emdr trauma PTSD therapy austin

eMDR therapy

A powerful approach to relieve intense symptoms.

Does the past consistently creep into the present? EMDR can help rewire your brain in a healthier way so old, upsetting, or traumatic experiences no longer impact your day-to-day life.

Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing Therapy

EMDR is a powerful treatment for traumatic or upsetting memories, PTSD, anxiety, or other intense symptoms that aren’t improving through talk therapy alone.

Do you feel stuck? EMDR relieves your intense symptoms so you can heal and move on.

Have you ever thought of something upsetting or embarrassing and suddenly feel like you’re reliving it all over again? You replay events or conversations over and over until you feel trapped.

Maybe you overreact to things or keep making harmful decisions and don’t understand why.

When you experience something upsetting or disturbing, that experience can get locked in your brain with the original picture, thoughts, sounds, feelings, and body sensations. Because your brain can’t correctly process and integrate that information, you continue to re-experience it.

This is why it can be so hard to forget about or “get over” something: your brain won’t let you! Thankfully, your symptoms don’t have to stick around forever.

EMDR therapy releases stuck memories to reduce the volume of your symptoms so you can understand, heal, and move on.

what does EMDR Therapy Treat?

EMDR is one of the most well researched and empirically validated trauma treatments. Not only is it the gold standard for treating PTSD, it’s been shown to effectively treat a wide range of other concerns, including:

  • Anxiety & Panic

  • Phobias

  • Trauma & PTSD

  • Grief & Loss

  • Traumatic Childhood Events

  • Anger

  • Chronic Pain

  • Low Self-Esteem

  • Depression

  • Disturbing Memories

  • Nightmares & Insomnia

  • Traumatic Events

How does EMDR work?

EMDR stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing:

  1. Eye-movement: bilateral stimulation (BLS) means moving your eyes back and forth to engage your left and right brain hemispheres

  2. Desensitization: the eye movements decrease the intensity of your memory and releases that information from your nervous system

  3. Reprocessing: we install healthier, more adaptive self-beliefs to create a template for responding to similar situations in the future

You’ll be desensitized to your memory, which changes the way you experience it in the present. Without those symptoms dominating your experience, your brain can find new insight and information.

The goal of eMDR is to significantly reduce or remove negative symptoms so you can heal and move on.

You’re not trying to erase your memories since your brain won’t release anything it doesn’t want to, and you won’t create new or false memories. Instead you’re changing your relationship with your past so that it no longer has such a firm hold on the present.

What are the 8 phases of EMDR?

History & Background: I’ll get a solid background on what things are like for you today. What symptoms are showing up for you? What’s your life like right now? What are your hopes and goals? We then tie your current symptoms to old and upsetting memories, which we call targets.

Phase 1

Preparation & Resourcing : Once we’ve picked a memory to reprocess, I’ll walk you through the entire process so you know exactly what to expect. We’ll pick your preferred method of bilateral stimulation and I’ll teach you some EMDR-specific relaxation and containment exercises.

Phase 2

Memory Reprocessing: We use bilateral stimulation (moving your eyes back and forth) to desensitize and reprocess your memory using your brain’s natural healing process. Processing is done when the memory no longer bothers or upsets you. We then install positive self-beliefs (what you prefer to feel about yourself).

Phases 3-6

Closure & Future Templates: We’ll wrap up processing by checking that your negative symptoms are gone, and then we’ll look towards the future by creating what’s called a “future template” for how you’d like to handle potential, similar situations differently in the future.

Phases7-8

the Benefits of EMDR Therapy

Relief from Severe Symptoms

EMDR turns down the volume on upsetting symptoms. Even if you recognize something is there, it will no longer have the same negative impact as before.

Positive Self-Talk

EMDR can install new, positive self-beliefs that are applicable to a wide range of experiences. It’s how you prefer to view yourself, so it’s never false or fake.

Better Boundaries

When you think kindly of yourself, you’ll be better equipped to create and hold boundaries, manage conflict, and connect with others.

 EMDR Resources

Frequently Asked Questions

  • The first session is a chance for you to fill me in on your lived experience, and what your hopes and goals are for therapy. I often recommend jotting down a few notes beforehand if you’re unsure of what you’d like to address.

    We’ll collaboratively decide what to work on and I’ll give you some helpful tools to practice between sessions.

  • I work with adults 21+ struggling with anxiety, panic, phobias, anger, and PTSD symptoms (such as nightmares or intrusive thoughts). If you have a concern that falls outside of these issues, please reach out for a free consultation call to discuss further.

  • In general, weekly therapy is recommended to make consistent progress towards your goals.

    Once we begin reprocessing a memory, large gaps between sessions means potentially losing valuable connections and memory networks.

  • The amount of time depends on what you’re going through and is different for everyone. Some clients choose to work on as many memories as needed in order to feel the full effects of EMDR. Other clients elect to work on only the most impactful memories.

    After each memory is processed, we’ll collaboratively decide which memory to work on next or if the work feels complete. If so, we’ll install a “future template” and wrap up.

  • You don’t need to fully remember something to process it. This is because your nervous system doesn’t have a delete button.

    Your memories and experiences are already in your brain, and EMDR taps into your brain’s natural healing process in a controlled manner.

    You will be observing what happens in the present moment, so there’s no need to remember things accurately.

  • Check out my in-depth blog post answering the most common questions about EMDR to see if this treatment is the right fit for you.

    You can also fill out the form to schedule a free 15-minute consultation call.

Still have more questions? Reach out to schedule a free 15-minute consultation call to get all your questions answered.