Digital EMDR: How AI and VR Tools Can Support Therapy Between Sessions

“Digital EMDR” is a loose term, but it’s becoming a useful one. It describes the growing set of tools that bring parts of EMDR into digital formats — from clinician-led EMDR over secure video, to apps that offer bilateral stimulation and structured stabilisation exercises, to newer VR and AI-supported systems that can make the work feel more contained, trackable, and easier to access. For many people, the barrier to therapy isn’t willingness — it’s real-life friction. Travel across London, childcare, disability, work demands, or symptoms that make leaving home feel like a mission. Others do well in sessions but notice the nervous system quickly returns to “alert mode” between appointments. Digital support can help close that gap: not by replacing therapy, but by providing structure, practice, and continuity. The strongest evidence at the moment is around remote, therapist-delivered EMDR (rather than fully self-guided trauma processing). A 2024 systematic review pulled together 16 studies involving 1,231 participants and found online/remote EMDR was generally feasible and showed promising reductions in PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and depression — while also being clear that the evidence base is still developing and many studies were small. In a UK service evaluation comparing online and in-person EMDR for PTSD, there was no evidence of worse completion, dropout, or adverse events online; outcomes looked broadly comparable, with the online group showing strong symptom reduction across treatment (with the usual caution that this was not a randomised trial). Where does AI fit into this? In a lot of the best use-cases, AI is not “doing therapy” — it’s supporting good therapy. AI-enabled platforms are starting to help clinicians reduce admin burden (for example, generating session summaries), track engagement, and support treatment fidelity in remote delivery (like monitoring eye-movements during bilateral stimulation). One open-access 2025 paper describing an AI-augmented teletherapy system reported that AI-generated session summaries cut therapists’ report-writing time by more than 50%, while the platform also supported remote EMDR delivery features such as real-time eye tracking. Self-guided tools are newer and should be approached with more care. Some early data suggests that structured, EMDR-informed digital sessions can reduce distress for some users. For example, one analysis of de-identified data from 500 users of a self-guided EMDR platform reported a 24% reduction in distress after one session, increasing to around 40% after three or more sessions. Separately, a pilot randomised trial of an EMDR-based mobile app series recruited 77 people with chronic PTSD and pain, reporting moderate PTSD symptom reductions among those who stayed engaged — but also highlighting a familiar issue in app research: high attrition. VR is another emerging strand. The promise here isn’t “technology as a shortcut”, but technology as containment: a predictable environment, structured pacing, and sensory tools that can help people stay within their window of tolerance. VR-supported EMDR protocols are beginning to be tested; for example, a randomised trial in adults with major depression and childhood trauma used a 12-session VR-EMDR programme and reported improvements in depressive symptoms and trauma-related symptoms, with benefits largely maintained at a 3-month follow-up. VR can also be useful earlier in the process — for grounding, orienting, and practising bilateral stimulation in a setting that feels steady and less exposed than daily life. In practice, digital EMDR support tends to work best as a “supporting layer” around clinical judgement and pacing. The right tool should feel containing, not intense. It should increase choice, not push you faster than your system can handle. A few markers of a good digital support tool are: - you can control speed/intensity and stop easily - it prioritises stabilisation and grounding (not just “processing”) - it’s clear about privacy and data handling - it’s used with a clinician when risk is higher (dissociation, self-harm history, severe instability) If you’re doing EMDR with a therapist, a simple and useful question is: “Is there a safe, structured way to use digital support between sessions?” For some people, that might mean a bilateral stimulation app for resourcing, a guided grounding protocol, or a VR-based calming environment. For others, the right choice might be keeping things simple and focusing on the basics of nervous system regulation outside the therapy room. Digital EMDR isn’t about replacing human therapy with technology. It’s about making support more accessible, more consistent, and more realistic — so the work you do in session has somewhere to land between sessions.