An EMDR session note records one eye movement desensitization and reprocessing session: the phase, the target and its baseline, the bilateral stimulation, what changed, the SUD and VOC at the end, and how you closed. Copy the free template, see a car crash memory reprocessed to a complete session and a childhood memory left incomplete and closed with a container exercise, and check what goes in each part.
Blank EMDR session note template
FreeEMDR SESSION NOTE Client: [Name or ID] Date of session: [Date] Session: [Number in this course of EMDR; start and end time] Format: [In person or video; for video, the client's location, privacy, and emergency contact] Clinician: [Name, credentials] Diagnosis and plan goal: [Working diagnosis, and the treatment plan goal this target serves] PHASE AND PROTOCOL Phases today: [Name each one: 1 history taking, 2 preparation, 3 assessment, 4 desensitization, 5 installation, 6 body scan, 7 closure, 8 reevaluation] Protocol: [Standard eight-phase protocol, or the adapted protocol used] Prong: [Past memory, present trigger, or future template] READINESS AND REEVALUATION Last target: [SUD and VOC on the last target now, and any new material, or none] Log since last session: [Triggers, images, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and ratings the client recorded] Stability: [Sleep, substance use, dissociation, new stressors, medication changes] Resources: [Calm place, container, or other resources checked; stop signal agreed] Measures: [PCL-5 or another scale: today's score and the baseline] Ready to process: [Yes, or no and the reason] TARGET AND ASSESSMENT Target: [The memory in a few words, and why it was chosen] Image: [The picture that stands for the worst part] Negative cognition: [The client's negative belief about themselves now, in their words] Positive cognition: [The belief the client would rather hold] VOC at start: [How true the positive cognition feels now, 1 to 7] Emotions: [What the client feels now, thinking of the memory] SUD at start: [How disturbing it feels now, 0 to 10] Body location: [Where the client feels it] DESENSITIZATION Bilateral stimulation: [Eye movements, taps, tones, or butterfly hug; how given; speed] Sets: [Number of sets, and the length of most] What changed: [The main shifts: images, thoughts, feelings, sensations, other memories] Interventions: [Cognitive interweaves, grounding, or changes to the stimulation, and what followed] SUD checks: [The SUD at each return to target] SUD at end: [Final SUD; if above 0, the client's reason and your judgment] INSTALLATION AND BODY SCAN Positive cognition: [Still fits, or the better one the client chose] VOC: [Before and after installation, and sets used; if below 7, the client's reason and your judgment] Body scan: [Clear, or what was found and whether it cleared] Session status: [Complete, or incomplete and why] CLOSURE Closing steps: [Container, calm place, grounding, or breathing] State at end: [Distress in the room, 0 to 10; orientation; safe to leave or drive] Safety check: [Suicidal thoughts, self-harm, harm to others, urges to use: what you asked and the answers] Briefing: [What the client was told to expect between sessions, and what to do] PLAN Between sessions: [Log to keep, resources to use, and who to contact if distress rises] Next session focus: [Reevaluate this target, then continue it, or the next target, present trigger, or future template] Coordination: [Contact with a prescriber or physician, with consent, or none] Next session: [Date, time, length, and format] Signed: [Clinician name, credentials, date and time]
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Each one follows the template. Use them to judge how much detail every part needs.
Private practice, in person, session 5, 90 minutes
Session 5 of an expected 8 to 12, in person, 90 minutes. 42-year-old woman, a high school teacher, referred by her family physician 7 months after a pickup truck ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of her car. She broke her left wrist, now healed. Diagnosis from the intake: PTSD, with nightmares, startle at car horns, and avoidance of the highway and the intersection where it happened. Standard eight-phase protocol. Sessions 1 to 4 covered history taking, the target list, and preparation. Today: phase 3, assessment; phase 4, desensitization; phase 5, installation; phase 6, body scan; and phase 7, closure. Prong: past memory, the first target on the plan. Goal 1: “Drive to work on the highway again,” with a PCL-5 below 33 by session 12.
First reprocessing session, so no earlier target to reevaluate. Log since session 4: 2 nightmares, down from 3 a week; jumped at a horn in a parking lot, rated 6 out of 10, and used her container. Sleeping about 6 hours. No alcohol this week. No dissociation in earlier sessions. Calm place, her back garden, and the container both practiced daily and working. Stop signal agreed: a raised hand. PCL-5 44, from 49 at intake. Ready to process.
Target: the moment of impact at the intersection. Image: the grille of the pickup filling her side window, a second before it hit. Negative cognition: “I’m not safe.” Positive cognition: “I’m safe now,” VOC 2. Emotions: fear and helplessness. SUD 8. Body: chest tight, both hands gripping, and the left side of her neck.
