What Is Trauma (EMDR Perspective)?

Kyle Lincoln
Aug 11
13 min read

Ice pond with text — Cover for *7 Days Inside: EMDR* "What Is Trauma?"

Episode Summary

When does a hard experience become trauma? In this episode of 7 Days Inside: EMDR, Kyle and Kellyn lay a compassionate foundation for understanding trauma before reprocessing begins. Using a simple “stone on thin ice” image, they describe how trauma forms when distress meets profound helplessness—and how that shattering moment can change memory, emotion, and the body’s survival systems.

You’ll hear why EMDR focuses on “memory networks” rather than single, isolated memories, how triggers in the present can link back to touchstone moments in the past, and what it means to heal those pathways so the past stops hijacking today. The episode closes with a practical resourcing skill—diaphragmatic (belly) breathing—that you can practice anywhere to steady your nervous system and prepare for deeper EMDR work.

Disclaimer: The content shared in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional EMDR training, certification, or therapy. For official training or resources, please visit EMDRIA.org.

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Episode Transcript

Transcript, Introduction (Part 1)

[Kyle]: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to 7 Days Inside: EMDR. I'm Kyle Lincoln, a counselor here in Salem, Massachusetts.

[Kellyn]: And I'm Kellyn. Great to be back with you all.

[Kyle]: Before we dive in today, I want to take a moment to be really clear about who this series is for and our goal for these seven episodes. We’ve designed this podcast specifically for those of you exploring around the edges of EMDR, and also for those who may be ankle deep, in the early phases of treatment—what counselors call Phase 1 and 2.

[Kellyn]: So this is really meant to act as a guide to help people feel ready for reprocessing trauma in Phases 3 on.

[Kyle]: Exactly. Our hope here is to help prepare you for the deeper work of memory reprocessing by giving you a solid foundation in EMDR, which can be a little intimidating to step into at first–not to mention expensive unless you have great insurance. To do that, every episode in this series will follow the same three-part structure. First, we’ll explore a general topic to build your understanding. Second, we’ll define one essential EMDR word or idea to demystify the language of the therapy. And third, we'll guide you through a practical resourcing exercise that you can use in your daily life.

[Kellyn]: Topic, essential idea, and exercise. Got it. So how does that apply to today’s episode on trauma?

[Kyle]: Well, today our topic is understanding the fundamental nature of trauma. Our essential idea is the "Memory Network," which is key to how EMDR works. And our practice exercise will be a calming technique called Diaphragmatic Breathing.

[Kellyn]: Perfect. Let’s begin.

Transcript, How Does Trauma Occur? (Part 2)

[Kyle]: Alright, Kellyn, in our first episode, we introduced the "what" of EMDR. Today, we need to lay a critical foundation for everything that comes next. We're going to establish a framework for understanding the very nature of trauma.

[Kellyn]: And that feels essential. Because before we can talk about a solution like EMDR, we have to have a really clear and compassionate understanding of the problem itself. While we were preparing for this recording, I know you shared some old writing you did on trauma, and the way you structured it felt helpful, around a couple of key questions. I think that would be a great framework for us today.

[Kyle]: Perfect. Where should we start?

[Kellyn]: Let’s start with the most fundamental question: How does trauma occur?

[Kyle]: I know this probably sounds obvious, but no one is born with trauma. It’s like an injury, an injury to our brains, and an injury to our sense of safety and wellbeing in the world. It’s goes deeper than just something bad happening. Trauma occurs when we face a situation that we are powerless to control and completely unprepared to handle. It’s that combination of a distressing event plus a state of profound vulnerability that seems to create an injury so profound to come under the description of trauma.

[Kellyn]: So the helplessness is as much a part of the trauma as the event itself.

[Kyle]: It’s the critical ingredient. I use an analogy for this: Imagine our personal resilience is a sheet of ice, and a challenging event is a stone that comes into contact with the ice. Trauma appears to hit at a time when we do not feel the control, preparation, or competency needed to defend ourselves. Trauma, like a stone to ice, seems to cause a break of sorts. Conceivably thin ice is more easily shattered than thick ice. Big stones cause more damage. At certain times in our lives—especially in childhood—our ice is naturally thinner. An experience like abuse or severe neglect is a very heavy stone. For that child, the ice shatters. Trauma happens. That shattering moment, where the weight of the experience overwhelms our capacity to cope, is where trauma is born.

