ask Yourself
These questions will help you prepare for therapy, track your progress, and understand what you need from the process. Use them as a starting point for deeper conversations with yourself and your therapist.
1. What memory keeps showing up when I least expect it?
Your mind has a way of flagging unresolved experiences. They pop up during quiet moments, stressful situations, or completely random times. This recurring memory is often your psyche’s way of saying, “Hey, we need to process this.”
Pay attention to which memory surfaces most frequently. It doesn’t have to be the “biggest” trauma or the most dramatic event. Sometimes the moments that seem small to others carry the heaviest weight for you. Write down what comes up repeatedly. Notice when it appears and what triggers it. This pattern gives you and your therapist a clear starting point for EMDR work.
2. How does my body react when I think about this experience?
Trauma lives in your body, not just your thoughts. Before you even start EMDR, tune into your physical responses. Does your chest tighten? Do your hands get cold? Does your stomach drop?
These bodily sensations are data points. They tell you where the trauma has taken up residence in your nervous system. During EMDR, you’ll work with these physical responses, so getting familiar with them now helps. Close your eyes and think about the difficult memory for just a moment. Where do you feel it? What changes in your body? This awareness becomes incredibly valuable during bilateral stimulation exercises.
3. What negative belief about myself stems from this event?
Here’s where things get real. Traumatic experiences often leave us with deeply ingrained beliefs about who we are. “I’m not safe.” “I can’t trust anyone.” “I’m powerless.” “Something is wrong with me.”
These core beliefs shape how you move through life, often without you realizing it. Identifying the specific negative cognition tied to your trauma is crucial for EMDR. Your therapist will ask about this, but starting to explore it on your own gives you a head start. What story did this experience write about your worth, your safety, or your place in the world? Name it. Own it. That’s the first step toward making a change.
4. Am I ready to feel uncomfortable for a while?
Let’s be honest about this one. EMDR isn’t a gentle, easy process, especially at the beginning. You’ll be deliberately bringing up painful memories and sitting with difficult emotions. Your nervous system might feel activated. You could have intense dreams or unexpected emotional moments between sessions.
This discomfort is part of healing, but you need to consent to it knowingly. Are you in a stable enough place in your life right now? Do you have support systems in place? Can you handle feeling worse before you feel better? There’s no judgment if the answer is “not yet.” Timing matters. EMDR works best when you have the internal and external resources to handle the process.
5. Who in my life needs to know I’m doing this work?
You don’t owe anyone an explanation about your therapy. But EMDR can sometimes make you emotionally raw, especially in the early stages. Having a few trusted people who understand what you’re going through can make a real difference.
Consider telling a close friend, partner, or family member that you’re processing some difficult material. You don’t need to share details about the trauma itself. Just a simple “I’m working through some heavy stuff in therapy, so I might seem a bit off sometimes” gives people context. It also creates a safety net for days when you need extra support or space.
6. What does safety feel like in my body right now?
EMDR requires you to establish a “safe place” or “calm place” that you can return to mentally during processing. Before your first session, practice accessing feelings of safety in your body.
Think of a real or imagined place where you feel completely secure. Maybe it’s a beach, a cozy room, or even a memory of being held by someone you trust. As you picture this place, notice the sensations. Do your shoulders drop? Does your breathing slow? This isn’t just visualization. You’re training your nervous system to access a state of calm on demand. The more you practice this before starting EMDR, the more effective it becomes during sessions when you need to regulate intense emotions.
7. What am I hoping will change after this therapy?
Get specific here. “I want to feel better” is too vague. What would “better” actually look like in your daily life?
Maybe you want to stop having panic attacks in grocery stores. Perhaps you want to sleep through the night without nightmares. You might want to stop flinching when someone raises their voice. Or maybe you want to feel connected during intimate moments instead of dissociating. Paint a clear picture of what healing looks like for you. These concrete goals give you and your therapist measurable outcomes to work toward. They also help you recognize progress when it happens, which can be easy to miss in the middle of hard work.
