Tapping and EMDR: Creating a Powerful Synergy for Deeper Healing

I recently received this wonderful message from Juanita that I wanted to share with you:

“I was on the search for one more effective tool in addition to the many wonderful tools I do use daily (Zhineng Qigong, spiritual work, TAT, Lightning process). The search was also caused by the highly intensive depth of my ongoing wonderful EMDR-therapy-process. I just felt, that beside all the great tools I did and do use daily, it would be wonderful to have something additional with significant effectiveness for me to use between the EMDR-Therapy-sessions to process safely at home. With EFT this has become possible in a speed I couldn’t have imagined. It’s a brilliant symbiosis now.”

Juanita, first I want to thank you for sharing your experience. What strikes me most about your message is your commitment to your healing journey. You’re already using multiple powerful techniques, including EMDR therapy, and still seeking ways to deepen your process. That kind of dedication to your wellbeing is both rare and inspiring.

It’s also fascinating to hear how quickly you found Tapping to be effective in supporting your EMDR work. The “brilliant symbiosis” you’ve discovered is something I’ve heard from many others who combine these approaches, but it’s always exciting to hear about someone experiencing this powerful combination firsthand.

The Power of Combining Healing Modalities

There’s a common misconception in the wellness world that we need to pick one approach and stick with it exclusively. “Are you a meditation person or a yoga person?” “Do you believe in traditional therapy or alternative approaches?” This either/or thinking misses something crucial: different healing modalities often work on different layers of our experience, and when combined thoughtfully, they can create results far greater than the sum of their parts.

“I like to think of it as creating a healing ecosystem rather than following a single path.”

I like to think of it as creating a healing ecosystem rather than following a single path. Just as a robust natural ecosystem has diversity—trees, shrubs, fungi, insects, birds—a robust healing practice often benefits from thoughtful diversity as well.

What Juanita discovered—and what you might find valuable too—is that Tapping serves as a powerful “bridge” technique that connects and enhances other healing practices. In her case, she found that Tapping helped her process and integrate the deep work happening in her EMDR sessions, creating a continuity of healing between therapy appointments.

Understanding EMDR and Tapping: Complementary Approaches

For those not familiar with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), it’s a psychotherapy technique primarily used to treat trauma and PTSD. Developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, EMDR involves recalling distressing images while receiving bilateral sensory input, typically through side-to-side eye movements, alternating sounds, or taps.

The theory behind EMDR is that traumatic memories can become “stuck” in the nervous system, and bilateral stimulation helps the brain process these memories in a new way, reducing their emotional charge and integrating them more adaptively into your memory networks.

Now, here’s where the connection to Tapping gets really interesting. Both approaches:

1. Work directly with the nervous system rather than relying solely on cognitive understanding
2. Combine focus on difficult material with a calming physical component
3. Help shift how the brain processes and stores emotional memories
4. Can create rapid shifts in how we experience once-triggering material

The key difference? EMDR is typically done with a trained professional in a structured therapeutic setting, while Tapping is designed to be safely self-administered at home between sessions.

Why Tapping Makes an Ideal Between-Session Tool

There’s a phenomenon in therapy that practitioners sometimes call “the Wednesday problem.” A client might have a powerful breakthrough during their Monday session, but by Wednesday, they’re struggling again. By Friday’s session, they may feel they’ve lost ground, creating a discouraging cycle of progress and regression.

This happens because profound neural and emotional shifts need reinforcement. They need ongoing support as the brain and nervous system integrate new patterns.

This is where Tapping shines as a between-session tool. Here’s why:

1. Immediate Accessibility: When emotional material surfaces between sessions (which it often does during deep therapeutic work), Tapping provides immediate support
2. Similar Mechanism: Like EMDR, Tapping helps regulate the nervous system while processing difficult material
3. Safety: When properly applied, Tapping rarely leads to overwhelm and includes built-in self-regulation through the physical tapping component
4. Reinforcement: Tapping between sessions helps reinforce and strengthen the new neural pathways being created in EMDR

As you’ve discovered, Juanita, this combination creates a continuous healing process rather than an intermittent one, allowing for deeper and often faster transformation.

