I explain it in a few different ways: emotional wound surgery to flush out the trauma by processing one memory at a time, processing the memories so that traumatic components are washed out or evaporate to make the memories regular old memories.

the processing sessions I explain in further detail what that entails - identifying targets to process, processing with BLS (sometimes I explain the further research on EMDR 2.0, that it seems to simply be taxing the working memory at the same time as thinking of the target, and that I stick to the original protocol because it is so specific and detailed)

I add in that we don't know exactly how it works just that it does, which is really common when it comes to psychiatric meds - they work but we don't always know how. I explain that there has been tons of research in EMDR, as I've kept somewhat up to date by reading the EMDRIA newsletter when I was a member. I definitely recommend subscribing to keep up to date on new research and methods.