Horizontal eye movements following the clinician’s hand, at the medium speed she chose in preparation. 16 sets, most about 24 to 30 passes, with 2 longer sets when the fear peaked. Early sets brought the screech of tires and the smell of the airbag, and her fear rose to 9 out of 10 in set 3, then eased. Next came a paramedic holding her hand and telling her not to move, and her children visiting her in hospital. Sets 8 and 9 looped on “I should have seen him coming.” One cognitive interweave: asked whose light was red. “His. I had the green. I couldn’t have known.” Processing moved again. By set 12 the image was “smaller, like an old photo,” and her chest had loosened. SUD at each return to target: 8 at the start, 6 after set 5, 5 after set 10, 3 after set 12, and 1 after set 14. Sets 15 and 16 left it at 1. Asked what keeps it above 0: “I got hurt, and it could have been a lot worse. It should still mean something.” Judged ecologically valid; desensitization ended at SUD 1.
Positive cognition checked: “I’m safe now” still fits, and she kept it. VOC 4 before installation, up from 2 at the start. 4 sets of eye movements while she held the memory and the belief together: VOC 5 after set 2, 6 after set 3, and still 6 after set 4. Asked what keeps it from a 7: “I still need to watch for drivers who run lights.” Judged ecologically valid; installation complete at VOC 6. Body scan: slight tension at the left side of her neck, which cleared after 2 sets; a second scan was clear. Session complete: SUD 1, VOC 6, body scan clear.
Debriefed for 10 minutes. In her words: “It feels like something that happened, not something that’s happening.” Calm place not needed; one round of slow breathing. Distress in the room 1 out of 10. Alert and oriented, and said she felt fine to drive home on local streets. Denies thoughts of suicide or self-harm. Told that processing may carry on for a few days, that dreams, memories, or new thoughts about the crash may come up, and to log them and use her container or calm place if they do.
Keep the log each evening: trigger, image, thought, feeling, body sensation, and a 0 to 10 rating. Calm place practice before bed. Call the office if distress stays high for more than a day. Next session: reevaluate this target, with SUD, VOC, and the log. If it holds, process the present triggers, car horns and the intersection itself, then a future template for the highway drive to school. PCL-5 again at session 8. With her consent, a brief update to her family physician. Next session in 1 week, in person, 90 minutes.
Community trauma program, by video, session 10, 60 minutes
Session 10, by video, 60 minutes. Client at home in a spare room with the door closed; address and an emergency contact confirmed, and his partner at home. 36-year-old man, a bus mechanic. Diagnosis: PTSD related to childhood abuse by his father; recurrent major depression, in partial remission, on sertraline from his family physician. Sober from alcohol for 4 years. DES-II 14 at intake. Preparation ran 6 sessions: calm place, container, and resource development and installation with a memory of his grandfather teaching him to fish. Today: phase 3, assessment; phase 4, desensitization; and phase 7, closure. Prong: past memory, the earliest one linked to “I’m worthless.” Goal 2: “Stop shutting down when someone raises their voice.”
Reevaluated last session’s resource work: the grandfather resource holds, and he used it twice at work this week. Log: 2 triggers when his supervisor raised his voice, rated 6 and 5 out of 10; used the container both times and stayed at work. Mood “steady.” Sleeping 6 to 7 hours. No urges to drink. Sertraline unchanged. PCL-5 50, from 56 at intake. Stop signal: a raised hand on camera. Ready to process.
Target: age 8, his father shouting at him in the kitchen over a report card, while his mother stood at the sink and said nothing. Image: his father’s face close to his, and his mother’s back. Negative cognition: “I’m worthless.” Positive cognition: “I’m worthwhile as I am,” VOC 2. Emotions: shame and fear. SUD 7. Body: throat tight and stomach knotted.
Butterfly hug, arms crossed and tapping his upper arms in turn, paced by the clinician; chosen in preparation because eye movements on screen made him dizzy. 12 sets, most about 30 seconds. Other memories of his father’s rages opened quickly, then anger at his mother for not stepping in. SUD 7 after set 4. In set 7 his voice went flat and he said he felt “foggy.” Stopped the taps and grounded him: feet pressed to the floor, 5 things he could see named aloud, and a glass of cold water. Back within 3 minutes, able to say where he was and the date. Resumed with shorter sets of about 15 seconds. Then: “I was 8. Eight-year-olds get Cs.” Grief, and his throat eased. SUD 5 after set 9, and 4 after set 12. At 42 minutes other memories were still opening, so desensitization stopped to leave time to close. SUD at the last check: 4.
Not done. Installation and the body scan wait until the SUD reaches 0, or an ecologically valid 1. VOC not rechecked. Session incomplete: SUD 4, related memories still opening, and time.
