EMDR: A Key Part of My Practice

Relief and Lasting Change

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” ― Peter A. Levine

What is EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a transformative psychotherapy technique designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. This approach, involving bilateral sensory input like eye movements, facilitates the processing and integration of these memories, leading to emotional relief and healing.

How I Approach EMDR: More Than Symptom Relief

I view EMDR not just as a technique for symptom relief; it’s a transformative process that brings comfort while paving the way for comprehensive healing and profound personal growth. Here’s how my approach to EMDR stands out:

  1. Practical, Systematic Therapy Process: EMDR is integrated into my structured therapy approach, ensuring it aligns with my commitment to not just managing symptoms but promoting systematic change and long-term healing.
  2. Integration with The Six Pillars of Making a Life That Works: My EMDR sessions incorporate the Six Pillars, enhancing the healing process with:
    • Contacting the Present Moment (Be Here Now): Strengthening the connection to the present.
    • Defusion (Watch Your Thinking): Helping you detach from harmful thoughts and beliefs.
    • Acceptance (Open Up): Encouraging the embrace of emotions for deeper resilience.
    • Self-as-Context (Balancing Self-Identity): Recognizing the self beyond traumatic experiences.
    • Values (Know What Matters): Identifying your core values to inform your healing.
    • Committed Action (Do What It Takes): Promoting actions that align with your values, contributing to meaningful recovery.
  3. Personalized Care and Holistic Healing: I tailor EMDR to meet your unique needs, focusing on holistic healing rather than just symptom management, so you feel supported and understood throughout the process.
  4. Experienced Guidance and Comprehensive Support: I bring more than just EMDR to the work — a comprehensive understanding of trauma and healing that ensures a holistic care experience.

Is EMDR Right for You?

Navigating the aftermath of traumatic experiences can be a daunting challenge. Are you searching for a way to heal and find peace? EMDR could be the key to unlocking a new chapter in your life. Consider how it can help:

  • Healing from Trauma and PTSD: If past traumas are overshadowing your present, EMDR can help in processing these memories, leading to significant emotional relief and a renewed sense of self.
  • Overcoming Anxiety and Stress: For those grappling with anxiety or stress, especially when linked to past events, EMDR provides a pathway to calm and stability.
  • Addressing Phobias: If specific fears are rooted in past experiences, EMDR can aid in dismantling these fears, allowing you to live more freely.
  • Coping with Loss and Grief: EMDR can be particularly effective in processing feelings of loss, helping you to find closure and move forward.
  • Improving Self-Esteem and Confidence: By dealing with the root causes of negative self-perception, EMDR can foster a stronger, more positive sense of self.
  • Enhancing Emotional Resilience: Learn to navigate life’s challenges with greater emotional resilience, as EMDR helps in integrating traumatic experiences in a healthy way.
  • Personalized Journey of Recovery: Recognizing the uniqueness of your experiences, I tailor EMDR to align with your personal healing journey.

Take the Next Step

If you see yourself in these challenges, EMDR offers not just a technique for managing symptoms, but a pathway to deep, lasting healing. I’m committed to guiding you through this work with expertise, empathy, and a focus on your whole well-being. Reach out today to get started.

What people often get wrong about EMDR

A therapy that sounds strange right up until you see the evidence.

A smiling Colt Gordon with curly hair and a beard is wearing a white shirt, standing in front of a colorful landscape background and a bookshelf.

The Misconception

Any therapist can just add eye movements to their sessions.

The Reality

EMDR is a structured eight-phase protocol requiring specific training — the eye movements without the protocol are just eye movements. When you choose an EMDR provider, ask about their training. It's a fair question, and a trained clinician will be glad you asked.

The Misconception

EMDR can’t be done over video.

The Reality

It can, and it has been at scale since 2020 — using on-screen bilateral stimulation or self-administered tapping, with the same preparation and safety steps as in-person. Outcomes research on telehealth EMDR has been consistently encouraging. Your couch works fine.

The Misconception

EMDR is a one-session miracle cure.

The Reality

Single-incident traumas can resolve remarkably fast — sometimes within a few processing sessions — but EMDR is a phased protocol: history, preparation, resourcing, then reprocessing. The pace honors what your system can integrate. Fast is common; instant is marketing.

The Misconception

EMDR is basically hypnosis.

The Reality

You're fully conscious, fully in control, and can stop at any moment — the opposite of a trance. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation while you hold a memory lightly in awareness; you're the observer of the process, never under it. Nothing happens without you present and choosing.

The Misconception

EMDR means reliving my trauma at full intensity.

The Reality

You touch the memory lightly, in brief sets, from the driver's seat — with grounding skills already in place and a stop signal that's always honored. Distance and dosing are built into the protocol. Reliving is precisely what the method is designed to avoid.

The Misconception

EMDR only works for PTSD.

The Reality

PTSD is where the evidence started, but EMDR is used for anxiety, phobias, panic, grief, and the accumulated small-t experiences that shape self-belief — the moments that installed "I'm not safe" or "I'm not enough." If a past experience still has a charge, it's a candidate.

The Misconception

EMDR will erase my memories.

The Reality

EMDR changes a memory's charge, not its existence. You'll still remember what happened — it becomes something that happened, rather than something happening. Clients describe the shift as the memory finally filing itself as past. Nothing is taken from you; the alarm attached to it is retired.

The Misconception

Getting emotional during EMDR means it’s going wrong.

The Reality

Emotion surfacing during processing is usually the memory finally moving — material that was frozen is thawing on its way through. You're prepared for it, resourced for it, and never alone in it. The sessions that feel like weather are often the ones that change the climate.

The Misconception

If I do EMDR, we skip the talking entirely.

The Reality

EMDR lives inside a therapy relationship, not instead of one. We prepare, resource, and integrate through conversation; the reprocessing sets are one component. In my practice it's woven with ACT and family systems work — the methods share one goal from different angles.

The Misconception

Moving your eyes around can’t possibly be real therapy.

The Reality

Fair skepticism — it sounds strange. But EMDR is one of the most-studied trauma treatments in existence, recommended in major clinical guidelines worldwide, with decades of controlled trials behind it. The eye movements are one form of bilateral stimulation that supports the brain's own reprocessing. Odd-sounding and evidence-based aren't opposites.

    Honest answers about EMDR

    How it works over video, how many sessions to expect, and whether you stay in control throughout (completely). If your question isn’t covered, ask it in a free 15-minute consultation.

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