The Virtual EMDR Study gathered responses from 315 people who had used Virtual EMDR, a self-guided program based on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Participants differed in age, gender, education, trauma history, previous therapy experience, and how often they used the platform.
Some reported concerns related to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), while others described anxiety, depression, or different distressing experiences.
The study provides a picture of the people who answered its survey rather than describing one type of EMDR user.
The findings were documented in the Virtual EMDR Platform Effectiveness Analysis — Phase 2: Initial Findings, prepared in May 2025. Understanding the participants' backgrounds provides important context for the survey results.
How Many People Took Part?
The study analyzed responses from 315 Virtual EMDR users. The self-guided program allows individuals to complete structured EMDR sessions independently.
Participants answered questions about their backgrounds, reasons for using the program, and experiences with it. The initial report presents descriptive information, meaning that it summarizes the respondents rather than assigning people randomly to different treatment groups.
The sample included both people new to EMDR and those with previous therapy experience. The 315 respondents are a survey sample, not necessarily a representative cross-section of everyone who uses EMDR or Virtual EMDR.
What Ages Were Represented?
Adults from a wide range of ages took part. The report's age chart provides the following breakdown:
18–24 years: 4 respondents
25–34 years: 36 respondents
35–44 years: 92 respondents
45–54 years: 80 respondents
55–64 years: 61 respondents
65 years and older: 41 respondents
The largest age group was 35–44, followed by 45–54. Participants aged 55 and older were also well represented, while relatively few respondents were younger than 25.
These figures show that people responding to the survey were not exclusively young adults or people in one stage of life. The age chart totals 314 rather than 315, so the reported counts are presented here exactly as shown instead of assuming an age for the remaining respondent.
What Did the Study Report About Gender and Ethnicity?
Women made up the largest reported gender group. The survey chart recorded 216 female respondents and 85 male respondents, as well as four who selected nonbinary, two who selected another gender, and seven who preferred not to say.
The report also recorded participants' self-described ethnic backgrounds. Its largest category was Caucasian, selected by 241 respondents. Other reported categories included Asian (21), Hispanic or Latino (21), African American (9), Indigenous (3), and another background (18).
These figures are useful for understanding the composition of the sample. The sample was unevenly represented across gender and ethnic categories, which matters when interpreting its findings. As with the age chart, some demographic category totals fall slightly below 315 in the published figures.
What Were Participants' Educational and Financial Backgrounds?
The survey included people with different levels of formal education. According to the initial findings report, 148 respondents had a postgraduate degree and 113 had a college degree. Another 41 reported some college education, while 13 reported high school education or less.
This means that a substantial majority of respondents reported completing a college or postgraduate degree. The report does not establish whether education affected respondents' experiences.
Household income also varied. The largest reported income group was $100,000 or more, with 123 respondents. Other participants reported lower household incomes, including 39 who selected less than $25,000.
These were survey categories rather than independently verified financial records. The reports do not establish that the sample mirrors the wider population's income or educational distribution.
What Concerns Brought Participants to Virtual EMDR?
Participants described a range of experiences and reasons for using the program, rather than one shared diagnosis.
The report's section on reasons for using Virtual EMDR identified several frequently selected categories. General anxiety was the most common, reported by 191 participants, followed by depression (140), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) (110), and childhood abuse (105).
Other reasons included grief, unresolved trauma, and experiences associated with accidents or medical events. Smaller groups selected combat-related trauma or natural disasters.
These are self-reported reasons and experiences, not counts of diagnoses independently confirmed by clinicians. A person could identify with more than one category, so the figures should not be added together to estimate the number of people in the study.
Respondents therefore described more than one kind of concern.
Did Everyone Have a Formal PTSD Diagnosis?
No. The survey asked whether respondents had been professionally diagnosed with PTSD. The report distinguishes people who answered yes from those who answered no, showing that the sample was not limited to individuals reporting a formal PTSD diagnosis.
This is important for understanding what the study examined. It gathered the experiences of actual platform users, including people who described trauma-related symptoms or other emotional concerns without reporting a professional PTSD diagnosis.
The initial report includes a chart for this question but does not print exact counts beside the two portions. For that reason, it is better not to give a precise percentage of respondents with diagnosed PTSD based only on the chart.
It is also not appropriate to treat participants' reasons for using the platform as equivalent to clinical assessments.
How Much Previous Therapy Experience Did They Have?
Participants brought different experiences of mental health treatment to the survey.
One question about previous trauma therapy recorded 50 respondents who had not received therapy before, 204 who had received another form of therapy, and 61 who reported previous in-person EMDR.
Together, the first two groups account for 254 respondents with no previous EMDR experience, or about 81% of the study sample. The remaining 61 respondents provided a smaller group with prior in-person EMDR experience.
This distinction was built into the survey. People who had used in-person EMDR could answer questions comparing their experiences, while those without such experience answered questions about using the Virtual EMDR platform itself.
These figures describe treatment backgrounds, not what caused respondents' views of the program.
Were Participants Comfortable Using Technology?
Because Virtual EMDR is a digital program, the study also asked about participants' comfort with technology.
228 respondents described themselves as very comfortable, 85 as somewhat comfortable, and two as not comfortable at all.
The report recorded which devices people used: 193 selected laptops, 58 desktop computers, 35 tablets, and 29 smartphones. Laptops were therefore the most commonly reported device in this survey.
These results help describe the group able and willing to respond about a self-guided digital service.
They also matter when considering how widely the findings may apply. People who are less comfortable with digital tools were only a very small part of the survey sample, so their experiences are less visible in the findings.
How Often Had Participants Used the Program?
The study included users with different levels of experience on the platform.
For usage frequency, 136 respondents reported using Virtual EMDR twice a week, 61 once a week, and 12 monthly. Another 106 selected an "other" response rather than one of those schedules.
The length of program use also varied. The largest reported duration group, with 121 respondents, had used the program for more than one month but less than three months.
Other respondents reported shorter and longer periods, including 17 who had used it for more than a year.
The survey also asked when participants had last used Virtual EMDR. Some had done so recently, while 126 respondents said their most recent use was more than a year earlier.
This matters because respondents were sometimes recalling experiences from different periods, rather than all reporting immediately after a session.
What Other Personal Circumstances Did the Study Record?
The researchers also asked about social support and participants' current roles.
When rating the support available to them, 49 respondents described it as weak, 154 as moderate, and 112 as strong. This shows that people with different levels of reported social and emotional support took part.
Participants also identified roles such as healthcare worker, student, first responder, military veteran, and unemployed.
Most respondents—212—selected "other" for their current role, so the available categories do not provide a complete occupational profile.
These details describe respondents' circumstances; the initial report does not establish whether they caused differences in experiences or results.
What Can This Participant Profile Tell Us?
The 315 respondents represented a mixture of ages, life situations, reasons for using EMDR, and levels of prior therapy experience.
The sample also had clear concentrations: women were the largest gender group, many respondents had higher education qualifications, and most described themselves as very comfortable with technology.
These patterns provide context for interpreting later findings about satisfaction and self-reported change.
The study was a descriptive survey, not a randomized comparison of treatments. Its participant figures describe who answered, not how the program would perform for every type of user.
Overall, the study offers a detailed snapshot of 315 people who shared their experiences with self-guided Virtual EMDR. The range of reported backgrounds makes the sample informative, while the uneven representation of some groups remains important when interpreting the results.
Study source: Virtual EMDR Study and full downloadable reports.
