Specialties
EMDR
EMDR Intensives
EMDR
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) is a science-based eight-phase treatment approach that can heal the different aspects of trauma, such as "stuck" feelings, negative held beliefs about self, physical triggers, and distressing memories.
EMDR treatment looks different than regular talk therapy. In EMDR, as the therapist, I act as a facilitator to provide a safe space for your brain's natural capacity to work at filing away disturbing memories and allow for adaptive information to emerge.
These are the eight phases:
Phase one: We explore how your current symptoms are impacting your daily life and if/how these symptoms may be connected to experiences in the past.
Phase two: We assess what feels doable/tolerable for you in terms of accessing past painful experiences and ensure that we go at a pace that is comfortable for you. We will practice self-soothing strategies that you can use both during and outside the session.
Phase three: We determine which "target memory" to use during phase four. Usually this means I'll ask you to think about a specific memory that still feels disturbing to you now, what feelings, negative beliefs (i.e. I'm not good enough, I'm unworthy) and body sensations are connected to it, and how disturbing the memory is on a scale from 0-10. We also identify a positive belief about yourself that you'd like to connect to the target memory (i.e: I have choices, I'm okay the way I am, I'm lovable).
Phase four: This is what people usually think of as EMDR; in this stage we reprocess the disturbing memory using bilateral stimulation (BLS). BLS can be done with eye movements, holding gently vibrating tappers, "butterfly taps" or other bilateral movements. Thinking about the disturbing memory will become less activating during the reprocessing phase and your innate inner resources (calm, self-compassion and confidence) will start to emerge and strengthen.
Phase five: Using BLS, we strengthen the positive belief that you would like to hold about yourself connected to the target memory.
Phase six: Our bodies hold memories too, so we will check if there are any disturbing body sensations left that come up when thinking about the target memory.
Phase seven: Closure. To ensure you feel ready to go about your day after the session, we take some time for transition at the end of the session by using self-soothing strategies.
Phase eight: Reevaluation. At the beginning of the following session, we check in to see if you noticed any changes in your daily life since the previous session. At the successful completion of the EMDR process, we will discuss future goals.
IFS
EMDR Intensives
EMDR
IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a non-pathologizing, gentle model for treatment and for understanding human behavior in general.
The IFS model identifies that all people have a core self as well as different internal parts that work together or that are in conflict with each other.
All of us experience our parts all the time: "A part of me wants to go for a walk and another part of me wants to watch my favorite show." In treatment this can show up as: "A part of me wants to heal my trauma, but another part of me is too scared to talk about it."
In our work together, all parts are welcome. Each part of us intends to protect us in some way or carries an old wound. We will identify the positive protective intentions and/or needs of each part of you connected to the trauma and unburden parts from having to work so hard. We can then explore what productive role they would like to take on. As a result, you'll increasingly be able to live life from a place of what IFS calls the 8 C's of our Core Self: Calm, Compassion, Confidence, Courage, Clarity, Curiosity, Creativity and Connectedness.
EMDR Intensives
EMDR Intensives
EMDR Intensives
Therapy Intensives (3-5 hour sessions) are an accelerated form of therapy that create a space to do a deep dive into healing your trauma so that you can make progress in a shorter period of time and feel better sooner. A focused approached in Intensive therapy allows for processing complex, deeply rooted patterns and can lead to profound healing.
Intensives can be done in conjunction with weekly/biweekly 50-minute sessions, or as a standalone treatment.
The Intensive treatment program begins with an initial 50-minute intake/assessment session. This session is essential to determine if the Intensive program is suitable for you at this time and to establish a treatment goal. The next step is a multi-hour session (Intensive), which typically lasts about four hours. After the Intensive we schedule one or two follow up 45–50-minute sessions to integrate newly learned skills and insights.
An Intensive program may be a great fit for you if wish to engage in trauma work but are unable to commit to traditional weekly therapy sessions due to time constraints, or if you have found EMDR beneficial and would like to accelerate your progress.