8. What coping mechanisms am I using right now, and are they actually helping?
Be brutally honest about how you’re currently managing your trauma responses. Some coping strategies are healthy. Others might be keeping you stuck.
Are you drinking more than you’d like? Avoiding entire categories of experiences? Working yourself to exhaustion so you don’t have to feel? These mechanisms served a purpose at some point. They helped you survive. But EMDR offers a chance to replace survival strategies with actual healing. Acknowledging what you’re currently doing, without shame, helps you understand what needs to shift. Your therapist needs to know about these patterns too, especially if any involve substances or behaviors that could interfere with processing.
9. Can I commit to staying present, even when I want to shut down?
Dissociation is a common trauma response. Your mind learned to “check out” during overwhelming experiences as a protective measure. During EMDR, you might feel that same urge to disconnect when memories get intense.
The therapy works best when you can stay present with the experience while processing it. This doesn’t mean white-knuckling through every second. Your therapist will help you titrate the exposure. But you need to be willing to practice staying grounded, even when every instinct screams at you to mentally leave. This is a skill you’ll build over time, but the intention to stay present matters from the start.
10. What evidence do I have that I’m stronger than I think?
You’ve already survived whatever happened. That fact alone proves your resilience. Before starting EMDR, take inventory of your strengths.
What challenges have you overcome? When have you surprised yourself with your own courage? What qualities helped you make it through difficult times? Maybe you’re determined. Or creative in finding solutions. Perhaps you’re deeply compassionate, even toward yourself on hard days. These strengths will fuel your therapy work. On days when processing feels too hard, you can look back at this list and remember that you have what it takes to see this through. You’re not starting from zero. You’re starting from already-survived.
11. How will I know if EMDR is working for me?
Set clear markers for progress before you start. This helps you evaluate whether the therapy is effective and prevents you from giving up right before a breakthrough.
Some people notice changes quickly. Others need several sessions before they see shifts. Progress might look like decreased intensity when you think about the trauma. You might notice physical symptoms lessening. Sleep could improve. Triggers might lose their power. Or you might find yourself naturally responding differently to situations that used to overwhelm you. Track these changes in a journal. Small improvements compound over time. Sometimes you’re making more progress than you realize, and having concrete data helps you see it.
12. What support do I need between therapy sessions?
EMDR doesn’t stop when you leave your therapist’s office. The processing continues, sometimes for days after a session. What resources do you need to have in place?
This might include a list of grounding exercises you can do when emotions spike. Maybe it’s having your therapist’s crisis number saved. Perhaps it’s scheduling lighter work days after therapy sessions so you’re not immediately thrown into high-stress situations. Think about practical supports like having comforting food at home, planning low-key activities for post-therapy evenings, or asking a friend to check in with you. Building this scaffolding before you start intensive trauma work makes the whole process more sustainable.
13. Am I willing to challenge the stories I’ve told myself about what happened?
Trauma creates narratives. You’ve probably spent years constructing a story about what happened and what it means about you. EMDR might shift these narratives in unexpected ways.
As you process memories, your perspective can change. You might start seeing the situation differently. Old beliefs might crack. The story you’ve carried might no longer fit. This can feel disorienting, even when it’s healing. Are you open to this? Can you hold your current understanding loosely enough that new insights can emerge? This doesn’t mean the facts change. But the meaning you’ve made from those facts might transform. That transformation is often where the deepest healing happens.
14. What resources do I already have that I haven’t been using?
Look around your life. What tools, people, or practices are already available to you that could support this work?
Maybe you have a friend who’s also in therapy who gets it. Perhaps there’s a yoga class you’ve been meaning to try that could help with body awareness. You might have a journal gathering dust that could become a processing tool. Or maybe there’s a walking path near your home where you could decompress after sessions. You don’t need to build everything from scratch. Often, the resources you need are closer than you think. They’re just waiting to be activated and integrated into your healing process.
