The Past is Present

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an 8-phase, structured psychotherapy approach that helps people process and heal from traumatic or distressing memories. During the reprocessing phases, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (like eye movements, tapping, or sounds) while recalling memories to help the brain reprocess them in a less distressing way. 

Additionally, EMDR therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD symptoms. Ongoing research demonstrates positive clinical outcomes, showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and other distressing life experiences.

EMDR therapy does not focus solely on coping with today’s problems. Instead, we work to answer the question, which circumstances or experiences caused you to respond to today’s difficulties in such a way now? After discussing how your concerns came to be, we will likely start by reprocessing past memories that contribute to today’s concerns. 

What happened to you in the past has trained your nervous system to react in a way that is contributing to your distress presently.  Simplistically, the ultimate outcome of EMDR therapy is a regulated nervous system, one that responds rather than reacts to stressful people and situations.

When the past is witnessed with empathy, compassion, and self-understanding, change happens.

Your Brain Wants to Heal

EMDR helps the brain reprocess “stuck” memories so they’re stored more adaptively. Many therapists explain it as helping the brain do what it naturally does during REM sleep—integrating experiences so they no longer feel overwhelmed in the present. The experience is still remembered, but the fight, flight, or freeze response from the original event is resolved. 

EMDR also assists you in connecting to more adaptive information so that you are left feeling more empowered and self-confident. As the brain reprocesses painful experiences, triggers often lose their intensity. Situations that once felt overwhelming may begin to feel manageable or even neutral. You may notice you can handle stress, conflict, and strong emotions with more steadiness and less reactivity.

EMDR Is Not Hypnotizing

No. Clients remain fully awake and in control. While memories are accessed, EMDR is designed to prevent re-traumatization, and I will work with you to regulate the pace and intensity of a session. 

Additionally, I’m trained to use various modifications to assist you in managing your distress and access to other memories which may be thematically similar to the one we are reprocessing. These modifications will help you to remain within your “window of tolerance” for feelings, body sensations, and thoughts so that reprocessing can occur.

The Only Way Out is Through

EMDR therapy is divided into three types of sessions: client history and preparation, reprocessing, and re-evaluation. The first few sessions (client history and preparation) are dedicated to developing an understanding of which events or circumstances from the past contribute to your current symptoms. Also, the preparation phase includes learning techniques to regulate your emotions and stress responses, establish safety, and build a therapeutic alliance between you and me. 

During the reprocessing phases, we decide which past memory to reprocess (usually the earliest or the worst). These sessions usually include identifying a target memory, noticing thoughts, emotions, and body sensations, then engaging in bilateral stimulation while I guide the process. You will notice an array of thoughts, feelings, and memories while experiencing less distress about the memory we started with.  You will also develop more helpful self-knowledge. 

Once the distress reaches a “zero,” we move on to strengthening the positive information you’ve developed about yourself. Reprocessing sessions also include grounding and closure to ensure emotional and physical safety. 

During the re-evaluation session, we begin by examining how life has been between sessions as it relates to the memory we reprocessed during the previous session. The answers to the re-evaluation questions will determine where we take our work next. We will cycle through phases 3-8 over and over as we target each distressing memory and the current triggers of your symptoms or concerns.  

As sessions progress, many clients report gaining insight into their situation, developing greater self-confidence and self-efficacy, and experiencing stress responses. You may notice old beliefs and fears like “I’m not good enough” dissipating, thereby allowing for more compassionate self-beliefs to emerge. As you begin to feel better about yourself, your relationships will naturally improve because past wounds, fears, and negative beliefs are no longer activated.  Communication can feel easier, boundaries clearer, and connection safer.  

Any information you can provide me about how you are doing in-between sessions will be immensely helpful in deciding which memories to prioritize as well as whether additional skills are needed.

EMDR Is An Investment

I am an out-of-network provider, which means I do not bill insurance companies directly. By not taking insurance, I can practice EMDR therapy the way EMDR therapy was researched – using 90 minute sessions – and with people whose symptoms may not meet the full-criteria for mental health illnesses including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

A self-pay practice allows for more personalized care without limits upon session length, session quantity, treatment modality, and diagnosis. 

However, if you would like to access your out-of-network benefits, I will provide a superbill to you on the 10th of every month. This superbill contains all of the information your insurance company needs in order to reimburse you for the sessions in accordance with your insurance policy. 

Please note a diagnosis is needed for you to be reimbursed by your insurance company.

Choosing to work with an out-of-network therapist allows for you to have greater privacy, flexibility, and autonomy in your treatment.  We can focus on your goals without justifying your care to a third party.

