EMDR Certified
EFT Trained
EMDR goes beyond coping strategies to support deeper, lasting change
You might have done therapy before—gained insight, learned coping tools—but still feel like something’s stuck. There’s a lingering sense of confusion, heaviness, or pain that talk therapy alone hasn’t been able to shift.
Or maybe this is your first time considering therapy, and you’ve heard about EMDR. You’re wondering if it would be right for you.
EMDR could be a good fit for you if you…
Have PTSD
Are experiencing difficulties in your current relationship
Have experienced trauma or past relationships
Have experienced grief or loss
Struggle with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias
Struggle with chronic pain which doctors cannot find the source of
What is EMDR?
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is an evidence-based approach that has become the gold standard for trauma treatment. EMDR recognizes trauma or other painful experiences as more than just thoughts or memories that you can recall or reflect on. It can also be stored in the body and mind, showing up as images, physical sensations and raw feelings which do not always feel connected to any specific memory or thought. This is why traditional talk therapy, while often helpful, can also be limited in its ability to heal trauma.
The aim of EMDR is to bypass the purely “thinking mind” and access these deeper layers of experience, allowing the nervous system to reprocess and release them. In doing so, EMDR helps the mind make new meaning of old experiences and supports lasting resolution.
EMDR is like a cast for a broken bone. The therapy itself is not what “does” the healing; rather, EMDR supports your mind’s innate ability to heal itself.
Just as the body knows how to close a cut or mend a bruise, the mind has its own natural capacity to process and resolve painful experiences.
However, when an experience is too overwhelming, or when painful experiences are repeated over time, this natural healing process can become blocked. Trauma, in this sense, is like a bone that hasn’t been able to set properly on its own.
EMDR provides the support and structure needed for your mind to do what it already knows how to do: repair itself, make meaning of the past, and develop resiliency for the future. By gently reprocessing past experiences in a safe way, EMDR helps you release what has been stuck, feel less overwhelmed, and move more freely toward the life you want to live.
EMDR Therapy Can Help You…
Let go of past traumas and adverse experiences to find freedom in the present.
Clarify confusing, often contradictory feelings and find alignment between your values and your actions.
Feel confident in who you are and capable of moving forward in life in a way which feels meaningful to you
Learn to manage uncomfortable feelings without reacting in ways that don’t align with the person you want to be
Create better boundaries
Improve communication skills
Get “unstuck” from old patterns
Let go of people-pleasing; learn to say “no” without guilt.
You don’t have to just “manage” your pain- you can truly let it go, forever.
Part 1: Getting to Know Each Other
The first part of trauma treatment will always be building a relationship in which you feel safe, understood, and respected. In service of this, we will spend some time getting to know each other; during this time, I will also carefully listen to your story. This means getting to know you, your history, strengths, and your goals for therapy. This relationship will be the foundation we can lean on again and again once we begin working with the trauma in later stages of treatment. While this work is emphasized earlier on, I will pay attention to our relationship throughout the course of our therapy as it is a foundation for success in everything we do together.
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Part 2: Preparation & Resourcing:
The second part of EMDR treatment is what is known as “resourcing”. In this part of treatment, we create a foundation for the reprocessing of underlying painful experiences fueling the distressing feelings or problems you’ve come to therapy to address. This process looks different depending on your needs. It includes but is not limited to:
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Identifying the “true” source of your distress and reason for feeling stuck or unable to make changes
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Learning strategies for returning to feeling calm in the face of distressing emotions.
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Develop insight into patterns which keep you stuck and develop skills to manage uncomfortable emotions in the present.
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Create a “safe enough” external environment and day to day life to support trauma work
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Creating boundaries and improving communication in day to day life.
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Expanding your ability to tolerate distressing emotions- especially as they pertain to adverse experiences that will later be addressed in trauma work.
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Part 3: Reprocessing
The third part of EMDR treatment is the reprocessing of adverse or traumatic experiences itself. We do this by bringing up traumatic “material” in a number of ways. This can be done by directly revisiting past memories, or by working with relevant present day triggers.
Once the material is front and center, Invite you to use “bilateral stimulation” to engage both sides of the brain. Bilateral stimulation can be done in a number of ways including gentle eye movements, gentle tapping or sounds). This process allows your mind and body to deepen its access to and digest what was previously overwhelming, creating space for healing and present day resolution of distressing experience.
Reprocessing is where long-term change occurs. After completing this process, many clients report more improvements than just resolutions of distress that brought them there. Clients also often feel substantial improvements in self-esteem, less crippled by shame, improvements in their relationships with others, clarity and alignment between actions and values, a general sense of “contentness” with life- sometimes for the first time.
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