Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is a treatment originally used to treat combat veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. More recently, EMDR has been found to be effective with a variety of symptoms associated with acute stress, single incident trauma or prolonged cumulative trauma. Neuro-scientific research has illustrated that the mammalian brain has a natural shutdown response to overwhelming experience. This is a survival response that we are quite familiar in animals but only recently attended to in human beings. It is felt that due to our well-developed imaginations, this shutdown response in the human brain causes many traumatic memories to remain pre-conscious yet viscerally alive and easily triggered by environmental cues resulting in a wide range of presenting problems. Although not yet fully understood, research has shown that the bilateral stimulation using the eye, auditory signals or tapping sensations used in EMDR aids in the uncovering of unprocessed memories without the re-traumatization involved in other trauma therapies. These newly verbalized memories can then be more efficiently stored by the brain’s healthy processing system.