EMDR: What to Work On First (Start Small)

Start with one small, specific, present-day stressor rated around a 4 to 7 out of 10, not your biggest or oldest pain. Build a calm-place skill first, then work with a single mild target in short, unhurried sessions. The heaviest, oldest material is the one part best done with a professional.

Maybe you’ve got a list running in your head: the tense meeting from Tuesday, an argument with your sister, something from years ago that still stings, a knot in your chest that doesn’t have a name yet. You want to start practicing bilateral stimulation, but you’re stuck before you even begin. Which one do you actually pick first?

If you haven’t set up your first session at all yet, our first-session checklist covers the basics: environment, timing, a stop point. This guide zooms in on one piece of that: how to actually choose what goes in the target, both for session one and every session after it.

Why does it matter what you start with?

In a therapist’s office, this decision isn’t yours to make alone. A 2012 paper in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research walks clinicians through prioritizing among many possible targets, including grouping related memories into clusters instead of working through them in no particular order. That’s a skill built over years of training.

Working by yourself, nobody is doing that screening for you. That’s exactly why the choice matters more, not less, when you’re the one making it. Pick something too big, too old, or too tangled up with other memories, and a technique meant for everyday stress can leave you more activated than when you started.

The good news: for everyday material, the decision doesn’t have to be complicated. A few honest questions do most of the work.

Shouldn’t you start with what’s bothering you most?

It’s a reasonable instinct. If something is causing the most pain, doesn’t it make sense to point the technique at it first? For self-guided practice, that instinct tends to backfire.

A 2020 commentary in BJPsych Open weighed self-administered EMDR as a real way to widen access to care, while warning it can become an “unregulated recipe for disaster” when people skip preparation and go straight for their heaviest material. A trained therapist spends real time deciding whether someone is ready for their biggest pain point before going near it. Working alone, that screening only happens if you build it in yourself.

Starting small isn’t giving up on the bigger stuff. It’s putting things in the right order. Prove the technique works for you on something manageable, build your calm-place skill, and save the heaviest material for someone trained to help you carry it.

What should you do before you pick anything?

Before you name a single target, make sure you have a way to calm your body down if something stirs up more than expected. Per EMDRIA’s walkthrough of EMDR’s eight phases, even therapist-led treatment spends real time on preparation, Phase 2, before anyone names a specific target in Phase 3. Working alone, that groundwork is entirely on you.

If you haven’t built one yet, our guide to creating a calm, safe place walks through it in a few minutes. Think of it as the seatbelt, not the destination. You’re not trying to feel amazing before you start, just steady enough to stop cleanly if you need to.

What makes a good first target?

Good targets share three traits: they’re recent, specific, and moderate. Not a life chapter, not your worst memory, not something from childhood you’ve never looked at directly.

• Recent. Something from the last weeks or months, not decades ago. Recent material tends to be less tangled up with other memories.
• Specific. One moment, not a theme. “The meeting where my update got cut off,” not “my whole career.”
• Moderate. Somewhere in the middle of your personal distress scale, not the top.

That middle number matters most. The SUDS scale, the 0-to-10 distress rating Joseph Wolpe introduced in 1969, is your best tool here. A 4 to 7 is usually enough to feel real, without much risk of it running away from you. Save 8, 9, or 10 for later, ideally with a professional beside you.

This is what’s sometimes called titration: working with a hard feeling in the smallest workable dose, instead of the whole thing at once. It’s the same start-small logic behind everything in this guide, just borrowed from a different corner of trauma therapy.

When should you stop and get support instead?

Decide this now, before you’re in the middle of anything. If your distress rises above a 7 out of 10 during a session and won’t settle after a minute or two, stop. Switch to grounding or your calm place; if that keeps happening, it’s a sign to bring in a professional rather than keep pushing through alone.

The same rule applies before you even start choosing. If naming something honestly pushes you to an 8, 9, or 10, or it’s tangled up with abuse, assault, or a childhood you’re still making sense of, that’s not a “go slower” situation. That’s a “bring in a professional” situation. Our guide on pacing signs that you’re going too fast covers what that usually looks like, and when to stop self-guided EMDR and see a professional goes deeper on where that line sits.

If you’re in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, none of this is the right page. Please visit our crisis resources page or call or text 988 in the US.

How do you decide between a few different options?

Most people aren’t choosing between one thing and nothing. You’re choosing between three or four things competing for attention. Try this instead of guessing:

1. Write down what’s actually on your mind. Three to five items is plenty. Don’t rank them yet.
2. Rate each one 0 to 10, right now, honestly. Bring it to mind for a few seconds and notice where it lands.
3. Cross off anything above a 7, and anything tied to abuse, assault, or significant childhood material. Those deserve a professional’s support, not a solo first attempt.
4. From what’s left, pick the most recent and specific one. If two are close, pick the smaller one. The other one isn’t going anywhere.
5. Name it in one short phrase. “Tense call with my landlord,” not “my landlord.”

For example: say your list is a tense call with your landlord (a 5), a work presentation next week (a 6), and a memory of being laughed at in third grade (an 8, and it’s been sitting there for years). The third item gets crossed off, not because it doesn’t matter, but because it’s exactly the kind of older, tangled material that goes better with a professional. Between the other two, the landlord call is more recent and more specific. That’s your target.

What if everything feels like too much to even list?

This happens, and it isn’t a sign you’re doing anything wrong. If your mind goes blank, or everything you can think of rates an 8 or higher, that’s real information: you’re outside the zone right now where a hard feeling stays workable instead of overwhelming.

Ground yourself first. Feet on the floor, a few slow breaths, five things you can see. Try the list again once you’re steadier. If it still feels like too much even then, that’s worth bringing to a professional rather than pushing through alone.

How do you know when to move on to something bigger?

Start small doesn’t mean stay small forever. As you work through mild, recent material and notice it settling, session after session, you’re building real capacity, not just checking a box.

A harsh inner critic or a habit of bracing for the worst usually traces back further than any single recent moment. You don’t have to reach that root directly, and the deepest layers are safest with a professional. But settling today’s version of the pattern, one small trigger at a time, is genuine work on that same root system, worked from the reachable edges inward.

A reasonable rule: once a target settles to a 1 or 2 and stays there across more than one session, you have room to pick something slightly bigger next time. Slightly, not suddenly. If you’re ever unsure whether “slightly bigger” has turned into “too big,” the questions in this guide still apply. Rate it, and let the number decide.

The guided version

Keeping track of what you’ve worked on, and what’s left, is its own small task. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, includes progress tracking and journaling, so your targets and distress ratings live in one place instead of your memory, at app.emease.com. It won’t choose a target for you. What it does is make it easier to see, honestly, whether your last pick was actually the right size.

The bottom line

You don’t need the perfect target. You need a small, specific, honest one, rated somewhere in the middle, with a way to stop if it turns out bigger than it looked. Build your calm-place skill first, use the questions above whenever you’re stuck choosing, and let your distress rating, not the instinct to go straight for the biggest thing, decide what’s next.