We talk a lot about how effective EMDR is for trauma and PTSD symptoms, but the truth is that we use EMDR to treat a variety of presenting concerns. Anytime that you have an unrelenting symptom of distress, there is a root cause, and EMDR is almost always very helpful at treating the root cause so that the distress or unprocessed emotions can be processed and released all the way up to the present situation. I'll give a simple example that illustrates this. Let's say that

Dissociation is a natural phenomena, and many people experience mild forms of dissociation in everyday live. Dissociation can look like many different things for different people. Mild dissociation may look like feeling "checked out," numb, or tired. Moderate symptoms of dissociation might include feeling like you are "outside of your body" or like the things around you are not real. More severe symptoms can include "losing" chunks of time, where you don't remember things tha

Internal Family Systems, or IFS for short, is a type of parts work that is used in therapy. There are many different frameworks for doing parts work, but IFS is my personal favorite. In parts work, we observe that all people have different 'parts' of themselves that run certain aspects of their lives, show up in certain ways, or have a certain role they play in our inner world. Examples of common parts that people have or recognize are a 'perfectionist part' that tries to

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is a therapy modality that involves using eye movements (or other types of movements, called bilateral stimulation) to move stuckness out of the body, brain, and nervous system. It is a structured treatment that looks very different from other types of therapy. In EMDR therapy, your therapist will guide you through identifying which memories and experiences you will treat, and then they will guide you thro

There are many different types of therapy, and each has strengths and issues it is most useful for. In trauma therapy, we use a trauma-specific modality to target symptoms of trauma, such as: Flashbacks or intrusive memories Negative emotions or negative thoughts about the traumatic event Avoidance of thoughts of the traumatic event Staying on high alert or hypervigilance The main components of trauma therapy normally include: Intake and history Resourcing and stabilization