No. You do not need to identify as having a trauma history to begin therapy with me. People come to therapy for many reasons: sometimes because something painful happened, and sometimes because they are trying to understand themselves, make an important life decision, navigate a relationship, or feel less stuck in patterns that are no longer working.

Some people have clear memories of trauma. Others are carrying the effects of chronic stress, emotional neglect, grief, family conflict, relational wounds, or experiences that were minimized at the time. You do not have to prove that what happened to you “counts” as trauma in order to deserve support.

My work is trauma-informed, but that does not mean we only talk about trauma. It means I pay attention to safety, pacing, choice, nervous system responses, relationships, and the ways your past and present experiences may be shaping how you feel now. Therapy can focus on what feels most important to you, whether that is healing from trauma, understanding yourself more deeply, or sorting through decisions in your life.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It is a structured therapy approach that helps the brain process distressing memories, experiences, and beliefs that may still feel emotionally “stuck.”

Sometimes a memory is technically over, but the nervous system still reacts as if the threat is happening now. This can show up as anxiety, panic, intrusive thoughts, body sensations, shame, avoidance, nightmares, or emotional reactions that feel bigger than the present moment.

During EMDR, you briefly focus on a distressing memory, image, body sensation, or belief while also paying attention to bilateral stimulation. Bilateral stimulation usually means eye movements, tapping, or sounds that alternate from left to right. This is done in short sets, followed by pauses to notice what comes up.

The goal is not to erase the memory or force you to relive everything in detail. The goal is for the memory to feel more integrated, less emotionally intense, and more clearly connected to the past rather than something your body is still living through in the present.

That hesitation makes sense. EMDR can sound unusual at first, especially because eye movements, tapping, or alternating sounds are part of the process. I do not view EMDR as magic, and I do not use it as a replacement for clinical judgment, careful pacing, or the therapeutic relationship.

EMDR is an evidence-based therapy for trauma and PTSD, but researchers are still studying exactly why and how it works. One of the strongest explanations is the working memory model. This theory suggests that when you hold a distressing memory in mind while also doing another task, such as following eye movements or tapping, the brain has less capacity to keep the memory as vivid and emotionally intense. Over time, the memory may become easier to think about without the same level of distress. A systematic review of EMDR mechanisms found reasonable empirical support for the working memory hypothesis and for physiological changes associated with successful EMDR therapy .

Another way to understand EMDR is through dual attention. During EMDR, part of your attention is connected to the memory, while another part of you stays anchored in the present moment: in the room, with the therapist, and with the bilateral stimulation. This can help the brain revisit difficult material without becoming as overwhelmed by it.

There is also emerging neurobiological research looking at what happens in the brain during EMDR. For example, one EEG study found changes in brain activation patterns before and after EMDR treatment, suggesting that traumatic material may shift from more emotionally activated networks toward more cognitive and integrative processing after successful treatment .

That said, I think it is important not to oversell EMDR. It is not the right fit for every person at every moment. With complex trauma, CPTSD, and dissociation, EMDR often needs to be adapted carefully. Preparation, stabilization, consent, and pacing matter. I think of EMDR as one potentially powerful tool within a thoughtful, relational, trauma-informed therapy process not as a quick fix or a one-size-fits-all method.

References & Further Reading

Landin-Romero, R., Moreno-Alcazar, A., Pagani, M., & Amann, B. L. (2018). How does eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy work? A systematic review on suggested mechanisms of action. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 1395. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01395

Pagani, M., Di Lorenzo, G., Verardo, A. R., Nicolais, G., Monaco, L., Lauretti, G., Russo, R., Niolu, C., Ammaniti, M., Fernandez, I., & Siracusano, A. (2012). Neurobiological correlates of EMDR monitoring—An EEG study. PLOS ONE, 7(9), Article e45753. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045753

For a more accessible explanation, this video offers a helpful overview of how EMDR may work in the brain:

How does EMDR work in the brain? The neuroscience of EMDR with Professor Paul Miller at Mirabilis.

Yes. A difficult experience with EMDR does not mean you failed at EMDR, and it does not necessarily mean EMDR can never be helpful for you. It may mean the work moved too quickly, there was not enough preparation, dissociation was not fully assessed, or your nervous system did not have enough support to stay within your window of tolerance — or to return to it if you moved outside of it.

EMDR is often presented as a trauma-processing therapy, but processing is only one part of the work. For many people, especially those with complex trauma, CPTSD, or dissociation, the preparation phase is essential. This may include building trust, understanding your triggers and protective responses, strengthening grounding skills, developing internal and external resources, and making sure we have a shared plan for what to do if you become overwhelmed, shut down, or flooded.

It is also true that EMDR can sometimes bring up difficult emotions, memories, body sensations, or dreams between sessions. Sometimes people feel more activated before they feel better. That does not automatically mean something is wrong, but it does mean the work needs to be paced carefully and monitored closely.

In my practice, EMDR is never something I force or rush. We would talk about your past experience, what felt harmful or destabilizing, what helped, what did not help, and what would need to be different this time. The goal is not to push through. The goal is to work in a way that supports safety, choice, stabilization, and your capacity to stay connected to the present.