[Kellyn]: The stone on the ice—it’s such a clear image. It perfectly sets up the next question I wanted to ask from your writing: When that ice shatters, what exactly becomes broken? What happens to us?

[Kyle]: Whether from a single event or something more chronic, traumatic experiences create distressing, even wounding memories. And memories can haunt us with flashbacks and nightmares. Reliving or re-experiencing trauma keeps us in a state of alert, a state of mind understood to be linked with the overproduction of stress hormones. Over time, it is believed that excessive endorphin production—by the "fight or flight response"—actually rewires our brain’s circuitry, makes us more fragile, and more sensitive to triggers. At the most profound level, what can fracture is our cohesive sense of self. I’ve worked with clients who, in recalling a memory, would dissociate entirely—their consciousness would just "switch off." That’s an extreme example, but it illustrates how deeply trauma can disrupt our very being.

[Kellyn]: So for people who don't have a reaction that dramatic, what’s broken for them?

[Kyle]: Perhaps their relationship with their own memory and with time itself. The experience doesn't become a normal memory that you can recall. It becomes a "wounding memory." It stays active in the nervous system, intruding into the present through sudden waves of emotion. In that sense, what’s broken is the boundary between past and present. The trauma essentially cedes control of your present life over to the unprocessed remnants of your past.

[Kellyn]: So you’re saying the brain itself is altered?

[Kyle]: Exactly. Your survival system—the fight, flight, or freeze response—gets locked in the "on" position. Your brain's circuitry is rewired for a state of constant alert. What’s broken is your ability to feel safe in your own body, in a world that now feels fundamentally dangerous.

[Kellyn]: When you lay it out like that—the shattering of resilience, the hijacking of memory, the rewiring of the brain for danger—it paints a powerful picture of trauma. It logically leads to the most important question of all: If all of this can be broken, can it be healed?

[Kyle]: That question—the one of recovery—is what we will be exploring for the rest of this series. But the first step to answering it is understanding how the brain organizes these wounding memories, which brings us to today's essential concept: the Memory Network.

Transcript, Essential Concept, Memory Networks (Part 3)

[Kyle]: As a reminder, in each episode we’re highlighting one essential EMDR word or idea that helps prepare you for EMDR reprocessing. Today’s essential concept is “memory network.” And I want to spend a little time with this one, because it is a key assumption about how and why EMDR works.

[Kellyn]: Well that’s definitely good information to know, but what do you mean by “memory network”? Is that like how the mind is connected or…..

[Kyle]: Let me pause you right there. Some of us imagine the brain like a bunch of glass orbs like in the movie Inside Out. But in EMDR, we don’t treat memories like isolated events, like distinct glass orbs.

Instead, we think of memories as part of memory networks—webs of experience that are linked together somehow. When you start free associating ideas around middle school, chances are one memory will link to another. Maybe you were with the same people, it was the same class? Maybe, in the case of difficult memories, it was the same kind of feeling of rejection or disappointment. Memories tend to link together.

Freud had this idea that we have a subconscious mind. I don’t love most of Freud’s ideas but what is worth noting is that your brain naturally will link memories together, sometimes in ways that are unexpected or ways that connect because of emotion or body sensation. So, in this way, the strands that connect memories, their networks are deep and invisible.

[Kellyn]: I was totally imagining the little glass orbs from Inside Out, so thank you for the clarification. Alright, so when you said “middle school”, my mind jumped back to memories of playing foursquare with my friends at recess and reading The Outsiders in my English 101 class. My brain connected those two things together; is that considered a memory network?

[Kyle]: The memories are definitely connected–probably to the network of “Middle school memories” or something benign like that.

In trauma work, we may be doing more than free associating positive memories. I think we might be trying to understand how painful memories are affecting us in the present. You know, triggers are things people experience in the present that seem to activate a whole network of unprocessed memories. Your brain is saying, “We have been here before,” and it is pulling not just from the current moment, but from everything else that feels emotionally similar.

