Can EMDR help with performance anxiety?

By coachingwithping.com. Updated October 2026.

It may, but the research is small. A few small studies found that EMDR reduced test anxiety and helped pianists feel calmer and play better, while two older studies on fear of public speaking found little benefit from the eye movements. In my experience it fits best when the dread is tied to a specific moment, either an old one that went badly or a future one you keep picturing going wrong.

I was a trauma therapist for more than a decade and I’m trained in EMDR. Now I use tools from EMDR in coaching with people who freeze in meetings, before presentations or in exams.

What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Francine Shapiro developed it in the late 1980s as a therapy for traumatic memories, and the World Health Organization recommends it for post-traumatic stress disorder in adults.

In a session, you bring a distressing memory or image to mind while doing something that splits your attention, usually following a moving object with your eyes or feeling alternating taps on each side of your body. This back-and-forth is called bilateral stimulation. You do it in short sets and notice what changes in between.

Why would a trauma therapy help with performance anxiety?

Performance anxiety often has a history. In my work, many people could point to the moment it started, like a presentation where a manager cut them off or an exam they failed by a few points. EMDR’s working idea is that the brain stored that experience along with a conclusion like I’ll freeze or they’ll see I don’t know what I’m doing, and the conclusion comes back whenever the stakes go up.

The other half is the picture of what might go wrong. Psychologists call these images flashforwards. Before a big day, many anxious people replay a short film in their head of going blank or being questioned, and their body reacts as if it’s already happening.

EMDR targets both. In lab studies, people who held a feared image in mind while moving their eyes rated it as less vivid and less upsetting afterwards. The leading explanation is that the eye movements compete with the image for working memory, so the image comes back weaker. A 2013 meta-analysis of studies on emotional memories found that adding eye movements had a large effect in lab studies and a moderate one in clinical trials.

What does the research say?

The studies on performance are encouraging, and there aren’t many of them.

• In a 2000 study, 17 people with test anxiety had a single EMDR session. Their test anxiety scores fell from around the 90th percentile to around the 50th, compared with a waiting list, and the change held at follow-up.
• In a study published in 2017, 46 advanced pianists were split into EMDR, hypnotherapy or no treatment, with two sessions between two concerts. Both treatment groups felt calmer and played better as rated by judges. EMDR did about as well as hypnotherapy.
• Two older studies on fear of public speaking found that the eye movements added nothing, and that fear of public speaking itself didn’t go down.
• A 2021 review of EMDR outside PTSD found eight studies on performance anxiety. Most were positive, the samples were small, and in some studies EMDR did no better than exposure therapy or CBT.

My reading is that EMDR is a reasonable option for performance anxiety when it’s tied to a specific memory or a specific upcoming day. It isn’t proven the way it is for PTSD.

What happens in a session?

When I use tools from EMDR with someone preparing for a presentation or an exam, we usually go in this order.

1. We name the day and what you want to be able to do there.
2. We find the moment you dread and the belief that comes with it.
3. We build up some steadiness first, often by recalling times you handled pressure well.
4. We use short sets of eye movements or tapping on the feared picture until it’s less charged, and, when there is one, on an earlier moment that still feeds it, like a presentation where you were cut off.
5. We rehearse the day the way you’d like it to go, including the hard question or the blank second, until you can picture it calmly.

How many sessions you’d need depends on what comes up, and we’d decide that together.

Can EMDR be done online?

Yes. Online, the eye movements follow something on the screen, or you tap your own shoulders, left and right. It feels a bit odd on a video call for the first few minutes.

Should I see an EMDR therapist or an EMDR-informed coach?

EMDR therapy is a full psychotherapy delivered by a licensed clinician. It’s the right choice if your anxiety comes with panic attacks, affects your daily life, or is tied to a trauma you want to work through. In many places it can be covered by insurance. You can search for a trained therapist through the EMDR International Association, EMDR Canada or the EMDR Association UK.

EMDR-informed coaching borrows some of the tools and points them at a specific goal, like an exam next month or speaking up in a weekly meeting. It isn’t treatment for any condition. It suits people who are generally doing fine and keep getting caught at the same kind of moment. If what comes up in our work needs therapy, I’ll tell you and help you find a therapist licensed where you live.

Can you do EMDR on yourself?

Tapping your shoulders while you think of something calming is low risk, and some people find it settling before a big moment. Working through painful memories on your own is a different matter. Those memories can bring up more than you expect, and EMDRIA’s guidance is that EMDR should only be offered by trained, licensed clinicians. If something keeps pulling you back to an old experience, it’s worth doing that part with someone.

Sources

• World Health Organization, Guidelines for the management of conditions specifically related to stress (2013)
• Engelhard and colleagues, Reducing vividness and emotional intensity of recurrent “flashforwards” (2011)
• Lee and Cuijpers, A meta-analysis of the contribution of eye movements in processing emotional memories (2013)
• Maxfield and Melnyk, Single session treatment of test anxiety with EMDR (2000)
• Brooker, Music performance anxiety: cognitive hypnotherapy and EMDR in advanced pianists (2017)
• Scelles and Bulnes, EMDR as treatment option for conditions other than PTSD: a systematic review (2021)
• Sandra Foster, Integrating positive psychology applications into the EMDR Peak Performance protocol (2012)
• EMDR International Association, About EMDR therapy