Art and EMDR merge to unlock non-verbal trauma memories in innovative practice

Emerging collaborations between art therapy and EMDR are providing new pathways for trauma survivors who struggle with verbal expression, blending structured approaches to access non-verbal memories and emotions with promising early evidence.

In summer 2026, clinicians writing for the British Association of Art Therapists described the pairing of EMDR and art therapy as a more deliberate, structured practice than a simple mix-and-match of techniques, with art-making used in preparation, processing and consolidation rather than bolted on at the end. In the US, that same shift is visible in continuing professional education: the EMDR International Association is offering a four-credit online course led by Mary Lauren Fox on integrating expressive arts across EMDR’s eight-phase model. (baat.org)

The appeal is practical as much as theoretical. Bethan Baëz-Devine and Nicola Ball, who work together in an NHS context, say many trauma patients struggle to verbalise what happened because of shame, developmental limits, cultural or language barriers, stammers or worries about disclosure. EMDRIA’s course description points to the same pressure points, naming complex trauma, dissociation and difficulty with verbal expression as key reasons clinicians may adapt the model. BAAT’s article says a “silent protocol” can allow processing without spoken disclosure, and notes that Trauma Aid UK has used this kind of work with genocide survivors in Bosnia and Syrian refugees. (baat.org)

What is striking is that the idea itself is not new. An ERIC record for a 2007 peer-reviewed article by Tally Tripp describes a short-term trauma treatment using a modified EMDR protocol with alternating tactile and auditory bilateral stimulation while clients produce a series of drawings. The abstract says the process brings associations rapidly into awareness and helps affective material become integrated. In the same year, Savneet Talwar’s paper in The Arts in Psychotherapy set out an Art Therapy Trauma Protocol designed to address what she called the “non-verbal core of traumatic memory”, drawing on EMDR, bilateral art and painting methods to work at cognitive, emotional and physiological levels. Talwar also argued that one of psychotherapy’s hardest tasks is regulating the sensory imprints left by trauma. (eric.ed.gov)

Even so, the published material suggests a field that is still building its evidence and language rather than one settled into a single standard method. A 2013 Loyola Marymount University thesis by Holland Elizabeth Breed described integrative trauma treatment as a “young field”, combining a literature review with an interview with a therapist qualified in both disciplines. Breed’s analysis organised the benefits and challenges into three themes: bringing body and mind together, combining the techniques themselves, and deciding which client groups may benefit. That cautious, exploratory tone is echoed by later practitioner writing, which tends to present the model as an adjunctive or collaborative approach rather than a replacement for established therapy. (digitalcommons.lmu.edu)

In practice, the most concrete additions come from clinicians describing what actually happens in the room. BAAT says clients may make a “safe place” image during preparation, use bilateral drawing during processing and then turn to collage, sculpture or visual journalling during integration. EMDRIA’s course description similarly frames art as something that can be sequenced from resourcing through desensitisation to integration, with special attention to stabilising dissociative clients and strengthening dual awareness. One BAAT service user said the combined approach revealed “support that works for me – and that maybe there is hope.” (baat.org)

The most vivid example in the package is a February 2025 case report in EMDR Therapy Quarterly co-written by a client using the pseudonym Sisqui and therapists Cathy Ward and Kate Rothwell. The report says Sisqui had lived with paraplegia for 15 years after a near-fatal accident, alongside nerve pain, depression, anxiety, a sleep disorder and childhood abandonment trauma dating back to the age of two. The authors describe EMDR being added to ongoing art therapy in a collaborative model, and say the work helped address a “stuck point” that art therapy alone had not resolved. Sisqui said, “The EMDR allowed the feelings to be, and the art therapy became the aftercare.” The report’s introduction says the work ran for 18 months, although a later discussion says the EMDR element had by then lasted 20 months. (etq.emdrassociation.org.uk)

That case report also underlines the limits of the approach. Drawing on Sandra Borstein’s description of adjunctive EMDR, the authors say the method should support, not interrupt, the primary therapy, and should involve active communication between therapists, a clear target for the work and a client without pressing safety risks or active substance misuse. BAAT makes a similar point from a different angle, arguing that art methods only do this specific job when they sit inside EMDR’s structured protocol rather than serving as general self-expression. Tripp’s 2007 paper adds another warning: clinicians using bilateral stimulation with trauma survivors should already be experienced in trauma work. (etq.emdrassociation.org.uk)

What emerges, then, is not a miracle cure or a trademarked new school of therapy, but a more formalised attempt to reach patients for whom ordinary speech is an unreliable route into traumatic material. Older papers provided the rationale, student research captured the uncertainty of an emerging field, and recent professional bodies in Britain and the US are now teaching the integration more explicitly. For children, for adults with complex trauma, and for clients who experience memory chiefly as sensation, image or bodily alarm, that may be the real significance of the trend: it gives clinicians another way in when words fail. (researchgate.net)