[Kellyn]: So what exactly is the trauma work that you do then? Is this where EMDR comes into play?

[Kyle]: In EMDR, we follow a person’s associations from something that is presenting issues in their life–sometimes through the emotions they bring, sometimes through the beliefs about themselves that they stir up–and we trace back earlier life experiences that brought up similar feelings or produced similar thought processes.

For example, if your new role at work requires you to stand in front of everyone and do public speaking, a person may feel anxious about that. If however, it is connected to trauma in some way, a person might think “Nobody cares about what you have to say” and “You look stupid.” Your brain probably first thought those thoughts back when you were younger and had less life experience, fewer adaptive beliefs and fewer reasons to balance your anxiety with a little public speaking pep-talk.

[Kellyn]: So in your example, it sounds like this person has memories that are affecting their behaviour, whether they are aware of it or not. Is this a memory that the person is always aware of, or is this something in the subconscious mind that is creating that negative self-belief?

[Kyle]: You’re asking the right question. I will say, in my experience, if it is a single-event trauma, the person may be aware of it. More often than not, if the person has a dozen experiences of small t trauma, then it is likely subconscious and needs to be processed overtly through some therapy like EMDR.

Imagine your memory network like a tree. There are parts you see (memories you remember, things you experience in your life now), and then there is a root system. In EMDR, to truly change your reactions in the present, you need to get down to the roots: your earliest memories, buried emotions, even beliefs you formed when you were much younger.

When clients are guided to remember these memories, we try to find what we call the touchstone memory, which is often one of the earliest and most powerful roots in the system.

[Kellyn]: Ok, pause. It sounds like you are saying that entire memory networks can be sources of pathology.

[Kyle]: That’s actually a really perceptive observation. In medical sciences they call this the etiology. And you’re right. The theory behind mental illness for EMDR is diseased memory networks. Why are things not working in the present? It’s because of things that have happened in the past that created maladaptive ways of thinking, feeling, and being in the world. Of course, EMDR doesn’t claim to treat everything. There are mental health problems that aren’t caused by memories, but these aren’t the ones that you would go to EMDR for help with.

And here is the hope: EMDR lets us access those roots in a safe, guided way. We go back to those touchstone memories with new resources and adult understanding. And when we reprocess those experiences, something profound happens—the network begins to heal, with new adaptive thinking and severing the very links between memory and trigger.

[Kellyn]: Ok, that was a lot, but I think I understand what you are talking about when you say “memory network” now. So our memories are linked, sometimes in ways that we understand and recognize, and other times those links are deeper in our subconscious mind. Memories connected with trauma can come out negatively in our present emotions and behavior, but EMDR therapy helps people to reprocess trauma which ultimately means going back through the memory network, identifying the touchstone memory, and healing the pathway so that people can live their lives less affected by triggers.

[Kyle]: Exactly. And that’s really what this whole “Desensitization and Reprocessing” of EMDR, changing how much power memories hold over your life. Desensitization and Reprocessing traumatic memories gives you space to respond differently. That is what healing looks like.

Transcript, Skill-Building Exercise, Diaphragmatic Breathing (Part 4)

[Kyle]: As we close today, I want to guide you through another resourcing skill from Phase Two of EMDR. This one is called diaphragmatic breathing—a structured way to breathe that helps bring your nervous system into a calm, steady state.

[Kellyn]: So this is one of the things you’d do before any memory work starts, right?

[Kyle]: Yes. In Phase Two, we help people develop tools they can use to stay steady—not just in session, but in real life. Diaphragmatic breathing is one of those tools. We are not just looking at how someone breathes; we are teaching them to notice their breathing when they feel anxious or overwhelmed, and to shift it on purpose.

When someone is in a state of hyperarousal—heart racing, thoughts spinning—their breath usually becomes fast and shallow, mostly in the chest. That keeps the body locked in a fight-or-flight response. Diaphragmatic breathing helps interrupt that pattern. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the part of the body that helps you slow down, feel safe, and come back to center.

