EMDR

What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a well-researched approach to psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. Most people know it for the eye movements, but that’s only one piece of a much larger process. EMDR is a structured, eight phase approach to Adaptive Information Processing (AIP). It’s designed to help your brain do what it naturally does with a healthy memory: process it, file it, and let it settle. When something distressing or traumatic happens, that natural processing can get interrupted. The memory becomes "stuck," along with the emotions, beliefs, and body sensations attached to it. EMDR helps your brain complete that unfinished processing so the memory no longer carries the same charge.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is integrative psychotherapy right for me?

Integrative psychotherapy, like other forms of mental health counseling, can be used to treat an array of both acute and chronic life challenges. Some of the reasons people seek out integrative psychotherapy include a desire to:

emerge from depression
move through grief and loss
improve relationships
create a healthy lifestyle
maintain optimal health

manage stress and anxiety
decrease pain
recover from illness
transcend trauma
break free from addiction

I'm trained to help you explore your thoughts and feelings so that you can see how they affect your behavior and mood.

More than just "venting," seeing a therapist can help you become aware of patterns that you want to change, and provide you with tools to help you think or act differently.

My aim as a therapist is to help you find the words to accurately and authentically express yourself so that you can both come to know your experience more deeply and gain greater meaning and insight about your life.

I will be an active participant in this process, and while our sessions are not designed to be conversational, you can expect me to ask questions and share observations.

When should I go to therapy?

Along with addressing immediate stressors and challenges, an integrative therapist seeks to understand the root causes of your symptoms. I examine the full range of physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and environmental influences that affect my clients' health, and present opportunities to not just alleviate suffering experienced in the present, but to rework core, deeply held patterns and beliefs in order to effect lasting change.

Ideally, the tools that I use with my clients aren't only sought out when in crisis. Integrative therapists place high value on prevention, and encourage the development of healthy behaviors and skills for effective self-care that can be use throughout a lifetime. In fact, many people choose to work with me as part of their ongoing journey of self-discovery and see their sessions as a vital component of their commitment to health and wellness.

What is a session like?

As every situation is unique, what you will experience is not easily described in general terms, but you can read what some of my clients and colleagues have shared here. What a session looks like varies depending on the particular areas in your life you’d like to improve, the approaches you feel drawn to exploring, and the techniques that are best suited for meeting your goals.

My approach promotes flexibility and emphasizes the therapeutic relationship above allegiance to any particular technique. The process of choosing which strategy, modality or theoretical construct to follow is not done haphazardly, but rather in a manner informed by sound clinical judgement in combination with the guidance of your inner wisdom.

You might be invited to explore meditation, movement practices, breathwork, therapeutic touch, expressive arts therapies, or lifestyle coaching in our work together. It's also possible that you'll have a modality you are particularly drawn to, and that might be where we begin. There are many ways we can use our time, and all of them have value.

You will always be at choice over whether or not to engage in these practices, however some combination of body-oriented, mindfulness-based, psycho-spiritual, creative arts, or energy-medicine approaches are usually recommended as part of an integrative treatment plan, and my expertise in these fields is often a motivating factor in my clients’ desire to work with me.

What can we talk about in therapy?

As a licensed therapist, I'm trained to hold difficult material so you don't have to worry about burdening me with topics that might be overwhelming or inappropriate for others in your life to be with.

No subject is off-limits, or "too much," to be discussed in session. And unlike chatting with a friend or family member, our time together is designed to be focused solely on you, and everything you share is kept confidential (see limits on confidentiality ).

What modalities will we use?

I'm familiar with a wide range of talk therapies, and will draw upon different traditions as appropriate to guide our work together.

My therapy style draws heavily upon my extensive training in:

Gestalt Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Therapy
EMDR Therapy
Somatic Experiencing

I have also received training in:

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
Solution-Focused Therapy, Experiential Focusing
Jungian Therapy
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Motivational Interviewing
12-Step Recovery
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
The Sanctuary Model

How long should I expect to be in therapy?

Healing timelines can be hard to predict

Physical wounds heal at different paces depending on their severity, your overall health, and how they’ve been treated.

Emotional wounds are no different.

As a general rule, the more committed you are to making changes in your life, the quicker you’ll begin to see results.

This means that it’s not necessarily the number of months that you are in therapy that matters, but how available you are to show up and do the work, both during and in between sessions, that counts.

Do I need a diagnosis?

You don't have to be diagnosed with a mental health problem to benefit from therapy, though a diagnostic assessment will be conducted when we begin.

You always get to decide what, how much, and when, you choose to disclose personal information about your life.

Please note that insurance companies will not reimburse for therapy without a diagnosis.

How frequently will we meet?

The standard in psychotherapy is to meet weekly, but there are many great reasons to deviate from this “rule.”

Some clients choose to work intensively, coming in multiple times a week or for longer sessions, while others prefer coming in once or twice a month.

While I don't require standard weekly sessions, I do ask that you are intentional in choosing a schedule.

Weekly sessions for the first month is a great place to start, and we can make any adjustments from there.

Self-development is a lifelong process, and I don't believe that transformation happens in a predictable or linear fashion. For this reason, the frequency and duration of sessions can vary over the lifetime of our therapeutic relationship.

How long is a session?

Regular visits can be scheduled in 30, 60, or 90 minute increments.

Longer sessions are also available for established clients for half or full-day intensives.

Ketamine dosing sessions are 2.5-3.5 hours. (See Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy page).