EMDR terms,
explained simply.

Therapy has a dialect. If your therapist mentioned "resourcing with slow BLS before we pick a target," this page translates. Twenty terms you'll actually hear in EMDR, in plain client-friendly language — no jargon defined with more jargon.

EMDR

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — a structured, evidence-supported psychotherapy for trauma and distressing memories, delivered by trained clinicians across eight phases. Bilateral stimulation is one component, not the whole therapy.

Bilateral stimulation (BLS)

Rhythmic left-right stimulation — eye movements, alternating taps, or panning audio — used during EMDR to support dual attention while a memory is processed.

Dual attention stimulus (DAS)

Another name for bilateral stimulation, emphasizing its job: keeping one foot in the present (the stimulation) while the mind touches difficult material — attention split two ways at once.

Tappers / pulsers / buzzers

Handheld devices that vibrate alternately, one in each hand, delivering tactile BLS. Dedicated versions cost $100–$450; phone-driven setups such as Joy-Con controllers do the same job for less.

The butterfly hug

A self-administered BLS technique — arms crossed over the chest, tapping shoulders alternately. Developed by Artigas and Jarero for group work after Hurricane Pauline (1997).

Resourcing

Preparation work that builds positive internal states — safety, calm, competence — before trauma processing begins. Often paired with slow BLS to strengthen the state.

Resource installation

The specific procedure of strengthening a positive image, memory, or feeling with short, slow sets of bilateral stimulation.

Safe place / calm place

A guided-imagery resource: a vividly imagined place of safety or calm the client can return to for grounding, in session and between sessions.

Container exercise

A visualization for putting distressing material 'away' between sessions — an imagined container that holds what isn't being worked on right now.

SUD scale

Subjective Units of Disturbance — the 0-to-10 'how distressing is it right now' rating used to track how a target memory changes during processing.

VOC scale

Validity of Cognition — a 1-to-7 rating of how true a preferred positive belief feels, used when installing it.

Target

The specific memory, image, belief, and body sensation cluster selected for reprocessing in a given piece of EMDR work.

Reprocessing

The core of EMDR: revisiting a target memory in short sets with bilateral stimulation until it loses its charge and links to more adaptive material.

Body scan

An EMDR phase where the client sweeps attention through the body checking for residual tension linked to the target.

Window of tolerance

The zone of arousal in which a person can engage difficult material without shutting down or being overwhelmed. Grounding skills and titration keep work inside it.

Titration

Approaching difficult material in small, manageable doses rather than all at once.

Grounding

Techniques that anchor attention in the present — orienting to the room, breathing, the butterfly hug, slow BLS — used to settle activation.

Dissociation

A disconnection from the present — spacing out, numbness, unreality — that clinicians monitor for and manage during trauma work.

Eight phases

EMDR's structure: history-taking, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and reevaluation.

EMDRIA

The EMDR International Association — the professional body that sets training and certification standards for EMDR clinicians.

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