NLP and EMDR are compared often and belong to different worlds. EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, is a manualised psychotherapy for trauma, developed by the American psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s and recommended for post-traumatic stress disorder by the World Health Organization and by the UK’s NICE guidelines. NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is a set of communication and change techniques taught commercially outside the clinical system, with no comparable evidence base and no regulated qualification behind it.
The comparison keeps coming up because one NLP technique, the fast phobia cure, asks a person to revisit a distressing memory from a deliberate distance, which sounds a lot like what happens in an EMDR session. The resemblance is at the level of procedure. It does not extend to the evidence, the training required, or the kind of problem each one is built for.
| EMDR | NLP | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A structured, eight phase psychotherapy protocol | A collection of communication, coaching and self management techniques |
| Origin | Francine Shapiro, first published study 1989 | Richard Bandler and John Grinder, from 1975 |
| Built for | Trauma and post-traumatic stress | Communication, goal work, habits, everyday stuck patterns |
| Evidence | Recommended for PTSD in adults by the World Health Organization (2013) and NICE guideline NG116 (2018) | Systematic reviews find insufficient evidence, including Sturt and colleagues, 2012 |
| Who delivers it | Clinicians with existing mental health qualifications, plus accredited EMDR training | Anyone holding a private certificate. The title is not protected |
| Typical setting | Clinical practice, referral, treatment plan | Coaching sessions, group trainings, self application |
| Session length | Usually 60 to 90 minutes, over a course of sessions | Varies widely, often a single technique inside a coaching hour |
What is EMDR, in plain terms?
EMDR is a trauma treatment in which the client holds a distressing memory in mind while performing a repeated side to side action, most often following the therapist’s fingers with their eyes, and sometimes taps or alternating tones instead. The protocol runs across eight phases, from history taking and stabilisation through the processing itself to a check that the work has held.
Shapiro’s original explanation was that the bilateral stimulation helps the brain reprocess a memory that got stored badly. That mechanism is still argued about. Dismantling studies, which strip the eye movements out and keep everything else, have repeatedly suggested that much of the effect comes from the structured exposure to the memory rather than from the eye movements themselves. What is not seriously disputed is the outcome: EMDR reduces PTSD symptoms in controlled trials, which is why it appears in national treatment guidelines. An uncertain mechanism with a solid outcome is a normal situation in medicine.
What does NLP do that looks similar?
One technique, mainly. The fast phobia cure, also called visual-kinaesthetic dissociation, has the person watch a distressing memory as if it were a film playing on a small screen some distance away, then run it backwards, at speed, several times over. The intention is to break the automatic link between the memory and the body’s reaction to it.
Structurally that shares two ingredients with EMDR: controlled contact with the difficult material, and a device that keeps the person at a manageable distance from it. Those ingredients also appear in exposure based therapies with strong evidence behind them, which is probably why the NLP version produces reports of relief. The differences are the ones that matter in practice. NLP’s version has not been through the trial process, it carries no protocol for what to do when someone destabilises, and it is frequently taught to people with no clinical training at all. Our glossary entry on the fast phobia cure and how the dissociation step works sets out the technique and its limits.
How do the evidence bases compare?
They are not on the same scale. EMDR has been through randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses, and has been assessed by guideline bodies whose job is to weigh that evidence for public health systems. The World Health Organization’s 2013 guidelines for conditions specifically related to stress list EMDR alongside trauma focused cognitive behavioural therapy for PTSD in adults and children, and NICE guideline NG116 recommends it for adults with PTSD in defined circumstances.
NLP has nothing equivalent. The 2012 systematic review by Jaqui Sturt and colleagues in the British Journal of General Practice looked for experimental studies of NLP applied to health outcomes, found ten that qualified, and concluded there was little evidence of effectiveness. Tomasz Witkowski’s 2010 analysis of NLP’s own research database found the majority of empirical results negative. Most individual NLP techniques have never been tested at all, which makes them unevidenced rather than disproven, but it does not put them anywhere near a guideline recommendation.
This is the honest comparison, and it is not close. Anyone selling NLP as an alternative to an evidence based trauma treatment is either uninformed or is counting on you being uninformed.
Which one should you look at first?
Start from the problem rather than from the method. The two are aimed at different targets, and most of the confusion in this comparison comes from ignoring that.
- Trauma, flashbacks, a single overwhelming event, or symptoms that fit PTSD. This is clinical territory. Speak to a doctor or a qualified therapist and ask about EMDR or trauma focused CBT. Do not start with a coach.
