Unfold From Anxiety and the Effects of Trauma
If you are an:
Adult
Adolescent
College or Grad student
Athlete
Retiree
Professional
First Responder
Activist
If you have:
Chronic Stress
Relationship or Intimacy problems
Anxiety, Phobias, or Panic Attacks
Depression
Overwhelming Emotions
Difficulty Feeling Emotion
Unresolved Grief
Performance Anxiety or Perfectionism
Addictions
Low Self-Esteem
People-pleasing tendencies
PTSD
If you’ve experienced:
Attachment wounds or childhood neglect
Physical or sexual abuse
Religious trauma
Performance failures
Stress or trauma from oppression
Divorce, break ups, or separation
Traumatic loss or vicarious trauma
Car accidents
Medical Trauma
Sexual Assault
Displacement or Migration
War or Natural Disaster
Violence, harassment or bullying
About EMDR
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that result from disturbing or stressful life experiences. It is an evidence based approach that can help you to un-learn patterns that play out in your life now, that don’t seem to change even if you understand their origins.
EMDR was developed in the late 1980’s by the late Dr. Francine Shapiro. Her own experience with cancer informed her rigorous research to develop a therapy that could help people experience transformational change.
Sometimes our innate capacity for resilience and adaptation can get overwhelmed and we can get “stuck” in a state of distress that may not go away after the acute distress has ended or is easily re-triggered in a knee-jerk manner. Many times these reactions are not fully conscious. EMDR helps to process these past experiences to help unstick that old information stored, by activating it in a safe manner.
EMDR offers hope of “getting past your past” (the title of one of Francine Shapiro’s books).
How Does EMDR Work?
We will always begin with thorough life history and intake assessment. As that information is being collected, I will be listening for themes of information salient throughout your life and in your current concerns that brought you to therapy. We will create a list of memories and experiences as you go that you might reprocess with EMDR. One of the components of EMDR that many people associate with EMDR is bilateral stimulation (BLS). During an EMDR session, you’ll be asked to focus on a specific memory or trigger while engaging in bilateral stimulation—this may involve:
Eye movements (moving them back and forth)
Listening to alternating sounds
Tapping with your own hands or with a set of electronic hand tapping device
Bilateral movement or stimulation helps your brain reprocess the memory without becoming overwhelmed, gradually reducing its emotional impact.
About Parts and Attachment Work
While trauma refers to experiences that overwhelm us or our ability to cope, you can think of attachment as neurobiological pathways that form based on the quality and patterns of care we receive from our caregivers in childhood. Everyone develops strategies or adaptation in order to gain or maintain care, connection, acceptance, attention, and emotional and physical safety or to help us to cope with the absence of these things.
Because different parts of ourselves are responsible for carrying out the different strategies and adaptations we’ve made to survive along the way, I often integrate parts work in with EMDR and talk therapy. This can help us understand why we do what we do.
Parts work (also called ego state therapy) involves therapeutic approaches that view the human personality distinct "parts" rather than a single entity. In therapy, we try to understand the different parts of you that have developed and work to resolve conflicts between parts of you which may be responsible for holding you back from making desired changes.
About Talk Therapy
Talk therapy is a valuable intervention because bringing awareness to something is can be enough to change it. Being seen, heard and accepted can be healing in and of itself and can help repair the impacts of previous experiences you may have had that lack emotional support, safety and consistency. More and more research shows that developing a trusting relationship between you and the therapist over time and the therapist’s ability to be present are fundamental to change and recovery in the therapy process.
For clients who are engage in EMDR therapy, talk therapy is an important part of the therapy process also, to help you integrate the learnings taking place in EMDR work.
To get started:
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Fill out the contact form and I’ll reach out to schedule a free 20 min call. We’ll discuss the challenges that bring you to therapy and what kind of therapy you’re interested in to help with those concerns (EMDR, talk therapy, virtual or in-person).
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We’ll choose a consistent day and time that works for you. I typically work with people on a once a week basis in the beginning phase of therapy.
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After we decide to work together and settle on a schedule, I’ll send you a link to your client portal which contains all the intake paperwork. You’ll complete these at least 48 hours before your first appointment so that I have time to read them over before we meet.
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In the first appointment we will go over:
What brings you to therapy
Your goals
Questions you may have about the therapy in general and preferences you have
How long do you wish to engage in therapy and are there life factors we need to be aware of that impact the ability to engage in therapy
Key office policies, mandated reporting obligations