Approach · EMDR
EMDR, at a pace you set
I am EMDR certified, and I use it when a memory still has a live charge in it. You can usually tell when that is the case. The event is over, sometimes long over, and you know that intellectually, and yet something in you responds as though it is currently happening. A sound, a smell, a certain tone in someone's voice, and your body is back there before your thinking has a vote. EMDR is one of the more direct ways I know to take that charge down.
Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.
What EMDR looks like with me
We do not begin with the memory. We begin with preparation, and I do not skip it however ready you feel. That means getting to know you, understanding what your system does under pressure, and building at least one reliable way to come back to steady ground. We practice that while you are calm, because a resource you have only heard described is no use to you at the moment you actually need it. For some people preparation takes two sessions and for others it takes considerably longer, and the longer version is not a delay in the work. It is the work.
When we do start processing, the shape of it is quieter than people expect from what they have read. You bring the memory to mind along with the image, the belief about yourself attached to it and where you feel it in your body. Then we add bilateral attention: your eyes following a point on the screen, alternating tones through headphones, or your own hands tapping alternately on your knees. By video, self-tapping is often the steadiest, and it has the advantage of putting the pace in your hands rather than mine. We go in short sets. Between sets I ask what came up, and you tell me in a sentence or two. You do not have to narrate the whole event.
Then something starts to move on its own. That is the part that is hard to describe in advance. Associations arrive that you did not plan: another scene, a smell, something someone said years earlier that you had never connected to this. My job is not to steer it. My job is to keep you inside a range where you can feel the thing and still know you are here, in your own room, in this year, with me on the other end of the line. If you go past that range we stop and get you back.
We close every session deliberately, whether or not the memory is finished. You will not be sent off at the end of an hour with the lid off. And afterward you are already home, which is a real advantage of doing this by video rather than with a drive between you and your own kitchen.
You know it is over. Your body has not been told.
We do not start processing until you have somewhere to stand.
Where I find EMDR fits
A single, clear event
A crash, an assault, a fall, a diagnosis delivered badly, the moment you found someone. When there is one identifiable event still carrying the charge, this is often the most direct route through it.
Sudden or traumatic loss
Grief is my primary specialty, and grief after a sudden death often has a traumatic layer sitting on top of the sorrow. Taking down the charge on the worst image can let the actual grieving begin.
Long, repeated experience
Years rather than a moment: a childhood, a marriage, a workplace. This takes longer, needs more preparation, and often needs parts work alongside it. I will tell you that plainly at the start rather than partway in.
A belief that will not budge
You can argue yourself out of 'it was my fault' and still feel it. When a belief is held in the body rather than the reasoning, EMDR often reaches it where discussion has not.
How we would work
We start with a free 20-minute consult by phone, text or video. You tell me roughly what you are carrying, without detail you are not ready to give, and I tell you honestly whether I think this is a fit.
If we go ahead, sessions are weekly by secure video or audio. I will not put you on an EMDR protocol and leave everything else outside the room. Some weeks we process, some weeks your life needs the hour, and some weeks the right move is Internal Family Systems, because a part of you is not willing to go near the memory yet and it is right not to be. Somatic work, mindfulness and hypnotherapy all sit alongside this, and when a long pattern is what holds the whole thing in place we use my own Positive Re-Narrative and Repatterning.
I work with adults, seniors, couples and families, and I am honest about scope: I do not treat bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
- Preparation first, for as long as it takes
- Short sets, with you setting the pace
- Self-tapping, eye movement or alternating audio, whichever suits you
- A closing ritual at the end of every session
- Stopping when your system says stop, without treating that as failure
- EMDR used within a whole practice, not as the only tool on the shelf
Questions people ask about EMDR
- Will I have to describe what happened in detail?
- Less than people fear. EMDR does not require a full narration. Much of the processing happens without you narrating anything, and what you say out loud between sets can be as brief as a word. Some people do want to tell the whole story, once, to someone who does not flinch, and we can make room for that. But if you have been avoiding therapy because you cannot bear to say it all out loud, that is not the price of admission here.
- Can EMDR really be done over video?
- Yes, and it has been done this way for years now. The bilateral attention can be done with your own eyes following a moving point on the screen, with alternating sounds through headphones, or with you tapping your own knees or shoulders in an alternating rhythm. Self-tapping is often the steadiest option by video, and many people prefer it because it puts the pace in their own hands. What matters far more than the mechanism is the preparation and the pacing, and both of those are entirely possible on a screen.
- What if I get overwhelmed in the middle of it?
- We build for that before we start, which is why I do not begin processing in a first session. You will have a way to stop, a signal we have agreed on, and at least one resource we have practiced when you are calm so that it is available when you are not. If something floods, we slow down or stop, and we spend the rest of the hour getting you settled and oriented rather than pushing on. Ending a session unfinished is normal. Ending it while you are still underwater is not something I do.
- How much EMDR training do you have?
- I have been EMDR certified since 1999. I have used it for years within a broader practice, and I use it where it fits rather than as the answer to everything. If EMDR turns out to be the central need in your work and you want someone whose practice is built around it exclusively, I will say so and help you look.
If the past is still arriving in the present
You do not need to know whether EMDR is the right approach before you get in touch. That is something we work out together. Text or email and we will find a time to talk. Telehealth only, by secure video or audio, for people physically located in California. Laurie, LMFT.