The Nervous System Connection: Why This Works So Well

To understand why this combination is so effective, we need to look at what’s happening in your nervous system.

EMDR sessions often activate and process trauma stored in the body. This is powerful work, but it can leave your nervous system in a vulnerable state of reorganization between sessions. During this reorganization phase, old patterns may try to reassert themselves, and new triggers or stressors can complicate the healing process.

“Each time you tap, you’re essentially sending a message to your brain: ‘I can think about this difficult material while simultaneously feeling safe in my body.'”

Tapping serves as a nervous system regulation tool during this critical period. Each time you tap, you’re essentially sending a message to your brain: “I can think about this difficult material while simultaneously feeling safe in my body.” This contradictory experience—focusing on something stressful while physically feeling calm—is what helps rewire your brain’s response patterns.

Over time, this consistent reinforcement helps your nervous system form new, more resilient patterns that don’t automatically trigger stress responses when encountering reminders of past trauma or difficult situations.

A Practical Tapping Sequence for Post-EMDR Integration

If you’re working with EMDR (or considering it), here’s a Tapping sequence specifically designed to help integrate and process the material that arises during or after sessions:

Start by noticing: What feelings, sensations, or thoughts are present right now? Without judgment, simply observe what’s happening in your body and mind.

After tapping through a few rounds, check in with yourself. How has your emotional state shifted? What physical sensations do you notice? Has anything new emerged to tap on?

Tapping Between Therapies: The “Empty the Bucket” Approach

One concept that many clients find helpful during intensive therapy like EMDR is what we can refer to as the “Empty the Bucket” approach.

Think of your emotional system as a bucket. During powerful therapeutic work, that bucket may fill up with emotions, realizations, memories, and sensations. If the bucket gets too full between sessions, it can overflow, leading to overwhelm or shutdown.

Tapping helps you “empty the bucket” a little at a time, creating space for new material to emerge and be processed at a manageable pace. Here’s how to apply this approach:

Step 1: Notice when your bucket is getting full. Signs might include feeling emotionally overwhelmed, experiencing physical tension, sleep disruptions, or feeling mentally foggy.

Step 2: Set aside 10-15 minutes for a focused Tapping session.

Step 3: Try this “Emptying the Bucket” Tapping sequence:

This approach is particularly valuable because it acknowledges that healing isn’t about forcing yourself to process everything at once. It’s about creating the conditions where your system can safely release and integrate at its own natural pace.

When New Material Arises: The “Catch and Release” Technique

One common experience during deep therapeutic work like EMDR is that new memories, connections, or emotions may surface between sessions. These can sometimes feel unsettling or confusing.

The “Catch and Release” Tapping technique helps you acknowledge this new material without becoming overwhelmed by it:

The beauty of this technique is that it honors the emerging material without requiring you to fully process it immediately. You’re essentially telling your brain, “I see this, it’s important, and we’ll come back to it when the time is right.”

The Synergy Effect: Greater Than the Sum of Parts

What makes the combination of EMDR and Tapping particularly powerful is what I call the “synergy effect.” Each approach strengthens the other, creating results greater than either would produce alone.

EMDR sessions often unlock deeper material and create major shifts in how your brain processes traumatic memories. Tapping then helps to:

1. Stabilize these shifts so they become more permanent
2. Process additional layers that emerge between sessions
3. Reinforce the new neural pathways being created
4. Regulate your nervous system during the integration phase
5. Empower you with a tool you can use anytime you need support

This synergy explains why you experienced results “in a speed I couldn’t have imagined,” as you put it, Juanita. When approaches work together in this complementary way, healing often accelerates.

