EMDR was developed by Francine Shapiro, who observed that recalling a troubling event while walking reduced its emotional intensity.

“EMDR, eye movement desensitization reprocessing is something that was developed by a psychologist, Francine Shapiro. She actually was in Palo Alto. And the story goes that she was walking, not so incidentally, in the trees and forest behind Stanford, and she was recalling a troubling event in her own mind. So this would be from her own life. And she realized that as she was walking, the emotional load of that experience was not as intense or severe. She extrapolated from that experience of walking and not feeling as stressed about the stressful event to a practice that she put into work in with her clients, with her patients, and that now has become fairly widespread.”