EMDR Therapy in Seattle

You've done the work. Your body hasn't caught up.

You can narrate your history with clarity. You understand the patterns, the origins, the reasons. You've spent years in therapy making sense of what happened.

And yet.

The memory still floods you when it surfaces. Your chest tightens in moments that shouldn't be threatening. Your mind goes blank when someone raises their voice. Anxiety spikes and you can't trace it to anything rational. You're exhausted from managing reactions that don't match what you know to be true.

What you're running into is the gap between insight and integration. Understanding what happened is one thing; your nervous system letting go of it is another.

Talk therapy gave you language for your experience. But your nervous system is still responding as if the danger is present. The understanding is real. And it's not enough.

EMDR works differently. It doesn't ask you to narrate the trauma again. It helps your brain finally process what got stuck—so the memory can become memory, not something that keeps happening inside you.

“the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck”— Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck”

What EMDR actually is

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a structured, evidence-based therapy developed specifically for processing memories that still carry emotional charge.

When something overwhelming happens, your brain sometimes can't fully process it. The memory gets stored with all the sensory and emotional intensity of the original moment—the images, the body sensations, the beliefs about yourself that formed in that moment (I'm not safe. It was my fault. I'm broken.).

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation—typically eye movements, but sometimes taps or sounds—while you briefly hold the memory in mind. This helps your brain's natural processing system do what it couldn't do at the time: integrate the experience, reduce its emotional charge, and let it become a normal memory rather than a live wire.

You don't have to narrate every detail for this to work. Many clients process material they've never spoken aloud, and the work still moves.

The memory stays. The charge it carries doesn't.

Most Seattle therapists who list EMDR completed a weekend training. I hold EMDRIA Certification — requiring 50+ hours of supervised consultation and demonstrated competency across the full protocol. See full credentials →

What EMDR therapy can help with

EMDR was originally developed for PTSD, but research now supports its effectiveness for a wide range of experiences where distressing memories are fueling current symptoms.

Trauma & PTSD — Single-incident trauma (accidents, assaults, witnessing violence), complex trauma and childhood abuse, medical trauma, first responder and workplace trauma. Learn more about my approach to trauma therapy →

Anxiety & Panic — Anxiety rooted in past experiences, panic attacks with identifiable triggers, anticipatory anxiety and dread, social anxiety connected to specific memories of humiliation or rejection.

Depression — When depression is connected to unresolved experiences—loss, failure, rejection, abuse—EMDR can help process what's underneath the persistent low mood.

Grief & Loss — Grief that won't resolve, complicated mourning, loss that carries guilt or unfinished business.

Relationship Patterns — Attachment wounds and relational trauma, betrayal and infidelity, patterns of avoidance, people-pleasing, or emotional shutdown in intimate relationships.

Negative Self-Beliefs — Shame that started somewhere specific, "I'm not good enough" beliefs that persist despite evidence, perfectionism and harsh self-criticism with traceable origins.

Performance & Phobias — Performance anxiety, phobias, test anxiety, public speaking fear, disturbing memories that intrude on daily life.

If there's a memory or set of memories driving your current distress, EMDR may help—even if the experience doesn't seem "traumatic enough" to count.

What EMDR actually does, and what it doesn't

EMDR doesn't erase the memory. It doesn't change what happened. It doesn't install positive thoughts in place of negative ones, despite how it sometimes gets described. What it does is take a memory that's still being stored as if the threat is current, and let your brain finish processing it — so it gets filed as something that happened, instead of something that's still happening.

What that looks like from the inside varies. A memory you used to flinch away from comes up and there's nothing underneath; the flinch is gone, and you didn't decide to drop it. A trigger you used to brace against arrives and there's a beat where the bracing used to be, long enough to notice you have options. The belief that came out of the original moment — I'm broken, it was my fault, I'm not safe — keeps showing up at first, then shows up less, then one day you notice you haven't run it as the background hum of your day in a while.

The body usually gets there before the language does. Clients often describe noticing it physically first — the shoulders, the chest, the breath that's no longer being held — and only later understanding what's changed about how they're moving through the world.

What EMDR does not do: make you a different person, give you a personality transplant, or guarantee that nothing about the original event ever surfaces again. Anniversaries can still hit. New stressors can stir old material. What changes is your relationship to that material when it shows up, and how long it stays in charge.

Why I'm different from other EMDR therapists in Seattle

I'm an EMDRIA Certified EMDR Therapist—a credential that requires advanced training, 50+ hours of consultation with an approved EMDRIA consultant, and demonstrated competency across the full protocol. Most therapists who list EMDR have completed a basic training (a weekend or two). EMDRIA Certification reflects significantly more depth, clinical hours, and supervised practice with the modality.

But certification alone isn't what makes EMDR effective. What matters is how it's held.

In my practice, EMDR isn't a standalone technique—it's integrated within a depth-oriented, existential-phenomenological approach to therapy. That means I'm not just running a protocol. I'm tracking how the processing connects to your relationships, your identity, your sense of meaning. When a memory shifts, I help you make sense of what that means for how you live now.

I also bring additional modalities that complement and extend EMDR when needed:

• Flash Technique — A gentle method for reducing the intensity of highly charged memories before EMDR processing. Especially useful when approaching the memory directly feels too overwhelming.
• Brainspotting — A deeper-access modality for trauma stored beneath words. When EMDR hits a wall—when you're too shut down, too numb, or the material is pre-verbal—Brainspotting can reach what EMDR can't.
• KA-EMDR (Ketamine-Assisted EMDR) — For clients approved by a medical prescriber, combining low-dose ketamine with EMDR processing for stuck or treatment-resistant material. Learn more about KAP →
• Existential talk therapy — For making sense of what happened and integrating the work into your larger life narrative. Not every session is processing. Some sessions are just conversation—finding meaning, recalibrating, making sense of who you're becoming.

The protocol does the structural work. The clinical judgment is knowing when a protocol-faithful session is what's needed, when the work needs to slow down underneath the protocol, and when something other than EMDR is the right tool for the moment.