Does EMDR Help with Regret?

No study has tested EMDR against regret directly. The closest evidence is indirect: regret is a well-studied, self-blame emotion, and a classic finding shows regrets over things left undone tend to outlast regrets over mistakes made. Self-guided bilateral stimulation borrows EMDR’s core technique as an everyday practice, not a tested fix for regret itself.

Maybe it’s the job you didn’t take, the thing you didn’t say while there was still time, or a choice from years ago that still shows up at 2 a.m. If you searched “how to deal with regret” hoping EMDR had a clean answer, here’s the honest one: no trial has tested it. What exists is real research on regret itself, and a sense of where a self-guided technique actually fits.

What does the research say about EMDR and regret?

No published study has put EMDR and regret in the same trial, and confident claims online shouldn’t suggest otherwise. What exists instead is real research on regret as its own emotion, plus solid evidence on how EMDR’s core technique affects distressing memories generally. Together, that’s a genuinely useful, if indirect, answer.

What actually is regret, and why does it stick around?

Regret has a precise definition, not just a vague ache. A 2007 paper in the Journal of Consumer Psychology describes it as a self-blame emotion: you compare your present situation to how things would have gone “if only” you’d chosen differently, and conclude the other path would have been better. That comparison, not the outcome alone, makes regret sting more than plain disappointment.

Regret isn’t automatically guilt. You can regret a choice that hurt no one but you, like not taking a trip; guilt specifically involves believing you wronged someone else. The two overlap often, but they’re answering different questions.

Not all regrets fade at the same rate. A classic, often-replicated 1994 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that regret over things people did tends to fade with time, while regret over things they didn’t do tends to grow, since imagination keeps producing better and better versions of the road not taken. If an old missed chance bothers you more than a recent misstep, that’s a documented pattern, not a personal flaw.

Some life areas carry more regret than others, too. A 2005 study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found the heaviest regrets cluster around education, career, romance, and parenting, areas where people still feel they had room to choose differently. Regret tracks opportunity, not just how big the decision was.

Does dwelling on regret actually affect your well-being?

Yes, though the pattern is specific. A 2009 nationally representative U.S. survey in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found regret was linked to both low mood and anxious arousal, and that repeatedly dwelling on a regret, not just feeling it once, predicted overall distress most strongly. Regret isn’t the danger; looping on it wears people down.

There’s a neurological reason it’s hard to reason your way out of, too. A 2004 study in Science found that patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, the brain region tied to regret, stopped feeling it and stopped adjusting future choices based on “what might have been.” Regret, uncomfortable as it is, is partly how the brain learns from a decision. The problem isn’t having it; it’s getting stuck replaying it.

Why would bilateral stimulation affect a regret at all?

The proposed mechanism is the memory, not the feeling directly. A 2013 meta-analysis of 26 studies in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry found that eye movements made while recalling a distressing memory reliably reduce how vivid and emotionally charged it feels. A regret you keep replaying, the conversation, the moment you said yes or no, is exactly that kind of held memory, a plausible reason the same technique would take some of the charge out of it.

EMDR’s own theory adds a related angle. The Adaptive Information Processing model holds that a belief like “I should have known better” often connects to earlier, similar moments that never fully settled, according to EMDRIA, EMDR’s professional association. If self-blame is the thread running under your regret, our page on why you might blame yourself for everything goes deeper into where that pattern usually starts.

Does this mean self-guided practice can ease regret?

Not in the way tested above. Those are studies of regret as a general human experience, not of EMDR or self-guided bilateral stimulation.

What self-guided practice borrows is the underlying technique: bilateral stimulation, the alternating left-right input used throughout EMDR. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, offers that technique as an everyday practice for the ordinary version of this experience, a decision that still stings, a regret stuck on replay, not a tested treatment for regret itself. It doesn’t diagnose or treat regret, and a 7-day free trial is available at app.emease.com.

What can you do right now when a regret won’t stop replaying?

1. Name the specific decision, not the sweeping “I ruined everything.” One choice, one moment.
2. Rate how loud the replay feels, 0 to 10.
3. Let it sit loosely in mind, without re-arguing your case or rewriting the ending.
4. Add 20 to 30 seconds of bilateral stimulation: the butterfly hug (crossed arms, alternating taps on your shoulders) or slow side-to-side eye movements.
5. Pause, breathe, and re-rate. Repeat for 3 to 5 rounds, checking the number each time.

Small guilt that won’t let go walks through a fuller version of this practice. How to stop dwelling on past mistakes covers a specific mistake on repeat, rather than a decision. And if regret has curdled into a running loop of self-blame, rumination is the word for that pattern.

When does regret need more than a self-guided reset?

Consider a therapist if:

• Regret has hardened into a constant “I ruined my life,” rather than one specific decision.
• It travels with hopelessness, not just sadness about the past.
• It’s making you afraid to decide anything new, for fear of regretting that too.
• Distress stays high no matter how many rounds you try.

Regret’s link to distress comes from research on regret generally, not from a self-guided technique. Is self-guided EMDR safe? goes deeper on where that line sits.

The honest bottom line

No study has tested EMDR against regret directly, and no self-guided technique has either. What’s real: regret is a well-understood, self-blame emotion that fades for choices made but grows for choices avoided, and dwelling on it repeatedly, not simply feeling it, is what predicts real distress. Self-guided bilateral stimulation borrows EMDR’s underlying technique as a low-risk way to take the charge out of a regret on replay. Bring in a professional if regret has grown bigger than the decision that started it.