When the Body Remembers What the Mind Forgot
Sometimes, healing doesn’t begin with words.
It begins with a trembling breath,
a flash of memory that makes no sense,
a sudden tear that doesn’t belong to this moment.
For many incest survivors, the body is both the witness and the prisoner.
It carries what the mind had to forget—
the taste of fear, the sound of footsteps,
the frozen stillness that once kept us alive.
For years, I thought I was broken.
That my panic, my mistrust, my silence were character flaws.
But they were survival strategies, written into the tissues of my being.
My body remembered, even when I begged it to forget.
And then I discovered something remarkable—
healing doesn’t mean forcing the body to forget.
It means giving it a new story to tell.
This is where Francine Shapiro, PhD, enters the story.
A woman whose curiosity on a walk in the park would one day give
millions of survivors—including me—a map back to ourselves.
1. Introduction – When the Past Won’t Stay Buried
Incest doesn’t end when the abuse stops.
The body doesn’t understand calendars or age—it understands patterns.
Years later, a sound, a smell, a tone of voice can hurl us back
into the helplessness of a moment we thought we survived.
That’s what makes incest trauma so devastating.
It’s not a single event—it’s an environment.
A place where love and danger coexist, where boundaries collapse,
and where the child learns that safety is conditional.
Even after escaping the abuser, the mind remains a maze of contradictions:
“I’m safe now… but why does my body still panic?”
“I know it wasn’t my fault… so why do I still feel dirty?”
These are not symptoms of weakness—they’re echoes of trauma.
When Dr. Francine Shapiro developed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in 1987,
she gave the world a tool that finally spoke the same language as trauma itself—
the language of the nervous system.
2. The Birth of EMDR – A Walk That Changed Trauma Recovery
It began with something so ordinary, it could’ve gone unnoticed.
Francine Shapiro was walking in a park when she realized that
her distressing thoughts seemed to lose intensity as her eyes darted back and forth,
following the natural rhythm of her movement.
Curious, she began to experiment—first on herself, then with others.
She found that when people recalled painful memories
while simultaneously moving their eyes side to side,
the emotional charge of those memories began to lessen.
To anyone else, this might’ve seemed like coincidence.
To Shapiro, it was revelation.
She had stumbled upon a neurological key that could help unlock the brain’s natural healing process.
She called it Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,
a mouthful that survivors would later come to know simply as EMDR.
It was revolutionary—not because it erased pain,
but because it helped the brain refile traumatic memories
from “immediate threat” to “distant past.”
3. How EMDR Works – Rewiring the Body’s Memory of Pain
Imagine your brain as a vast library.
Every experience you’ve ever had is stored on a shelf—some neat and labeled, others scattered and burning.
Trauma throws the filing system into chaos.
Instead of being placed in the “past” section,
traumatic memories stay active in the “present,”
flooding your body with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.
EMDR works like a gentle librarian.
Through bilateral stimulation—eye movements, tapping, or tones—it helps the brain reconnect and reorganize.
As you revisit the memory in a safe, supported space,
your brain begins to integrate it properly.
The result isn’t forgetting.
It’s freedom.
The memory remains, but its power over your nervous system fades.
You can recall the event without reliving it.
You can finally breathe through the story that once suffocated you.
For incest survivors, this distinction is everything.
Our memories often live not as pictures, but as sensations—
the weight of a body, the smell of a room, the sound of a door closing.
EMDR allows these fragments to find context.
It transforms a haunting into history.
4. Why Incest Trauma Is Different
To understand why EMDR is so impactful for incest survivors,
we must first understand the nature of incest trauma itself.
Incest is not only sexual abuse—it is attachment betrayal.
The abuser is often someone meant to protect, nurture, or love.
This betrayal ruptures the foundation of trust
that healthy attachment is built upon.
As children, we learn to survive this paradox
by splitting our reality:
the “good” caregiver and the “bad” actions cannot coexist in our young minds.
So, we internalize the badness ourselves.
We become the problem.
We carry the shame that never belonged to us.
That’s why traditional talk therapy can fall short.
Talking about the trauma often reactivates the same body memories
without providing a path for integration.
Words alone can’t reach the parts of the brain that store sensory terror.
EMDR bypasses that barrier.
It accesses the body’s implicit memory system—the one that doesn’t speak in words but in sensations.
Through guided reprocessing, it teaches the brain:
“That happened then. I am safe now.”
This is the moment the nervous system exhales for the first time in decades.
5. The Eight Phases of EMDR – The Map Back to Wholeness
Francine Shapiro didn’t just invent a method—she built a structure sturdy enough to hold the most fragile memories.
The eight phases of EMDR are like stepping stones across a river of pain.
Each phase matters because it honors safety, pacing, and preparation.
1. History Taking
Your therapist learns your story, your strengths, your triggers.
