Why EMDR Isn’t Always Enough:
The Role of Incomplete Survival Responses
EMDR has created a revolution in the mental health landscape, especially in the treatment of trauma and its many symptoms. Its development has brought relief to suffering that once seemed immovable for so many people. As a practitioner of EMDR, I have tremendous respect for the method, and I have witnessed clients’ lives transform through its support.
And yet, as much as I wish it were the case, EMDR is not always a complete solution on its own for every form of trauma. Why is this?
The metaphor I often use for EMDR is that of a power tool. It is incredibly effective at a specific - and very important - part of the trauma healing process. EMDR excels at reducing the distress associated with traumatic memories, including the triggers, images, beliefs, emotions, and body sensations connected to painful experiences.
But for some clients, trauma involves more than distressing memories alone.
Many somatic trauma models understand trauma as also involving unresolved defensive responses - survival impulses that were never fully able to complete themselves during the original experience.
During overwhelming events, the nervous system may rapidly shift into freeze, collapse, or tonic immobility responses. In these moments, the body may prepare to fight, flee, brace, push away, cry out, or protect itself, while simultaneously shutting those actions down in the service of survival.
Even after the danger has passed, the nervous system can continue carrying patterns of defensive activation connected to the traumatic event. I often think of this like a compressed spring: a tremendous amount of survival energy gets mobilized, but never fully released.
In the animal world, it’s common to observe trembling, shaking, or bursts of movement after threat activation. Many somatic trauma therapies view these responses as part of how the nervous system settles and reorganizes itself after danger.
Humans, however, are remarkably good at suppressing instinctive bodily responses. Out of fear, shame, social conditioning, or simply not understanding what is happening internally, we often inhibit the body’s attempts to complete these protective responses.
For some people, this can contribute to chronic tension, disconnection from the body, feelings of constriction, hyperreactivity, shutdown, or a persistent sense that something inside never fully resolved - even when they intellectually know they survived.
This is one reason why some clients benefit from integrating EMDR with somatic therapies such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.
Sensorimotor therapy helps clients gently track bodily responses, nervous system patterns, and incomplete defensive actions within the safety of an attuned therapeutic relationship. Rather than focusing only on thoughts or memories, the work also supports the body in regaining a greater sense of flexibility, completion, agency, and regulation.
In my work at Fox Mind Counseling, I deeply integrate Sensorimotor approaches into EMDR treatment. For many clients, this combination supports not only a reduction in symptoms, but also a growing sense of embodiment, vitality, and reconnection with themselves.
Trauma healing is rarely just about “understanding what happened.” Often, it is also about helping the nervous system discover that the danger is over - and that the body no longer has to remain organized around survival.
In future posts, I’ll explore two other important ways trauma treatment may need to go beyond standard EMDR approaches: healing relational wounds created through a lack of emotional support following a traumatic experience, and working with complex developmental trauma formed through chronic childhood experiences over time.
If this resonates with you, or you’re interested in exploring a more embodied approach to trauma healing, feel free to reach out. I’d be honored to support you.