Trauma is not only about what happened to you. It is also about how your body, nervous system, and sense of safety responded to what happened.

Some traumatic experiences are obvious: violence, abuse, accidents, medical crises, assault, sudden loss, or exposure to danger. Other forms of trauma are quieter and harder to name. Chronic emotional neglect, relational instability, family conflict, spiritual or religious harm, repeated invalidation, or growing up in an environment where you had to stay small, pleasing, hypervigilant, or disconnected from yourself can also shape the nervous system over time.

Laura Anderson (2023) describes trauma as subjective, perceptive, and physiological: what overwhelms one person may not overwhelm another, and the body may respond to either a real or perceived threat. In other words, trauma is not a competition and it is not defined only by how “bad” an event looks from the outside. It is often about whether something was too much, too soon, too fast, or too prolonged for your system to process and recover from.

Trauma can leave people feeling as if the past is still happening in the present. This may show up through anxiety, shutdown, dissociation, shame, emotional flooding, avoidance, body symptoms, relationship patterns, or a sense of always preparing for something to go wrong. Therapy can help make sense of these responses, not as personal failures, but as adaptations that once helped you survive.

Anderson, L. E. (2023). When religion hurts you: Healing from religious trauma and the impact of high-control religion. Brazos Press.

PTSD can develop after a person experiences, witnesses, or is exposed to something frightening, overwhelming, or deeply distressing. The nervous system may continue to respond as if danger is still present, even after the event has ended.

PTSD can show up through intrusive memories, nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance, emotional numbness, hypervigilance, sleep difficulties, irritability, body tension, or feeling easily startled. Some people know exactly what experience their symptoms are connected to. Others may only notice that their body reacts strongly to certain reminders, relationships, conflict, environments, or situations that feel unsafe.

Complex PTSD, or CPTSD, is often connected to trauma that was chronic, repeated, relational, or difficult to escape. Laura Anderson describes complex trauma as the result of consistent and pervasive threat or overwhelm without being able to escape. This can include childhood trauma, emotional neglect, family violence, coercive control, religious trauma, attachment wounds, domestic violence, systemic oppression, or long-term exposure to unsafe relationships or systems.

CPTSD may include many symptoms associated with PTSD, but it also often affects a person’s sense of self, relationships, emotional regulation, boundaries, shame, trust, and ability to feel safe with other people. For many people with CPTSD, there may not be one clear “before and after.” Instead, the trauma may have been woven into the environment they lived in, the relationships they depended on, or the systems they had to survive.

You do not need to know whether you have PTSD or CPTSD before beginning therapy. These terms can be helpful, but they are not more important than understanding your lived experience, your nervous system, and what healing needs to look like for you.

Dissociation is a nervous system response that can happen when something feels overwhelming, unsafe, or too much to fully process in the moment. It is a form of disconnection. Some people feel disconnected from their body, emotions, memories, surroundings, or sense of time. Others describe feeling foggy, numb, far away, unreal, on autopilot, or like they are watching themselves from the outside.

Dissociation exists on a spectrum. Mild dissociation can happen to many people, such as zoning out while driving, getting absorbed in a book or movie, or losing track of time. More intense dissociation can happen in response to trauma, chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, or situations where the nervous system has learned that disconnecting is the safest available option.

For some people, dissociation shows up as depersonalization, which means feeling detached from yourself or your body. For others, it shows up as derealization, which means the world around you may feel dreamlike, distant, foggy, or unreal. Some people also experience memory gaps, emotional numbness, difficulty staying present, or parts of themselves feeling separate or hard to access.

Dissociative identity disorder, or DID, is one of the most misunderstood trauma-related conditions. It is not the same as having “multiple personalities” in the dramatic way it is often portrayed in movies or television. DID is generally understood as a developmental, post-traumatic adaptation that begins in childhood, often in the context of chronic, overwhelming, or inescapable trauma.

When a child is repeatedly overwhelmed and does not have enough safety, support, or ability to escape, the mind may learn to compartmentalize experiences, emotions, memories, and parts of the self. This can help a child keep functioning in daily life while holding painful or frightening material away from conscious awareness. Over time, those compartments may become experienced as distinct self-states or parts.

Yes. I work with adoptees, adoptive parents, foster parents, and adults whose lives have been shaped by foster care, adoption, kinship care, or disrupted attachment relationships.

This is an area I care about deeply. I believe foster care and adoption are complex, and I approach this work with attention to attachment, grief, identity, loss, nervous system development, and the impact of separation from family, culture, community, or origin story. Even when adoption or foster care includes love and safety, it can also include grief, ambiguity, trauma, and unanswered questions.

I am especially passionate about ethical adoption and foster care practices. In therapy, that means making space for the full complexity of each person’s experience rather than requiring a single story of gratitude, rescue, harm, or loss. Adoptive parents may come to therapy wanting to better understand attachment, trauma responses, parenting stress, or their child’s needs. Adoptees may come wanting to explore identity, belonging, relational patterns, grief, anger, loyalty conflicts, or the impact of early separation.

My goal is to hold these experiences with nuance, compassion, and respect for everyone involved, while centering the lived experience and emotional reality of the person in the room.