EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a structured psychotherapy that can help people process experiences that continue to feel emotionally, physically, or relationally present long after they are over.
EMDR is best known as an evidence-based treatment for PTSD. It can be especially helpful when past experiences continue to show up through distressing memories, strong emotional or physical reactions, negative beliefs about yourself, avoidance, or a sense that your nervous system still responds as though something from the past is happening now.
I am an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and integrate EMDR within a broader, individualized approach to therapy. EMDR is not something I automatically use with every client or introduce simply because trauma is part of someone’s history. We consider together whether it fits your needs, readiness, goals, and the larger context of your life.
Treatment includes understanding your history and current concerns, identifying patterns and experiences that may be connected to present distress, preparing for trauma processing, and helping the brain and body integrate experiences that have remained highly activated or unresolved.
During EMDR processing, you may briefly focus on aspects of a distressing memory while also engaging in bilateral stimulation, such as alternating eye movements, taps, or sounds. You are not required to describe every detail of what happened.
The goal is not to erase a memory or convince yourself that something painful was acceptable. Instead, EMDR aims to help the memory become less emotionally and physiologically overwhelming and more clearly experienced as something that happened in the past.
EMDR has particularly strong research support for the treatment of PTSD and traumatic stress.
People may also seek EMDR when they notice that earlier experiences continue to shape present-day reactions, including intense triggers, fear, shame, self-blame, avoidance, or deeply held beliefs such as “I am not safe,” “I am powerless,” or “Something is wrong with me.”
Whether EMDR is appropriate depends on the individual. Symptoms that look similar on the surface can have different meanings and histories, so treatment is based on your particular experience rather than on a diagnosis or technique alone.
EMDR follows a structured, eight-phase model, but therapy does not necessarily move through those phases quickly or in a simple linear sequence.
Before trauma processing begins, we spend time understanding what brings you to therapy, your history, current stressors, strengths, supports, and how you respond when difficult material is activated.
For some people, preparation is relatively brief. For others—particularly when trauma has been chronic, developmental, relational, or complex—more time may be useful for strengthening emotional regulation, increasing present-day safety, understanding protective responses, or building greater capacity to stay connected to the present.
Pacing matters. Moving slowly is not a failure to “do EMDR correctly.” It can be an important part of treatment.
When painful experiences occurred repeatedly, began early in life, happened within important relationships, or shaped how you learned to understand yourself and other people, treatment may need to address more than individual memories.
In this kind of work, I may integrate EMDR with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, attachment and relational approaches, parts-oriented work, and cognitive approaches. These approaches can help us understand protective responses, work with body-based reactions, address longstanding beliefs, and attend to what happens within relationships as healing unfolds.
EMDR remains one tool within a larger therapeutic process rather than becoming the entire treatment.
Some people seek EMDR because they are ready to work directly with traumatic memories. Others arrive knowing that something from the past continues to affect them but are uncertain about revisiting it.
Both are understandable.
We can talk about what EMDR involves, what concerns you about it, what you hope might change, and whether it feels like the right approach for you. Beginning EMDR does not mean immediately processing your most painful experiences.
Therapy should move at a pace that allows enough challenge for change while maintaining sufficient safety, choice, and connection.
I am an EMDRIA Certified Therapist.
EMDR certification is an additional professional credential beyond completing basic EMDR training and includes further clinical experience, consultation, and continuing education in EMDR therapy.
My certification is one part of a broader background in trauma treatment. My work also draws from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, attachment and relational approaches, parts-oriented therapy, and cognitive approaches so that treatment can be adapted to the person rather than requiring the person to adapt to a single method.
If you are interested in EMDR, we can begin by understanding what you are experiencing and what you would like to change.
From there, we can consider whether EMDR, another therapeutic approach, or an integration of several approaches makes the most sense for you.
The goal is not to fit you into a particular treatment model, but to determine what is likely to be most helpful for your needs, goals, and circumstances.
Cordillera Counseling Services provides individual therapy in Columbia, Maryland and virtually throughout Maryland. If you are considering EMDR therapy and would like to learn whether it may be a good fit, you are welcome to contact Cordillera Counseling Services to learn more or schedule a consultation.