Calgary EMDR Therapy

No — and this is one of the biggest things that sets EMDR apart from traditional talk therapy. You don't need to describe the event in detail, narrate it out loud, or repeat the story session after session. EMDR works at the level of the memory's emotional charge and the body's stored response, not the verbal content. Most clients share only brief details about what happened.

During processing, intense feelings or sensations can surface for short stretches, but they usually settle within minutes — not hours — and your therapist is trained to keep you grounded throughout. If something becomes too activating, your therapist pauses the bilateral stimulation right away and uses stabilization techniques you practiced in earlier sessions.

It depends on whether you're processing a single event or layered, ongoing trauma:

• Single-incident trauma (a car accident, a medical event, a one-time assault): often processed in 3 to 6 sessions, with a total course of 4 to 10 including preparation and integration.
• Complex or developmental trauma (childhood neglect, ongoing abuse, attachment trauma): typically 12 to 20+ sessions, because multiple memory networks need processing and the nervous system needs time to integrate each one.
• Specific phobias or single-target distress (performance anxiety, dental fear): can sometimes resolve in 3 to 5 sessions.

The first 1 to 2 sessions go to history-taking, stabilization, and resourcing. Actual reprocessing doesn't begin until your therapist confirms you have the regulation tools to do it safely — which is why EMDR is rarely shorter than about 6 sessions total, even for a straightforward case.

Yes — and what most people notice is normal processing, not a side effect in the medical sense. Your brain keeps integrating the memory between sessions, so for 24 to 72 hours afterward you might notice:

• Fatigue or feeling unusually sleepy (very common)
• Vivid dreams or new dream content as the brain consolidates
• Emotional sensitivity or feeling more tender than usual
• New memories or insights surfacing unexpectedly
• Mild physical sensations like tension release or a brief headache

These usually resolve within 1 to 3 days. What is not typical — and should be reported to your therapist right away — is persistent flashbacks beyond 72 hours, severe sleep disruption, dissociation that doesn't lift, panic attacks, or any thoughts of self-harm. EMDR follows a structured protocol with built-in stabilization specifically to keep these outcomes rare, and at Curio your therapist gives you grounding tools to use between sessions before any reprocessing begins.

Yes — virtual EMDR is well-supported by research and works for most clients, particularly for single-incident trauma, performance anxiety, and phobias. Your therapist guides bilateral stimulation through on-screen visual cues, audio tones (with headphones), or self-tapping techniques like the butterfly hug, all of which produce the same therapeutic effect as in-office eye movements. We offer EMDR in-person at our Beltline Calgary office and securely online across Alberta.

In-person may be the better fit if you have a complex trauma history with significant dissociation, if you don't have a private and reliably uninterrupted space at home, or if your nervous system needs the embodied co-regulation of being in the room with your therapist. Your therapist helps you decide which format suits your case during the preparation phase.

Each approach works on a different layer of the problem:

• CBT works top-down — you identify and restructure unhelpful thoughts, then change behaviour. Strong for anxiety, depression, and current-day patterns; less effective when trauma is stuck in the body and logic alone hasn't helped.
• Traditional talk therapy explores meaning, relationship patterns, and emotional understanding. Excellent for self-awareness, life transitions, and grief.
• Somatic therapy works bottom-up — through body sensations, breath, and nervous system tracking. Strong for chronic dysregulation and embodied trauma responses.
• EMDR is a structured protocol that targets the specific memories keeping you stuck, using bilateral stimulation to help the brain finish processing what got frozen at the time of the event.

In practice these are often combined. At Curio, EMDR-trained therapists frequently weave somatic and attachment-based work into EMDR, because trauma rarely lives in just one layer. Your free 20-minute consultation is the right place to figure out which approach fits your situation.

EMDR therapy at Curio Counselling is $230 per hour with a Registered Provisional Psychologist and $230 per hour with a Registered Psychologist. For context, the Psychologists' Association of Alberta's recommended rate is $235 per 50-minute session, so our rates sit below the Calgary average.

Because EMDR starts with a preparation phase before any reprocessing, your first one or two sessions are billed at the same hourly rate but focus on history-taking and building your coping tools. Every new client can also start with a free, no-obligation 20-minute consultation to make sure the therapist and the approach are the right fit before booking a full session.

Often, yes — EMDR isn't billed as a separate service; it's billed as a psychology session, so coverage follows your therapist's designation. Most extended health and employee benefit plans in Alberta cover sessions with a Registered Psychologist or Registered Provisional Psychologist, which is who provides EMDR at Curio. Alberta Health Care does not cover private therapy.

Before your first session, confirm three things with your insurer: your annual maximum, your per-session reimbursement amount or percentage, and whether your plan covers a Registered Provisional Psychologist as well as a fully Registered Psychologist. We provide receipts with all credentials listed so you can submit your claim.

EMDR is recognized as an evidence-based trauma treatment by the American Psychological Association and the World Health Organization, and it has a strong safety record when delivered by a trained therapist. The eight-phase protocol is built around stabilization first, so reprocessing only starts once you can regulate what comes up.

It isn't a one-size-fits-all entry point, though. EMDR usually needs a longer, more careful preparation phase — or a different starting approach — when someone is in active crisis, experiencing significant dissociation, managing active substance dependence, or living with certain medical or neurological conditions. None of these rule EMDR out; they change the pacing. That's exactly what the preparation phase and your free consultation are for: your therapist screens for these factors and builds the plan around your nervous system rather than pushing past it.

No. EMDR doesn't erase memories, and it doesn't plant new or false ones. You keep the memory and the facts of what happened — what changes is how the memory feels. Reprocessing lowers the emotional charge so the event stops hijacking your body and your present-day reactions.

Most clients describe it as the memory moving from something that still feels like it's happening now to something that genuinely belongs in the past. You can recall it, but it no longer floods you. That shift — from raw and intrusive to settled and integrated — is the point of the work, not forgetting.