What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) is a type of psychotherapy that attempts to alleviate the pain of traumatic or disturbing memories and experiences through reprocessing them and desensitizing them. EMDR taps into unprocessed memories and helps to process them correctly so that they are recategorized in the body and the brain to cause less distress.

EMDR is conducted in phases. It begins by teaching the client grounding, somatic, and visualizing exercises that will help to create a safe anchor for the client to return to if material becomes too distressing. Then traumatic and painful experiences, memories and negative self-beliefs are identified. Next, through a process of desensitization, the memories and beliefs are transformed so that they are no longer emotionally disturbing. The last step helps individuals to form positive feelings about themselves and their experiences. Unlike talk therapy and other forms of traditional therapy, EMDR does not require the client to talk at length about their traumatic experiences or gain cognitive insights about them.

EMDR can be a useful treatment for symptoms such as:

  • Panic Attacks

  • Performance Anxiety

  • PTSD

  • Addiction

  • Sexual/Physical Abuse

  • Sexual/Physical Assault

  • Disturbing or Distressing Memories

  • Complicated, Prolonged, or Ambiguous Grief or Loss

  • Sexual Issues

  • Childhood Trauma

  • Witnessing Violence

  • Shame, Self-Blame, Self-Injury

  • Chronic Relationship Problems

  • Dissociation

Our Approach

We utilize a reflective, relational approach meaning that rather than doing therapy “to” or “at” you, we are engaging in relationship with you in a way that allows patterns and themes interjecting from the past to enact themselves in the room with us in the present.

Rather than only utilizing a “top down” approach where we analyze and engage cognitively, or only utilizing a “bottom up” approach where we would only pay attention to the somatic and emotional experience, we combine these in order to engage all parts of the person in front of us. We believe that this “wholeness” is the natural human state, and this is what trauma often takes from us by fragmenting and dissociating parts of our humanity from us.

Complex trauma survivors often do not have complete memories or verbal narratives to call from, but their traumatic experiences are still stored in their bodies and find ways to speak to them. But engaging fully in the somatic and experiential is not healing without being in connection with other parts of the self, the present moment, and in relationship with a trusted other. The people who we work with have often been harmed in relationship, so it is through relationship that we work towards healing.

There is not a single step-by-step process to this type of work, because every individual has different wounds and has different needs to be met in order to heal those wounds. We firmly believe that while we may be experts in how to hold space for our clients and track the process of their healing, our clients are the experts on themselves and their experience, and it’s crucial to reinforce their agency in the process of their healing.

Our approach is one of reflection, curiosity, engagement, patience, and pacing. We work to build a safe, secure, and consistent relationship to process things within and through, and this is something that takes time in order to do well. We value inquiry for the sake of inquiry, and hold self-reflection and narrative building as inherently healing.

We believe that human wellness is linked to human connection, not just environmental stress or biology.