A Note for EMDR Therapists and Clients

If you’re currently in EMDR therapy, consider discussing Tapping with your therapist as a between-session resource. Many EMDR practitioners are open to or even encourage complementary approaches that support the therapy process. Some may already be familiar with Tapping, while others might be interested in learning how their clients are using it successfully.

For therapists reading this, Tapping offers your clients a self-regulation tool that aligns well with EMDR’s theoretical framework and can help maintain therapeutic momentum between sessions. The better clients can regulate and process between appointments, the more effective your in-session work can be.

Beyond EMDR: Tapping as a “Bridge” for Other Modalities

While we’ve focused on the EMDR-Tapping connection, the principle applies broadly. Tapping can serve as an effective “bridge” or complementary practice for many approaches:

• Traditional talk therapy: Process insights and emotions that arise between sessions
• Somatic therapies: Maintain body awareness and continue releasing held tension
• Meditation practices: Help quiet the mind before meditation or process what emerges during it
• Yoga and movement therapies: Enhance body-mind connection and release emotional material that surfaces during practice
• Energy work: Reinforce shifts and help integrate energetic changes

The common thread is that Tapping helps you process, integrate, and regulate between sessions of other modalities, creating continuity in your healing journey.

Moving Forward: Your Integrated Healing Path

Juanita, the “brilliant symbiosis” you’ve discovered between EMDR and Tapping reflects a sophisticated understanding of how healing works. By combining these approaches, you’re essentially creating an integrated healing environment where progress in one area supports growth in others.

“This is the essence of true healing—not just applying techniques, but transforming your relationship with yourself and your experiences at a fundamental level.”

As you continue this journey, you might notice that the integration becomes even more seamless over time. The distinctions between “EMDR insights” and “Tapping breakthroughs” may blur as your brain and nervous system create new, healthier patterns that transcend any single modality.

This is the essence of true healing—not just applying techniques, but transforming your relationship with yourself and your experiences at a fundamental level.

For others reading who are engaged in any form of therapy or healing work, consider how Tapping might serve as a supportive bridge in your practice. The principles we’ve discussed apply broadly, and the self-regulation benefits of Tapping can enhance virtually any healing approach.

A Final Thought: The Healing Conversation

I often think of healing modalities as different languages for having a conversation with our nervous system. EMDR speaks one dialect, Tapping another, meditation a third, and so on.

When we become fluent in multiple healing languages, we can have a richer, more nuanced conversation with ourselves. We gain access to expressions and concepts that might not translate perfectly from one modality to another.

The brilliant symbiosis you’ve discovered, Juanita, is essentially becoming bilingual in your healing journey—and finding that these languages complement and enhance each other in beautiful ways.

More resources to Support Your Journey:

• Find a Certified EFT Practitioner – For personalized guidance on using Tapping alongside other healing modalities.
• The Tapping Solution App – Features specific meditations for trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and emotional processing that can complement therapeutic work. Here are a few specific recommendations:
  • CBT & Tapping: The Power of Combined Therapies – These sessions are ideal for enhancing ongoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) work or as standalone resources. They are led by CBT and Tapping expert, Dr. Claire Hayes and will teach you how to use CBT principles to shift how you feel, think, believe, and act.
  • 5 Day Transforming Trauma Series – These sessions are led by trauma expert Dr. Arielle Schwartz. You’ll be guided through 5 steps to support your inner healing. In this series, you’ll learn to find safety in the present moment, embrace all of yourself with self-compassion, and feel empowered to heal.
  • Inner Child Healing Category – This topic is profound when it comes to transforming our inner belief systems for the better, and can work well with other modalities. We have long form content on Inner Child healing, as well as Inner Child Healing Quick Tap sessions (which are only 2 minutes long).

Note: You can access these meditations by clicking the links above using your mobile device, or type the name of the meditation into The Tapping Solution App’s search function.

I’d love to hear more about how others are combining Tapping with their therapeutic work. Has anyone else discovered powerful combinations with other modalities? What differences have you noticed in your healing process when using Tapping between sessions? Share your experiences in the comments below!

Until next time… Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner