Targeting what still stings
Together we identify the specific memories, the negative beliefs that grew out of them, and the body sensations that still travel with them.
The CenterBack to practiceApproach · EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
A well-researched way of helping the brain resolve memories that never finished processing — so the past stops arriving as if it were still happening.
EMDR is an empirically validated therapy designed to help the brain process and resolve traumatic or distressing memories. It is grounded in the Adaptive Information Processing model, which understands symptoms as the residue of experiences that were never fully digested.
Rather than managing symptoms indefinitely, EMDR engages your own natural healing mechanism so that stuck memories can be reprocessed and no longer cause distress in the present.
How it works
Bilateral stimulation
While you hold a memory in mind, we use side-to-side eye movements, gentle tones, or light taps. This activates both sides of the brain, in a way similar to the processing that happens during REM sleep.
Desensitization and re-patterning
As the memory processes, its emotional charge fades, and beliefs like “I am unsafe” have room to be replaced by something truer now — “I am safe here.”
What it can help with
- Well-established evidence
- EMDR is recognized as a first-line treatment for trauma and PTSD by major health organizations, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the World Health Organization.
- Efficient processing
- Deep trauma patterns often move more quickly than with talk therapy alone, because the work reaches how the memory is stored rather than only how it is described.
- Fewer triggers day to day
- Emotional reactivity, panic, hypervigilance, and intrusive memories tend to quiet as the underlying memory settles.
Who it’s for
- Recovering from a single event — an accident, a loss, a sudden shock.
- Living with complex, long-running trauma such as abuse or neglect.
- Coping with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, phobias, or low self-worth tied to past experience.
- Wanting lasting relief from persistent triggers without narrating every detail at length.
Not sure whether this is the right fit?
We can talk it through first. Nothing is decided in advance — the approach is chosen with you, at your pace.
Request a consultation