You don't have to just live with your trauma. 

Do you struggle with any of the following?
  • Hypervigilance or anxiety
  • Sleep issues and/or nightmares
  • Reactions and responses that seem disproportionate to whatever triggered them
  • Difficulty trusting yourself, trusting others, or believing good things will happen

These are some of the most common responses to trauma. You're not crazy, and none of the above are your fault. And the good news is that trauma is absolutely treatable.

Our therapists use a combination of traditional talk therapy and EMDR with clients who are working through trauma. We also provide adjunct EMDR for clients who are doing traditional talk therapy with another therapist. 

​EMDR therapy, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a groundbreaking, evidence-based treatment for traumas big and small. Whether you witnessed violence, experienced hardship, or had an emotionally volatile relationship, EMDR can help separate your emotional response from reminders of the trauma. When successful, EMDR can eliminate triggers and allow you to live a more calm, grounded, and joyful life free from the hypervigilance, anxiety, and negative beliefs trauma creates.
Even though what happened won't ever be okay, with EMDR you can feel genuinely okay and safe - on a gut level - now that's it's over.

EMDR therapy is widely applicable to trauma, phobias, and unresolved feelings from last week or decades ago. EMDR can help decrease the impact of:
​
  • Medical and physical trauma
  • Car accidents
  • ​Rape and sexual assault
  • Natural and man-made disasters
  • Relational trauma including abuse, infidelity, divorce, and more
  • Phobias
  • Grief and loss
  • Panic attacks
  • and much more

EMDR looks different with each person, but always involves the use of bilateral stimulation (side-to-side movement of some kind) while a therapist guides you through reminders of the trauma toward resolution. Single-incident or simple traumas sometimes see resolution in as little as a few sessions, while more complex traumas can take longer. 

If you're curious about what EMDR can do for you, let's chat.
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EMDR Healing Stories 
Here are some personal stories of how EMDR has helped people. These accounts are true, but identifying features have been changed to protect client privacy. 
Sarah: Healing Medical Trauma

Sarah had a scary medical incident where she was in the ER for hours, in pain, and fading in and out of consciousness. Doctors and nurses couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. They performed many uncomfortable tests, all of which came back negative. She eventually stabilized enough to go home, but avoided hospitals and anything that reminded her of them for a long time. She didn't trust medical professionals and didn't like to be reminded of being so scared and uncomfortable. 
Sarah did a few sessions of EMDR therapy and wasn't sure if it had been helpful. She noticed she wasn't upset when she thought about her ER visit anymore, but other than that couldn't feel any difference. Then, one day she realized that she had scheduled her annual pap smear without getting panicked about going to the hospital. When she arrived for her appointment, she was surprised that she didn't feel panicked or distrustful. While she doesn't look forward to medical appointments, she doesn't dread them either, and can take care of her health without feeling like she's back in the ER in agony again. 
Geneva: Healing The Long Term Effects of Witnessing Domestic Violence

Geneva grew up in a household where she witnessed her parents fighting frequently. Sometimes these fights would get physical, and she felt like no one was watching out for her or protecting her. 
As an adult, she found herself feeling constantly hypervigilant and unsafe, even though she had a successful career and good friends. Her hypervigilance was especially difficult when dating, as she wasn't sure she was capable of having a safe, sustained, and healthy partnership. She would get panicked and overwhelmed and shut down, ghosting on people she actually liked because the thought of getting into a relationship was just too scary. She sometimes felt like she was a little girl, even though she had all the trappings of a successful adult life. 

Geneva did EMDR therapy for six months and processed multiple incidents from her childhood that contributed to her feeling unsafe. Over time, she started feeling more open to dating, and more confident in communicating what she wanted and needed in a partnership. Today, she is happily partnered and rarely feels those feelings of panic and overwhelm, and never feels like she suddenly became a little girl again.
Jake: Overcoming Fear Of Flying

​Jake used to LOVE traveling in his early 20s, but over time he developed a debilitating fear of flying. He would do just about anything to avoid going on a plane, and would be panicked for days ahead of time if he had to fly. He would obsess about how much turbulence the plane was going to experience, looking up the weather in the flight path, and debating driving for days instead of taking a few hour flight.
Jake did a few EMDR sessions and with the help of his therapist, identified a specific flight with bad turbulence that marked the start of his fear of flying. He processed the feeling of turbulence and fear of dying with his EMDR therapist. The EMDR processing was very intense, and he really felt like he was in a plane he thought was about to go down. After processing, he was tired and had a little headache, but otherwise felt fine.

A few days later, he wanted to test if the EMDR had worked, so he booked a short flight to see a friend. He was a little anxious while booking the flight, but was able to sleep in the nights before his trip. He was absolutely thrilled to discover that his fear of flying had decreased significantly. Jake now travels frequently and rarely gets anxious about flights. 
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EMDR therapy has been extensively researched and has been found to be an effective treatment for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. If you think EMDR therapy might be right for you, get in touch with us.

EMDR therapy consists of eight phases: 
  1. History taking: In this phase, the therapist will ask you questions about your social, developmental, emotional, and mental health history and the traumas you have experienced. 
  2. Preparation and resourcing: In this phase, the therapist will teach you some coping and self-soothing techniques to use during the sessions, as well as identifying positive influences, experiences, and resources that will help you. 
  3. Assessment: In this phase, the therapist will assess which trauma or traumas will be targeted in treatment. 
  4. Desensitization: This is the heart of EMDR therapy. During this phase, you will process the targeted trauma or traumas while also receiving bilateral stimulation (at Laurel Therapt Collective, we have you do your own tactile stimulation, aka tapping your arms side to side). The goal of this phase is to reduce your symptoms of distress so that you can eventually think about the trauma without feeling overwhelmed by negative emotions. 
  5. Installation: In this phase, the therapist will help you develop positive beliefs about yourself to replace any negative beliefs that resulted from the trauma (e.g., "I am not a bad person"). 
  6. Body scan: In this phase, you will check in with your body to see if there are any residual physical symptoms remaining from the trauma (e.g., tightness in your chest). 
  7. Closure: In this phase, the therapist will help you develop a plan for managing any residual symptoms so that they do not interfere with your daily life. 
  8. Reevaluation: In this final phase, you and your therapist will assess your progress to see if any additional sessions are needed.
Further reading on EMDR.

See also:
How Do Therapists Work With Trauma? A Conversation Between Marla Caplan, LMFT, and Laurel Roberts-Meese, LMFT. 

​Header image by Raphael Paul at Pexels