- A specific fear with no trauma history, such as public speaking or flying. Both approaches are used here. A clinician is still the safer first call if the fear is severe or disabling.
- Communication, decisions, self doubt, habits, career direction. This is not what EMDR is for. Coaching work, including the NLP methods, sits here comfortably.
- You want the skills rather than the session. EMDR is not something you learn for yourself. NLP is largely taught as something you apply to your own thinking and your own conversations.
If your question sits in the third or fourth group, one to one NLP coaching in Lisbon or online is the shape that work usually takes, and the first conversation costs nothing and settles quickly whether it fits. If your question sits in the first, that is a referral, not a coaching enquiry, and any practitioner worth your money will tell you so in the first ten minutes.
Can NLP and EMDR be combined?
They are, routinely, but only in one direction that makes sense: a licensed therapist trained in EMDR who has also studied NLP may use NLP’s language and rapport work around a treatment protocol they are already qualified to deliver. A good many therapists take NLP training for exactly that reason, and the piece on what NLP certification adds for therapists goes through what it does and does not add to an existing clinical practice.
The other direction does not work. An NLP practitioner without clinical training who starts running trauma work because a technique looked similar is operating outside their competence, and the risk lands on the client rather than on them. The wider toolkit is worth knowing for what it is: our overview of the core NLP techniques and what each one is for keeps the scope visible.
My position on this is firm, and it costs enquiries. When someone contacts me describing trauma symptoms, the answer is a referral, not a session. NLP is strong on communication, state and the patterns people run in ordinary life. Trauma has its own treatments, they were built by people who studied nothing else, and using anything weaker because it was easier to book is not a decision I want a client to make.
Carolin Mallmann, Licensed Trainer of The Society of NLP, Lisbon
To state it plainly: nothing here is medical advice. NLP complements professional care and does not replace it, and if you are dealing with trauma, PTSD, anxiety or depression, a qualified clinician is the right first contact.
Frequently asked questions
Is NLP the same as EMDR?
No. EMDR is a psychotherapy protocol for trauma, delivered by clinicians and recommended for PTSD in national treatment guidelines. NLP is a commercially taught set of communication and change techniques with no comparable evidence base and no regulated qualification. They share one surface feature, working with a distressing memory at a deliberate distance, and little else.
Did NLP invent the eye movement idea that EMDR uses?
No, and the two eye movement ideas are unrelated. NLP’s eye accessing cues claimed that eye direction reveals which internal channel a person is using, a claim that has not survived testing. EMDR uses deliberate side to side eye movement as part of a treatment procedure. Francine Shapiro described noticing the effect during a walk in 1987 and developed the protocol from there.
Can an NLP practitioner treat trauma?
Not unless they hold a separate clinical qualification. An NLP Practitioner certificate is a training certificate, not a licence to treat, and the title is not legally protected in most countries. If someone offers trauma work on the strength of an NLP certificate alone, ask what clinical training sits behind it before you book.
Is the fast phobia cure a form of EMDR?
No. It predates EMDR’s publication and works differently: the person watches the memory as a film, at a distance, then runs it backwards at speed. There is no bilateral stimulation and no eight phase protocol. Both techniques rely on controlled contact with difficult material, which is also how exposure based therapies work, but only EMDR has been through the trial process.
Which works faster, NLP or EMDR?
Speed is the wrong comparison, and it is the one NLP marketing leans on hardest. EMDR courses are usually measured in sessions rather than months, and trials report meaningful symptom reduction within a defined number of them. NLP claims of a phobia removed in ten minutes describe the best case, not the average, and there is no trial data to place beside them.
Is it worth learning NLP if I already practise EMDR?
Many therapists find it useful, mostly for the parts around the protocol: rapport, precise questioning, clear outcome setting and reading a client’s state moment to moment. Treat it as communication training that complements a clinical qualification you already hold. It adds nothing to your clinical authority and does not extend your scope of practice.
Keep exploring
- NLP certification for therapists, for what NLP training adds to a clinical practice and where the boundary sits.
- NLP for parents, for the everyday communication end of the same toolkit, well away from clinical territory.
Carolin Mallmann is a Licensed Trainer of The Society of NLP, trained by Richard Bandler. She has trained more than 300 people and runs English language NLP trainings in Lisbon in groups of no more than 10.
Find out what the seven day Practitioner certification in Lisbon covers.
