EMDR Therapy
Offered Virtually in Florida & Colorado
You can know something is over and still feel like your mind and body have not gotten the message.
For example, a raised voice may make your stomach drop before you have time to think. A change in someone’s tone may trigger immediate fear or self-doubt. You may avoid certain memories, conversations, places, or sensations because they feel too activating. Or you may understand exactly what happened to you and still carry the fear, shame, helplessness, or sense of danger that formed at the time.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based trauma therapy designed to help the brain process experiences that continue to feel unresolved. Rather than only talking about what happened, EMDR allows us to work with the memories, beliefs, emotions, body sensations, and present-day triggers that remain connected to it.
How EMDR Works
EMDR is built on the recognition that our brains and nervous systems are built to seek internal balance. As we go through life, our brains are constantly processing, integrating, and storing experiences as memories that exist in the context of our greater autobiographical memories.
However, when something traumatic happens, it is often too overwhelming to integrate. This leads traumatic memory to be stored inadequately or incompletely. Trauma comes with beliefs, images, feelings, and sensations that the brain hasn’t yet filed as something that happened in the past and has ended. They are instead experienced and re-experienced as ongoing elements of the present. EMDR works by targeting these elements of traumatic memory combined with the safety of the present to facilitate memory reconsolidation.
EMDR is a phase-based approach that focuses on memories and negative beliefs, especially ones that feel emotionally true even when a part of you knows they’re not.
Before jumping into reprocessing, we spend time understanding what is bringing you to therapy, identifying patterns and possible targets for reprocessing, strengthening internal safety, and making sure you feel prepared to approach trauma-related material at a manageable pace.
During reprocessing, you may briefly bring attention to a memory, image, belief, emotion, body sensation, or present-day trigger while engaging in bilateral stimulation, such as alternating eye movements, taps, or sounds. From there, you may notice thoughts, memories, emotions, sensations, or new perspectives arise. Rather than forcing a particular outcome, we track what comes up and work with what your system needs.
Over time, the memory often begins to feel less immediate and less emotionally charged, while becoming more connected to the perspective you have now.
What Can Change
As old experiences become more fully processed, you may notice that reminders feel less intense, triggers have less power, and your reactions feel less automatic.
You may be able to remember without becoming overwhelmed, stay more connected to yourself during difficult moments, and respond to the present with more choice rather than being pulled into patterns shaped by the past.
EMDR + IFS Integration
A Flexible Approach
I use EMDR both by itself and in combination with parts work through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), depending on what your system needs.
EMDR often provides a direct way to work with traumatic memories, triggers, beliefs, and emotional experiences that remain unresolved. However, there are times when internal conflict, protective defenses, or heightened emotional charge can act as barriers to the full potential of the deep healing that EMDR has to offer.
Integrating EMDR with IFS and parts work offers a flexible approach of using EMDR in a way that respects and works with your internal system.
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