EMDR Therapy

Relieve Emotional Pain From the Past

EMDR is a psychotherapy treatment that helps guide the body through the natural grief & healing process when we can’t do it on our own.

I am a Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant.

Change pathways in your brain.

Pathways are built consciously when we work to form good habits like exercising or drinking enough water.

Unwanted behavior can be caused by a pathway formed from a disturbing incident in our past. When we cannot overcome negative reactions on our own, a licensed, certified EMDR therapist can assist in re-setting responses to form new pathways.

EMDR Treats Emotional Pain At The Source

Natural Stress Responses Prepare Us For Danger

Things happen every day that could cause us to have negative thoughts and feelings. Our senses are the inputs that provide information to our brains.
When we stub our toe, we can trigger an explosion of anger, fear, anxiety, and pain all at the same time, in a split second.

If you’ve ever hit your toe so hard you suddenly find yourself in excruciating pain, you may have experienced the human body’s instinctual fight, flight, or freeze stress response.

The five senses, hearing, smell, taste, touch, site

Feeling powerless and thinking (or screaming) things like “OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO DIE,” or “I’M IN DANGER!” in this moment are part of our body’s natural response to distress.

After a minute or two, the pain subsides and we catch our breath. Our instincts retreat as our brains analyze the situation and determines it’s safe. We might have a flashback of the pain later on in the day, but we feel better and we go on with our day.

Trauma Creates Dysfunctional Memories

When trauma on a much bigger scale happens like a serious accident, violence, or abuse, our mental recovery can be challenging. There is no telling what story our own memory processing system will extract from the event and move into long-term storage.

Our individual experiences and memories shape our core beliefs. We are especially vulnerable when we are young and experience fight or flight for the first time. Negative, violent, and stressful life events can injure our thought process and leave mental scars.

Trauma situations, car crash, house fire, ambulnace, broken bones

Our brains need time to grieve and mentally heal from a traumatic event. During the healing process, sometimes trauma can cause a dysfunctionally stored memory, as in PTSD.

Dysfunctional Memories Can Be Repaired

Eye Movement Desensitization and Resolution therapy is a mental health treatment by a licensed therapist that uses bilateral stimulation, similar to eye movement during REM sleep, to access the sub-conscious and take stress responses out of memories.

An EMDR session is like physical therapy for the mind.

During an EMDR session, we will work together and do bilateral movement exercises, while you simultaneously focus on thoughts and feelings around a target memory.

Present Distress

PTSD symptoms, frustration, sadness or anger, emotional or physical pain stopping you from feeling your best.

This includes things like performance anxiety, auto-immune disorders, or substance dependency.

Target Memory

Your target memory will be determined before the psychotherapy exercises begin.

This memory could be one you already know is causing distress, or we may discover it when we talk about the troubles you are having today.

Future Responses

An exciting part of EMDR therapy is you get to pick your own emotions to think and feel when a trigger from the past arises.

If you had the chance to control your mindset, what would you change? Build a new pathway to invoke emotions chosen by the person you are today.

EMDR Compared To Other Psychotherapies

Proven Relief

EMDR is proven to provide relief in fewer sessions than other psychotherapies. We target a specific mental wound causing distress in your life.

With each session, the wound heals a little more. Soon enough, you will notice a positive change in your or your family member’s behaviors.

No Homework

Unlike other treatment orientations, EMDR does not require work outside of appointments.

The work is done on the sub-conscience mind during the session. As each session is completed you will begin to notice a change in your responses to distubances.

No Detailed Descriptions

This therapy does not require clients to explain the disturbing memory in great detail.

We’re doing therapeutic exercises with just your thoughts to shut down disturbances. We’ll work on setting future responses that will help you reach your goals.