Container exercise: he put today’s memory, and the others that came up, into his imagined locked steel toolbox, and checked it was shut. Then 3 minutes at his calm place, his grandfather’s dock on the lake. Asked what he was taking from today: “It wasn’t about the report card. I was a kid.” Distress in the room 2 out of 10, from 5 when processing stopped. Oriented to the date, where he was, and his plans for the evening; voice back to normal. Safety check: denies thoughts of suicide or self-harm, now and since the last session; no urges to drink; his partner is home, and he will call his sponsor tonight as planned. Told the memory may stay stirred up for a few days, with dreams, more memories, or irritability, and to use the container, the calm place, and his safety plan, which has 988, call or text, on it.
Log each day, with a 0 to 10 rating. Container and calm place morning and evening, and whenever triggered. No processing on his own. Call the program if distress stays above 6 or he has urges to drink. Next session: reevaluate this target and the log, then continue desensitization on the same memory before any new target. Booked 90 minutes to leave time to finish. If the fog returns, shorten the sets and ground him; if it keeps returning, go back to stabilization before more processing. No coordination needed today. Next session Tuesday, in 6 days, by video, 90 minutes.
The facts of the session, and which of the eight phases it covered. In EMDR, the phase tells the next reader where the client is in treatment.
Avoid: “EMDR session” with no phase. A preparation session and a full reprocessing session look the same without it.
Whether the client was steady enough to process today, and whether the last target held.
Avoid: Going straight to a new target. If the last one isn’t holding, it comes first.
The memory you processed, and the baseline you measure it against, in the client’s words.
Avoid: A negative cognition that describes the event, such as “the truck hit me.” It should be what the client believes about themselves now, such as “I’m not safe.”
What happened during processing, in summary: the stimulation, the main shifts, and the SUD each time you returned to the target.
Avoid: A line for every set. Record the turning points and the numbers, not a transcript.
Whether the positive belief now feels true, and whether the body is clear. With the final SUD, these decide whether the session was complete.
Avoid: Installing the positive cognition while the SUD is still high. Finish desensitization first, or close the session as incomplete.
How you brought the client back to the present before they left, and what you told them to expect.
Avoid: A rushed ending. Leave 10 to 15 minutes to close, and more after a hard session.
What happens between sessions, and where processing picks up next.
Avoid: Booking the next session weeks away after an incomplete one. Keep the gap short, and the session long enough to finish.
A SUD of 3 means little on its own. Record it at the start, at each return to target, and at the end, and the VOC at the start and after installation, so the note shows the path.
A session is complete when the SUD is 0, the VOC is 7, and the body scan is clear. If you stop at a SUD of 1 or a VOC of 6, write the client’s reason and why you judged it fitting.
When processing stops partway, closure is the part of the note that matters most: the container or calm place used, distress at the end, the safety check, and what the client was told to expect.
Twenty sets don’t need twenty lines. Record the turning points, the interweaves, and the SUD checks. Use your own words, not a protocol script or a copied worksheet.
Processing often carries on between sessions, for better or worse. Open the next note with the last target’s SUD and VOC and what the client logged, before choosing what to work on.
Vero Scribe writes the EMDR session note in your template from the session, with the client’s consent, or from your dictation afterward. You review and edit every section, then copy it into your record or export it to Word or PDF. Vero works in 60+ languages.
Start with the session number, the phases you worked on by name, and a readiness check. For a reprocessing session, record the target and its baseline: the image, the negative and positive cognitions, the VOC, emotions, the SUD, and where the client feels it in the body. Then the type of bilateral stimulation, the number of sets, the main shifts, any interweaves, and each SUD check. End with the VOC after installation, the body scan, whether the session was complete, how you closed, and the plan, starting with reevaluation at the next session.
History taking and treatment planning, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and reevaluation. The first two can take one session or many, depending on how stable the client is. Phases 3 to 7 often run in one processing session, and phase 8 opens the next one. Name the phases you worked on in each note.
SUD is the Subjective Units of Disturbance scale: how disturbing the memory feels now, from 0, no disturbance, to 10, the worst the client can imagine. VOC is the Validity of Cognition scale: how true the positive belief feels now, from 1, completely false, to 7, completely true. Record each at the start, at each check, and at the end. If the session ends with a SUD above 0 or a VOC below 7, write what the client said holds it there, and whether you judged it fitting.
Say it was incomplete and why: the SUD was still above 0, new memories were still opening, or time ran out. Record the last SUD, and note that installation and the body scan were not done. Then record how you closed, such as a container exercise, a calm place, or grounding; the client’s distress at the end; a safety check; and what you told them to expect. Plan to reevaluate and continue the same target soon.
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One psychotherapy session: focus, interventions, client response, risk, and progress toward goals.
A CBT session in its own order: mood check, agenda, homework review, thought or exposure work, new homework, and feedback.
Data, Assessment, Plan: the three-part session note, with the line between facts and judgment made clear.
Goal, Intervention, Response, Plan: a progress note that opens with the treatment plan goal.
Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan: a progress note that opens with what the client reported and what you saw.
EMDR and progress notes drafted from your sessions, for you to review.
Session examples in three common note formats, side by side.
Notes for video and phone sessions, drafted for your review.
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