When an upset is experienced, it can become locked in the nervous system with the original picture, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. In another part of your brain, in a separate network, is most of the information you need to resolve the upset. It's just prevented from linking up to the old stuff. Once processing starts with EMDR, the 2 networks can link up. New information can then come to mind to resolve the old problems.
Clients experience emotional healing at an accelerated rate.
Because of this accelerated processing, you should notice improvement within each session. EMDR focuses first on the past, second on the present and third on the future. Dealing with the past is therefore going to the root of the problem. For example, if a client comes in with depression and she has a history of being depressed since a death in her family, we would focus on the time around the death first because it is the root of the depression. To only focus on the symptoms of the depression in the present would be like taking an aspirin for a headache caused by a brain tumor rather than working with the brain tumor.