As of March 1, 2026, for all new clients, my EMDR session rate is $225/90 minutes or $150/60 minutes for a Felt Sense Polyvagal Model session. Many clients meet with me 2-4 sessions per month. 

I have a 24-hour cancellation policy, so should you need to cancel, please cancel 24 or more hours in advance of your session otherwise I charge the full session rate for late cancellations and no-shows.  

As a courtesy to all potential new clients, I offer a free 30-minute consultation so that we may discuss your concerns and how EMDR therapy could benefit you. We can meet either in-person or via Telehealth for the no-cost consultation.

At this time, I do not offer income-based or sliding scale appointments.

Choosing EMDR therapy or a Felt Sense Polyvagal Model session is an investment of both time and money, and results in not only symptom relief, but in long-term emotional freedom and resilience.

You Don’t Have to Start Over

Yes!  EMDR therapy does not have to replace the therapy you’re already doing – it does not have to be a standalone therapy. It can also be used alongside your current therapy or care to help you move through specific blocks, past experiences, or triggers that feel hard to resolve through talking alone.

Think of EMDR as a focused tool that helps your brain “unstick” distressing memories or emotional patterns that may be interfering with the progress you’re trying to make in other areas of treatment. When used as an adjunct approach, EMDR and your primary therapy can complement each other: you can focus on coping skills, relationship patterns, decision making, and ongoing life stressors with your primary therapist; and reprocess distressing memories, triggers, or negative beliefs that feel emotionally charged or “stuck” with me, your EMDR therapist. 

With your permission, I can coordinate care to make sure the work is aligned and supportive rather than overwhelming.

EMDR therapy works well as an adjunct therapy if you’re:

• Experiencing strong emotional reactions that aren’t shifting even though you understand your problems logically;

• Getting triggered due to a specific memory or event;

• Working on depression, anxiety, or relationship issues but you want to resolve the “root” of these difficulties;

• Time-limited – some people choose to see an EMDR therapist for a period of targeted trauma processing while maintaining their regular therapist for overall support and continuity.

It’s not about starting over — it’s about adding a powerful tool to the work you’re already doing so you can move forward with less emotional weight from the past.

The First Rule of EMDR Club is to Talk About EMDR Club

Yes!  While my practice is dedicated to the continuous use of EMDR therapy, I incorporate Polyvagal Theory (the study of your stress responses), Ego State Theory (a self-analysis of all of your emotional “parts” that make you uniquely you), cognitive therapy (process questions to help you think about thinking and feeling), and the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model – a modality of somatic therapy to help you develop a better relationship with your body, your emotions, and your life experience, as well as an understanding of your body’s wisdom.

One of my future professional goals is to become certified in Internal Family Systems.

Triggers and Stress Responses are Our Friends

The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model (“FSPM”) was developed by Jan Winhall, MSW and combines Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Model with Gene Gendlin’s Felt Sense Focusing practice to work safely with dysregulated nervous systems.

Triggers and stress responses provide useful reminders of wounded places that need our help. They are powerful parts of ourselves, lost experiences suspended in time and within our bodies, longing to be heard, acknowledged, validated, and integrated into both our bodies and knowing.

As Jan explains, “Unlike traditional pathology-based models, FSPM reframes all types of trauma and addiction as adaptive responses of a nervous system in distress. The model helps clients build body awareness, track their felt sense, and develop nervous system regulation through the lens of polyvagal-informed safety.”

By integrating interoception and neuroception both practitioners and clients are empowered to move from survival, “red zone” states to neurological states of connection, belonging, and safety.

A FSPM session is for anyone who desires to learn how to regulate his/her stress responses, anxiety, and emotions while experiencing safety within one’s body. Feelings of safety will arise when you are seen, valued, heard, and validated. Once you experience connection to your body within a relationally safe experience, a wellspring of personal growth, wisdom, restoration, creative energy, and insight will emerge.  

When “focusing” during a FSPM session, you may experience what Gene named as “a joyous moment of liberation,” or a “felt shift” as you move from a stressed state to a connected state. This felt shift is a profound, possibly even paradoxical, bodily felt sense of release, easing, relaxation, or opening that occurs when a previously “stuck,” vague, or bothersome problem is finally understood and released physically. This experience is not only intellectual, but rather physical too, as your body experiences unfolding and the sense you can move forward despite your concerns. 

The intention of this FSPM practice is to learn something new about yourself, knowledge that yields new insight and self-acceptance that you can apply to your daily life while experiencing connection with yourself, a ventral vagal “green zone” state.

A FSPM session is one-hour and includes guided Focusing, education about neuroception and interoception, and additional guided, body-centric practices to heal psychological trauma. 

FSPM may serve as a standalone psychotherapy or complement any other type of psychotherapy you are pursuing, including EMDR therapy.