It’s not about reliving the trauma—it’s about understanding the landscape before walking through it.
2. Preparation
Safety comes first. You learn grounding techniques—breathing, visualization, sensory anchors.
This stage rebuilds trust in your body’s ability to self-regulate.
3. Assessment
Here, specific memories are targeted.
Images, emotions, and bodily sensations connected to those memories are identified gently and precisely.
4. Desensitization
This is where bilateral stimulation (eye movement, tapping, tones) begins.
You revisit the traumatic image while staying connected to safety in the present.
The emotional intensity begins to soften.
5. Installation
Now, new, adaptive beliefs are installed.
Instead of “I am powerless,” your nervous system begins to learn, “I survived. I have power now.”
6. Body Scan
You check in with your body.
What sensations remain? What has released?
The goal is integration—no trapped energy, no lingering panic.
7. Closure
Each session ends with grounding and containment.
You leave feeling stable, not raw.
8. Re-evaluation
In the following sessions, progress is assessed.
New layers may surface, and healing deepens with each wave.
For incest survivors, this framework provides something most of us never had: predictability.
Every step honors control, consent, and choice—the very things our trauma stole.
6. The Science – What the Brain Reveals
Neuroscience has finally caught up to what survivors have always known:
the body remembers.
In trauma, the amygdala (our brain’s alarm system) goes into overdrive,
while the hippocampus (the brain’s archivist) stops filing memories correctly.
This is why survivors feel like they’re back in the moment when triggered—
the brain never stored the experience as “over.”
EMDR helps restore communication between these regions.
Bilateral stimulation activates both hemispheres of the brain,
facilitating what researchers call memory reconsolidation—
a process where old memories are updated with new emotional information.
Brain imaging studies show reduced activity in the amygdala after EMDR sessions
and increased connectivity in regions linked to emotional regulation.
In simpler terms:
the brain learns that the danger is gone.
It begins to trust calm again.
7. The Humanitarian Heart of Francine Shapiro
Francine Shapiro didn’t stop with research labs or clinical settings.
She saw a larger mission—to bring healing to those who had no access to therapy.
Through Trauma Recovery / EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs,
she trained thousands of therapists to offer free EMDR to victims of war, natural disasters, and mass violence.
Her vision was clear: healing is a human right, not a luxury.
For survivors of incest, this spirit of compassion mirrors something sacred.
Many of us grew up in homes where compassion was conditional,
where love had fine print.
Shapiro’s work represents the opposite—
love expressed through healing freely given.
8. When EMDR Becomes a Sacred Practice
When done with attunement, EMDR becomes more than therapy—it becomes ceremony.
Each session is an invitation to return to the body that once betrayed and protected us all at once.
It’s the merging of science and spirit, memory and mercy.
In my own sessions, I’ve wept without words as images surfaced and dissolved.
My hands trembled, my chest loosened,
and for the first time, my body believed me when I whispered, “We’re safe now.”
That’s the quiet miracle of EMDR—it doesn’t erase your story.
It returns authorship to you.
9. Training, Trust, and Choosing a Safe Practitioner
If you’re an incest survivor considering EMDR, know this: the method is powerful, but the therapist matters more than the technique.
Look for someone certified through EMDRIA or the EMDR Europe Association—and more importantly, someone trained in complex trauma or dissociation.
Ask questions:
How do you ensure safety during reprocessing?
What happens if I dissociate?
How do you pace the sessions?
A trauma-informed EMDR therapist will never rush your healing.
They’ll remind you that you are in charge of the process.
Because true EMDR isn’t about control—it’s about collaboration.
10. Francine Shapiro’s Legacy – What She Gave Survivors Like Us
Francine Shapiro changed the trajectory of trauma healing forever.
But for incest survivors, her gift is even deeper.
She gave us a language that bypasses shame and speaks directly to the soul.
Her legacy is every survivor who sleeps peacefully for the first time in years.
Every heart that no longer races when touched with love.
Every person who finally feels safe enough to dream.
Dr. Shapiro taught us that trauma is not a life sentence—
it’s a story the brain hasn’t finished writing.
And EMDR gives us the pen back.
As I write this, I imagine her smile—the knowing kind that only healers carry.
She once said, “The past affects the present even without our being aware of it.”
But because of her, awareness has become the bridge to freedom.
To every incest survivor reading this:
Your brain isn’t broken.
Your body isn’t the enemy.
And your story—no matter how fragmented—can still end in wholeness.
Epilogue – The Gentle Return
Healing is not a race.
It’s a slow homecoming.
And sometimes, all it takes is one breath,
one therapist who sees you,
one safe space where your eyes can move freely again.
Francine Shapiro may have walked through a park that day,
but the path she cleared leads all the way home—
to the parts of us that were waiting, patiently,
to be remembered.