EMDR and Autism
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a popular form of trauma therapy that has gotten a lot of press lately thanks to celebrities like Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Jameela Jamil crediting it with their trauma recovery. It works by helping your brain to re-process traumatic memories so they lose their intense emotional and sensory charge. For people suffering from PTSD, EMDR can be life changing as it frees them from the flashbacks, hypervigilance, and anxiety. So what happens if you happen to also be autistic?
It’s been well documented that autistic individuals suffer from higher levels of trauma related distress as a result of being socialized in a neurotypical world. Given that EMDR was originally developed to work with neurotypical clients, can EMDR help autistic clients with their trauma?
The short answer is…yes! The longer answer is that EMDR has been shown to be effective for autistic clients, which you can read about in the scholarly article “Using EMDR with autistic individuals: A Delphi survey with EMDR therapists” though it sometimes looks a little different than EMDR with a neurotypical client.
Some of the ways that EMDR can help autistic clients include:
Anxiety reduction related to trauma or adverse experiences: EMDR helps to reprocess memories and triggers that contribute to the chronic worry, hypervigilance and emotional distress or confusion that many autistic folks feel in their everyday life
Improved emotional regulation: EMDR helps autistic folks to modulate the intensity of their emotions particularly around distressing memories or triggers. Being autistic means that you may struggle with alexithymia, which is when you have difficulty naming and processing emotions. EMDR helps you to identify your feelings with greater clarity which leads to better emotional regulation over all.
Sensory integration: EMDRY can target sensory, social or environmental triggers that may feel overwhelming to the sensitive autistic nervous system. This can help to better deal with the sensory challenges of the world around us.
Integration of fragmented memories: Some autistic individuals experience memory fragmentation or atypical processing of trauma. EMDR can help create more coherent, connected memory networks, which can reduce dissociative-like symptoms, emotional distress or confusion.
Some of the ways EMDR can be modified for autistic clients include:
Pacing and structure: EMDR is a highly structured therapy modality so it can be adapted to your individual needs. Sessions may proceed more slowly, with additional grounding and preparation time, frequent check-ins, and gradual escalation of processing to match processing speed and attention needs.
Visual and multi-modal tools: visual aids (like pictures, icons, color cues), tangible objects, or body-centered cues (breathing anchors, tactile items) can be used to support processing when verbal articulation is challenging. The EMDR therapist can use these tools to communicate with you if verbal processing is overwhelming or distracting.
Flexible communication and nonverbal cues: EMDR therapists may rely more on nonverbal feedback, explicit permission to pause, and clear, concrete language when working with an autistic client. They may check comprehension and comfort more often to make sure that you are on the same page emotionally and cognitively.
Tailored targets and broadened focus beyond traditional trauma: EMDR therapy encompasses all kinds of trauma so it can be quite useful for the things that are particularly distressing for autistic folks. EMDR targets may include distress around routines, change in environment, sensory overload, social interaction challenges, and rigidity, in addition to past traumatic events.
EMDR has the potential to be a game changer when it comes to the processing the trauma that autistic folks encounter on a regular basis. If you are curious, get in touch today to schedule a free consultation with one of our therapists to see how EMDR could be a good fit for you.