EMDR therapy in central London
EMDR therapy at 45 Fitzroy Street in Fitzrovia (W1T 6EB) and at Harley Street W1, with Dr Philippe Jacquet, who has practised EMDR for more than twenty years alongside integrative psychotherapy and Jungian analysis.
That length of practice is less a credential than a source of restraint, and the restraint is the part that matters. More on that below.
What EMDR is
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing — is a structured therapy for traumatic memory.
The working idea is straightforward. Ordinary difficult memories get filed: they lose their charge, take their place in the past, and recalling them is unpleasant rather than overwhelming. Traumatic memories are not filed. They stay live, stored with the sensory and emotional intensity of the moment, so that a smell, a tone of voice, a particular quality of light returns you there completely, years later, as though it were happening rather than being remembered.
EMDR works on the filing rather than on the event. While holding the memory in mind, you follow a repeated bilateral stimulus — classically eye movements, sometimes alternating taps or sounds — in short sets, saying briefly between sets what came up. What tends to happen is that the memory loses its physical charge and becomes something that happened, rather than something happening.
It does not erase memory. It is not hypnosis, and you are awake and in control throughout. You do not have to describe the event in detail, which is often the reason people can begin at all.
What a course of work actually looks like
The first sessions are not EMDR.
They are assessment and preparation: what happened, what is currently stable, what supports exist, and whether you can settle yourself again after distress. This phase is skipped more often than it should be, and skipping it is the commonest way EMDR goes wrong.
Reprocessing follows, and for a single incident in someone otherwise stable it often takes six to twelve sessions in total. For repeated or developmental trauma — childhood neglect, prolonged fear, an environment rather than an event — there is no honest number. The work is slower, the reprocessing sits inside a broader therapy, and the useful question is not how many sessions but whether the relationship can hold what emerges.
When EMDR is the wrong first move
This is worth saying plainly, because the enthusiasm around EMDR tends to leave it out.
Where someone is drinking or using heavily, where the situation is still dangerous, where a person is holding themselves together to get through something, or where there is no stable ground to return to after a session, opening traumatic material can leave them worse than before. In those cases the correct first move is stabilisation, and EMDR comes later if it comes at all.
That judgement — when not to start — is what two decades of practice actually buys. The protocol itself can be learned in a matter of days. Knowing when to hold it back cannot. On the genuine risks and where they lie, see the dangers of EMDR therapy and what the research shows.
What it is used for here
Most widely known for PTSD, EMDR is used in this practice across a wider range:
- Single-incident trauma — an assault, an accident, a medical event, a bereavement witnessed. These often respond faster than people expect, provided the person is otherwise stable.
- Complex and developmental trauma — repeated or prolonged experience, usually beginning in childhood. Slower, and inseparable from the wider therapy.
- Anxiety and phobias with an identifiable origin, where the fear traces back to something specific.
- Grief that has become stuck rather than moving.
- Trauma beneath addiction, where the substance has been managing something that was never processed.
- Trauma beneath an eating disorder, where adverse early experience shaped the relationship with the body.
It is particularly useful where someone understands intellectually why they react as they do, and the understanding changes nothing — because what holds the reaction sits below the level language reaches.
Sequence, when trauma is not the only thing
Where trauma sits underneath addiction or an eating disorder, order matters more than technique.
Reprocessing traumatic material while someone is still drinking, using, or in an acute eating disorder tends to destabilise rather than help: it removes the anaesthetic before anything has replaced it. Stabilisation comes first, reprocessing second.
Dr Jacquet is Hazelden-trained in addiction and holds a doctorate on male eating disorders, so that sequencing is held by one clinician within one relationship, rather than negotiated across three services that may not agree.
The evidence
EMDR is among the most rigorously researched psychological therapies available. NICE recommends it as a first-line treatment for PTSD alongside trauma-focused CBT, and the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association have reached the same conclusion.
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in the British Journal of Psychology (Simpson et al.) analysed 29 randomised controlled trials and found EMDR significantly more effective than waitlist or usual care, and equivalent to trauma-focused CBT. A 2024 meta-analysis by Wright et al. found it equally effective as Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy. Independent bodies of evidence reaching the same conclusion.
If you are weighing private treatment against the NHS route, EMDR on the NHS versus private sets out waiting times, what the NHS will and will not treat with EMDR, and what it costs privately.
EMDR by location
In person at Harley Street W1, Fitzrovia and Colchester. Online for Monaco, Geneva, Zurich, Brussels, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, the Channel Islands, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Tokyo and Nairobi.
Practical details
Sessions are held in person at 45 Fitzroy Street, Fitzrovia, W1T 6EB — a short walk from Warren Street, Great Portland Street and Oxford Circus — at Harley Street, W1, and online by secure video.
No GP referral is required. Sessions are available in English and French. A first appointment is usually possible within the week, and that first conversation establishes what happened, what is stable, and whether EMDR is the right instrument at all. Sometimes it is not, and saying so is part of the assessment.
See also: the clinical concepts behind trauma and EMDR.
Common questions
Where can I have EMDR therapy in central London?
In person at 45 Fitzroy Street in Fitzrovia (W1T 6EB), a short walk from Warren Street, Great Portland Street and Oxford Circus, and at Harley Street W1. Also online by secure video. No GP referral is needed, sessions are available in English or French, and a first appointment is usually possible within the week.
What actually happens in an EMDR session?
The first sessions are not EMDR at all. They are assessment and preparation: understanding what happened, what is currently stable, and building the capacity to manage what processing will bring up. Only then does reprocessing begin. In a reprocessing session you hold the memory in mind while following a repeated bilateral stimulus, usually eye movements, sometimes alternating taps or sounds, in short sets. Between sets you say briefly what came up. You remain awake, aware and in control throughout, and you can stop at any point. It is not hypnosis and you do not have to narrate the event in detail.
How many EMDR sessions will I need?
For a single traumatic incident in someone otherwise stable, often six to twelve sessions including assessment and preparation. For repeated or developmental trauma there is no honest number: the work is longer and the reprocessing sits inside a broader therapy rather than standing alone. Anyone who promises a fixed number before assessing you is guessing.
Is EMDR suitable for everyone?
No. Where someone is drinking or using heavily, currently unsafe, in the middle of an ongoing crisis, or has no stable ground to return to after a session, opening traumatic material can do harm rather than good. In those situations the work begins with stabilisation and EMDR is introduced later, if and when it is appropriate. Establishing which applies is what the first conversation is for.
Does EMDR work for trauma underneath addiction or an eating disorder?
Often, yes, but sequence matters. Reprocessing traumatic material while someone is still using, or while an eating disorder is acute, tends to destabilise rather than help. The order is stabilisation first, then reprocessing. Dr Jacquet treats trauma, addiction and eating disorders, so that sequencing can be held by one clinician rather than negotiated between three.
Is EMDR evidence-based?
Yes. NICE recommends it as a first-line treatment for PTSD alongside trauma-focused CBT, and the World Health Organization and American Psychological Association have reached the same conclusion. It is among the most heavily researched psychological therapies available.
Can EMDR be done online?
Yes, using the same protocol with bilateral stimulation adapted for the screen. It has been practised this way at scale since 2020. It is not appropriate where someone is medically unstable, at immediate risk, or has no private space at home.