15. How do I typically respond to emotional intensity, and what do I need to do differently?
Your habitual responses to strong emotions will show up during EMDR. Do you intellectualize? Do you minimize? Do you spiral into catastrophic thinking? Do you shut down completely?
Understanding your patterns helps you and your therapist anticipate challenges and plan for them. If you know you tend to dissociate, you can practice grounding techniques beforehand. If you know you intellectualize, you can work on staying in your body and feelings. If you catastrophize, you can develop skills for reality-checking in the moment. This self-awareness isn’t about judgment. It’s about preparation. Knowing your tendencies means you can actively work with them instead of being controlled by them.
16. What does “healing” actually mean to me?
This goes deeper than symptom reduction. What does a healed version of your life look like? Feel like? Sound like?
Maybe healing means waking up without dread. It might mean being able to talk about what happened without falling apart. Perhaps it’s feeling deserving of good things. Or being able to set boundaries without guilt. Your definition of healing is personal and valid, whatever it is. Getting clear on this helps you recognize when you’re moving toward it. It also helps you communicate with your therapist about what matters most to you. Not everyone wants the same outcomes, and that’s okay. Your healing is yours to define.
17. Am I prepared for the possibility that some relationships might change?
Here’s something people don’t always talk about. As you heal from trauma, you change. And as you change, some relationships might not fit anymore.
People in your life might be uncomfortable with your growth. Some might have been invested in you staying the same. Others might not know how to relate to this new, healing version of you. Certain dynamics that worked when you were coping might not work when you’re thriving. This doesn’t mean you’ll lose everyone. But some relationships will shift, and a few might end. Are you prepared for that possibility? Do you have people who will support your growth, even when it’s uncomfortable? Thinking about this now helps you handle it if it happens.
18. What would I do with my life if this trauma wasn’t taking up so much space?
Trauma consumes energy. It takes up mental real estate. It limits what feels possible. So what would open up if you processed it?
Would you take that trip you’ve been avoiding? Start that creative project? Pursue that career change? Enter into or deepen a relationship? Let yourself dream without the weight of unprocessed pain. This isn’t about putting pressure on yourself to become someone else. It’s about getting curious about what might emerge when trauma isn’t the main character in your story anymore. These possibilities can motivate you through the hard parts of therapy. They remind you why you’re doing this work in the first place.
19. How will I be gentle with myself when this gets hard?
EMDR will challenge you. There will be sessions that leave you exhausted. Days when you wonder if you’re making any progress at all. Moments when you want to quit.
Plan now for how you’ll treat yourself during those times. What does self-compassion look like for you? Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to rest without guilt. Perhaps it’s talking to yourself the way you’d talk to a good friend. It might be having a list of small comforts you can turn to when you’re depleted. Write these down. Make them concrete. On your hardest days, you won’t have the energy to figure out what you need. Having a pre-made plan for self-care makes it more likely you’ll actually do it.
20. What will I celebrate along the way, not just at the end?
Don’t wait until you’re “fully healed” to acknowledge your progress. Healing isn’t a finish line you cross once. It’s made up of countless small victories.
Maybe you stayed present through an entire EMDR session. That’s worth celebrating. Perhaps you noticed a trigger and used a grounding technique instead of spiraling. That counts. You might have had one fewer nightmare this week than last week. Progress. These moments might seem small, but they’re building blocks of transformation. Decide now how you’ll mark these wins. Will you tell someone? Write them down? Treat yourself to something special? Celebrating incremental progress keeps you motivated and reminds you that healing is happening, even when it doesn’t feel dramatic.
Wrapping Up
EMDR can genuinely change your relationship with your past, but it requires courage to face what you’ve been avoiding.
These questions aren’t about having perfect answers before you start. They’re about entering therapy with your eyes open, knowing what to expect and what to bring.
Start where you are. Answer what you can. Let the rest unfold as you go. Your willingness to ask these questions already shows you’re ready to do the work. That’s more than enough to begin.