“Trust the process.” It’s a phrase we hear often in EMDR. And I understand why.
There is something remarkable about watching a client make a connection neither of you could have predicted. An image shifts. An earlier memory emerges. A belief changes. Something that seemed disconnected suddenly makes sense.
The process can surprise us.
But trusting the process doesn’t mean the therapist stops thinking. It means we learn how to stay clinically engaged without assuming we have to make something happen.
The therapist is always noticing
During reprocessing, therapists are taking in a great deal of information. We’re listening to the client’s language. We’re noticing changes in affect. We’re tracking what emerges and what shifts. We may see patterns across experiences or recognize a possible connection before the client does. Clinical thinking doesn’t stop because reprocessing has begun.
But here is where I think the work becomes more interesting: We don’t have to act on every thought we have. We can notice a possible connection without pointing the client toward it. We can have a hypothesis without needing to prove it. We can see a potential pathway without assuming it’s the client’s path to take.
Sometimes clinical judgment tells us to intervene. Sometimes it tells us to wait. Both require attention.
The temptation to help
Therapists are helpers. Of course we want to help.
When we see a client struggling, searching, or moving through uncertainty, it can be tempting to offer a connection. To ask the question that might lead somewhere. To point toward the path we can see from our bird’s-eye view. And sometimes that’s exactly what the work needs.
But sometimes the most important clinical skill is noticing instead of steering. There is a particular kind of restraint in recognizing that we may see a possible answer without needing to give it to the client.
The client may find another path. They may discover a connection we couldn’t have predicted. They may arrive somewhere more personally meaningful than the place we were trying to lead them.
Not knowing what happens next
I wonder if this is one of the more uncomfortable parts of trusting the process. The therapist doesn’t always know what happens next. Experience may give us context. Training may help us recognize patterns. The model gives us structure and orientation. But none of those things gives us complete access to the client’s internal experience.
There can be a temptation to resolve that uncertainty by doing something. Ask another question. Offer a cognitive interweave. Point out the connection. Move the client somewhere. But perhaps uncertainty isn’t always a signal that something has gone wrong. Sometimes it simply means we’re still discovering.
Don’t make anything happen
When we prepare clients for EMDR, we often encourage them not to make anything happen. There is no need to search for the right memory. No need to force a connection. No need to manufacture insight. Notice what comes.
I think therapists need a version of that reminder too. We don’t have to make anything happen either. We can allow enough space for the process to unfold and let clients arrive at their own adaptive resolution as much as possible.
That doesn’t mean we never intervene. It means we don’t confuse our ability to intervene with a requirement to do so.
When the insight belongs to the client
There is something powerful about watching a client arrive at a connection on their own. Not because the therapist did nothing. The therapist was paying attention. Thinking clinically. Holding context. Providing structure. Making decisions throughout the process.
But the discovery still belongs to the client.
“I found that.”
“I made that connection.”
“Something changed for me.”
The therapist may have the bird’s-eye view. The client may see the secret passage. And perhaps part of trusting the process is allowing enough room for both perspectives to matter.
We bring our knowledge. The client brings their lived experience. And neither of us has to know the entire route in advance.
Sometimes our work is not to find the path for the client. It’s to remain present and curious enough to recognize when they’re finding it for themselves.
