1465 Route 31 South · Annandale, NJ
(551) 368-5648 We’re here 24/7
1465 Route 31 South · Annandale, NJ
(551) 368-5648 We’re here 24/7
Some teens can tell you exactly what happened to them and still can’t stop reacting to it. A car accident from two years ago makes them freeze at intersections. A friend’s death, a fight at home, or something they’ve never told anyone keeps coming back as nightmares, panic, or anger that flares over small things.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy for that gap between knowing and reacting. The goal is for a painful memory to feel like something that happened, rather than something still happening. At Portum Wellness & Recovery in Annandale, NJ, EMDR is one of the specialized therapies for teens we offer adolescents ages 13–17, provided by a trained EMDR therapist alongside individual, group, and family therapy.
In an EMDR session, your teen briefly holds a distressing memory in mind while following a back-and-forth stimulus: the therapist’s hand moving side to side, alternating taps on the hands or knees, or tones that switch between ears. Clinicians call this bilateral stimulation. After each short set, the therapist asks what came up and decides what to focus on next.
Your teen doesn’t have to describe the memory in detail or retell it out loud, which matters for teens who shut down when asked to talk. There’s no written homework between sessions. When EMDR is working, your teen still remembers the event, but it stops setting off the same fear, shame, or anger.
EMDR’s strongest research support is for trauma. The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) gives it a strong recommendation for children and adolescents with posttraumatic stress symptoms. It may fit if your teen:
Clinicians also use EMDR for anxiety, phobias, and some depression, though the research there is smaller and less settled than for trauma. For most teens, it’s one part of broader trauma treatment for teens, not a standalone fix.
EMDR asks a teen to stir up hard memories, so it works best once they have some stability. Our clinicians may hold off on reprocessing, or spend longer on preparation, when a teen is self-harming or having thoughts of suicide that aren’t yet under control. The same goes for a teen still living inside the trauma, such as ongoing abuse or an unsafe home, where safety planning has to come first. Heavy alcohol or drug use and frequent dissociation (checking out or losing time under stress) can also mean the groundwork takes longer.
In those cases, skills-based work like dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) often comes first to build coping tools, and EMDR can follow. Your teen’s clinician will explain the order and the reasons for it.
If your teen is in danger right now, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or call 911.
Families often ask how EMDR compares with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and DBT, the other structured therapies teens use most at Portum.
EMDR | CBT | DBT | |
Main focus | Distressing memories and the reactions tied to them | Thought patterns that drive anxiety and low mood | Intense emotions, self-harm urges, and relationships |
What your teen does | Holds a memory in mind during short sets of eye movements, taps, or tones | Spots and tests unhelpful thoughts, practices facing fears | Learns and practices four skill sets, often in a group |
Talking through the event | Little detail needed | Often done directly in trauma-focused CBT | Not the main focus |
Between sessions | No homework | Usually, such as thought records | Usually, such as skills practice |
Many teens use more than one. A teen might practice DBT skills in group while working through one specific memory with EMDR in individual sessions.
EMDR at Portum takes place in individual sessions within our outpatient programs, so your teen keeps the structure of group therapy, family sessions, and medication management if they need it.
EMDR follows eight standard phases, which in practice feel like three stretches of work. First, the therapist takes a history, often with a parent present, and chooses which memories to target. Next comes preparation, where your teen learns grounding and calming skills and practices them before any memory work starts. Then reprocessing begins, and each session ends with a plan for settling down before your teen heads home or back to class.
The number of sessions varies. A single event can sometimes ease in a handful of reprocessing sessions, while layered or long-term trauma takes longer. Parents stay in the loop, including what EMDR can stir up between sessions (vivid dreams or a tired, emotional evening) and what to do if it happens.
You can meet our EMDR therapist on our care team page.
If someone handed you this page, here’s the short version. You won’t be asked to tell the whole story to a stranger, and you set the pace. Before you touch anything hard, you’ll learn ways to calm your body down that work in a classroom too. You can stop a set any time with a signal you and your therapist agree on.
It depends on what’s being treated. Some teens notice a memory feels less intense after a few reprocessing sessions; teens with several or long-running traumas may need months. Preparation sessions come first and count toward that time, and the therapist checks progress every session.
EMDR is widely used with adolescents, and ISTSS recommends it for young people with PTSD symptoms. Side effects are usually short-lived: vivid dreams, new memories surfacing, or feeling drained after a session. The preparation phase gives your teen tools for those moments before reprocessing starts.
No. Your teen starts with a free, confidential assessment, and our clinicians recommend EMDR only if it fits what’s going on. Many families call without knowing what’s behind their teen’s symptoms.
We’re out of network with most major insurance providers. Some plans include out-of-network benefits for outpatient mental health care, and the fastest way to know is to verify your benefits. It takes about 2 minutes, it’s confidential, and there’s no commitment.
Call (551) 368-5648, day or night, to talk with an admissions specialist. We’ll ask what’s been happening, tell you whether EMDR or another approach makes more sense, and schedule a free clinical assessment at our Annandale office. Transportation assistance is available if getting to sessions is a hurdle.
