Resourcing: definition and everyday examples

Resourcing means deliberately calling up a feeling of safety, calm, or strength, such as a memory, image, or body sensation, so it’s available before, during, or after something difficult. It’s a standard stabilization step in trauma therapy, and a named part of EMDR’s preparation phase, where it’s sometimes formalized as its own protocol: Resource Development and Installation (RDI).

What does resourcing mean in therapy?

Per the EMDR International Association’s glossary, resourcing means helping someone build coping skills and steady, positive states. The goal is tolerating difficult emotions, in session and out. The logic is straightforward: you can’t work through something hard from empty. Naming a support first, a memory, a person, a body sensation, gives the nervous system somewhere stable to launch from and return to.

How does EMDR use resourcing?

Resourcing happens mainly in EMDR’s preparation phase, phase two of eight, before any memory work begins. Common exercises include the safe place exercise, picturing somewhere calm and secure, and the container exercise, a mental “box” for setting aside distress until it’s safe to open again. Therapists also use resource installation: deliberately strengthening a positive state with bilateral stimulation, the same left-right rhythm EMDR uses in reprocessing, so it’s easier to reach under stress.

Psychologist Andrew Leeds formalized several of these techniques as Resource Development and Installation (RDI). A 2002 paper he co-authored with Deborah Korn in the Journal of Clinical Psychology described early, case-study evidence for using RDI to help stabilize adults with complex PTSD before deeper trauma work begins.

Why does resourcing come before deeper work?

Resourcing widens the window of tolerance: the range where a hard feeling stays manageable instead of overwhelming. Without a reliable resource, revisiting painful material can flood the system rather than settle it. With one available, there’s somewhere steady to return to mid-session, which is exactly why it’s built into EMDR’s preparation phase rather than skipped.

What are everyday examples of resourcing?

You don’t need a therapy session to use the idea:

• Picturing a specific place where you’ve felt completely safe
• Recalling a moment you handled something well, and borrowing that confidence
• Naming a person, real or imagined, whose presence feels steadying
• Noticing where calm shows up in your body, then returning your attention there

Our confidence & resourcing collection walks through several of these as short practices.

Can you practice resourcing without a therapist?

Simple resourcing, naming a calm memory or noticing a steady body sensation, is safe to try alone. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, lets you practice bilateral stimulation on your own time at app.emease.com, including around a resource you want to strengthen. Choosing resources meant to stabilize someone before significant trauma work is a therapist’s judgment call, not a self-guided one.