EMDR and Physical Pain

If you live with chronic pain, you’ve probably been told some version of:

“Everything looks normal.”
Or worse: “It’s just stress.”

These explanations can be exhausting and not exactly inspiring.

Many forms of chronic pain (including pelvic pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, and unexplained pain conditions) are now understood as involving the nervous system, not just the tissues of the body.

Does this mean your pain is imagined? No. It means the body has learned to stay in a state of protection.

How Trauma Can Affect The Body

For people with a history of trauma, long-term stress, or emotional neglect, the nervous system can become stuck in high alert. Over time, that ongoing activation can show up physically—as pain, tension, inflammation, or hypersensitivity.

This is where trauma-informed therapy, including EMDR, can help.

How EMDR fits into pain work

EMDR doesn’t try to convince you to “think differently” about pain or push you to ignore your body. Instead, it works with how the brain and nervous system store experiences.

When the nervous system has learned that the world (or relationships, or the body itself) is unsafe, it stays braced. EMDR helps the brain reprocess past experiences that taught the body it had to stay on guard. For some people, this can reduce pain intensity. For others, it changes their relationship to pain, thus decreasing fear, reactivity, and exhaustion around it.

In my work, I regularly see pain intensity decrease (and in some cases, resolve) when we address the nervous system through EMDR, parts work, and regulation skills.

Chronic pain is often layered with stress responses the body learned a long time ago. EMDR can be especially useful when those patterns are keeping the system stuck on high alert

What this work is and what it isn’t

• This work does not mean your pain is “all in your head.”

• It does not replace medical care for your body

• It does not require reliving trauma or forcing your body to do anything it isn’t ready for.

Instead, therapy focuses on:

• helping your nervous system feel safer

• reducing the constant background stress that keeps pain amplified

• increasing your sense of agency and trust in your body

• offering relief from the emotional isolation that often comes with chronic pain
  
  

I often collaborate with medical providers and take a slow, respectful approach. The goal isn’t to erase your symptoms; it’s to help your system stop fighting itself.

If you’re curious whether EMDR or trauma-informed therapy could be supportive for your experience of pain, you’re welcome to reach out.