Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is a structured approach to trauma therapy. In this approach, "trauma" refers to any event experienced as seriously disturbing, upsetting, or overwhelming; the events that still carry intense emotion for us in present day, and contribute to a negative view of one's self or the world.

In EMDR therapy, we start by taking a history of all of these "target" disturbing events that contribute to present day concerns. We build your toolkit of grounding and stabilizing strategies to help you through active "reprocessing". In the reprocessing phase, we pair the re-experiencing of each target memory with bilateral stimulation (i.e. stimulation of both brain hemispheres), most commonly in the form of eye-movements. This allows us to link the maladaptive (harmful) beliefs associated with trauma memories to more adaptive (helpful) ones. The goal of this therapy is to reduce negative beliefs overall, and to allow trauma memories to be like any other memory - a story of what happened, not a painful re-experiencing. 

​

​​

​​

​​

​