This is a skill you can use to change your physiological state in the moment. And the more you practice it, the more available it becomes when you need it.

Let’s try it together now. If you’re listening and able, sit upright and scoot slightly forward in your chair. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach.

[Kellyn]: Okay, I’m ready.

[Kyle]: Good. Start by exhaling fully—just clear out the breath you have.

Now breathe in through your belly—let your hand rise—as you count one… two…Then breathe in through your chest—one… two…

Hold your breath—one… two… three… four… five… six… seven…

Now exhale—first through your belly for four…Then through your chest for another four…

(Pause)

That whole cycle takes about twenty seconds, which means you’re only taking about three breaths in a full minute. For some people, this feels surprisingly slow. But that’s the point—it teaches your body how to calm itself.

Let’s do it again. Exhale to start.

Inhale belly—one… two…Inhale chest—one… two…Hold—seven…Exhale belly—four…Exhale chest—four…

(Pause)

Now we’ll do two more rounds. I’ll guide the rhythm. You don’t need to get it perfect—just stay with it.

Inhale belly, one… two… chest, one… two…Hold… one… two… three… four… five… six… seven…Exhale belly, one… two… three… four… chest, one… two… three… four…

(Pause)

[Kyle]: Now let your breath return to normal and just notice what’s changed. Your chest might feel lighter. Your thoughts may have slowed down a little.

[Kellyn]: Yeah, mine actually slowed down so much, I think you’ll have to finish this episode without me.

[Kyle]: Nice try.

[Kellyn]: Okay fine, for real now, doing that exercise made me feel like I had more space in my body.

[Kyle]: Exactly. That’s the power of breathing with intention. In a session, I might guide someone through this when they’re feeling overwhelmed, or use it at the beginning to help their body settle. We might also pair it with tapping or grounding, depending on what they need.

Even outside of therapy, this is something you can practice during the week. Just one or two minutes—three slow breaths—is enough to help your nervous system shift.

[Kellyn]: I know for a fact that I could use this practice in my everyday life. And I like knowing that such a small practice could actually change how my body feels.

[Kyle]: That’s what resourcing is all about. It is not about doing something huge—it is about finding small, repeatable ways to build steadiness, one breath at a time.

Transcript, Wrap-up (Part 5)

[Kyle]: Let’s just settle into that feeling of calm for a moment. We covered some very deep and challenging material today, and I appreciate you all staying with us through it.

[Kellyn]: I know for me, thinking about trauma as an injury, like that "stone on ice" analogy, is so much more helpful than the vague way we probably all tend to talk about it. It reframes the whole conversation.

[Kyle]: And that's a good takeaway from today. Trauma is a profound injury to our nervous system and our sense of safety in the world. It rewires our brain for danger and disrupts the boundary between past and present.

[Kellyn]: And understanding the "Memory Network" concept shows that there’s a logic to how that disruption happens. It’s not just chaos.

[Kyle]: I think understanding the logic of the injury is the first step toward understanding the logic of the treatment. At the end of our first segment, we were left with the most important question of all: If all of this can be broken, can it be healed? I want to end today by stating clearly that the answer is yes.

[Kellyn]: That’s what this series is all about; to give people the resources and a better understanding of EMDR as a treatment. So where do we go from here, now that we have this foundation?

[Kyle]: Now that we understand the nature of traumatic injury, we're going to explore other conditions EMDR can treat. We'll discuss how trauma symptoms often appear as anxiety, phobias, depression, and chronic relationship issues, and we'll look at who a good candidate is for this kind of therapy.

[Kellyn]: We hope you’ll join us for that. As always, we’ll include links to mental health resources in the show notes.

[Kyle]: Thanks for listening. Until next time!

Resources for What Is Trauma?

EMDR Preparation Skills Checklist. I designed this checklist is a tool to help you practice and master the grounding and resourcing skills that form the foundation of EMDR therapy. Consistent practice helps these skills become second nature, allowing you to access them whenever you need to feel more stable and calm. Use this log to track your practice and make notes to discuss with your therapist.

Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercise. Slow, structured breaths downshift the nervous system. Longer, controlled exhales signal safety.