EMDR Therapy in Uptown Dallas

‍EMDR has a good amount of research to back its efficacy and the majority of my clients report experiencing benefit from it. However, the most helpful question for us in treatment will be “is EMDR working for YOU?” That’s the information that will guide us.

Like any therapeutic approach, EMDR is not magical cure-all and may not work for every person’s learning type/history/preferences/needs. I use EMDR as one approach among many, track your progress and feedback to see how it’s working, and take the time to assess if you feel that it’s right for you before we even start. It can be an exceptionally helpful tool but it’s not the only one and can be combined with other approaches that work equally well for you or better (like somatic or parts work).

EMDR can absolutely be done virtually and works exactly the same way in that platform as in-person. I have facilitated it via telehealth for a number of years and can make space for any questions or concerns that come up along the way.

Therapy as a whole is not a risk-free process: it’s not uncommon to experience symptoms more severely at first before they get better, remember things that distress you, or get uncomfortable with the new-ness of growth. The same is true for EMDR. Some of the risks include having to experience difficult emotions in an intense way at the start of a session and throughout, remembering moments that you may have forgotten/are difficult to sit with, and feeling exhausted, drained, and more reactive after sessions. My commitment as your therapist is to clinically prepare you for the process, ensure that your questions and concerns are attended to, teach you the tools you need to ground and regulate before, during, and after, and be with you attentively though the process so we can pause, stop, and continue at your pace. At the end of the day, whatever we process is something your brain and body is already carrying; EMDR gives you the option to work through it in a way that often provokes temporary discomfort in service of lasting change.

Some ways to tell that EMDR is working include: decreased distress over memories that used to trigger you, increased nervous system regulation, self-compassion, and peace, less nightmares and flashbacks and more present-moment focus and awareness of safety internally and with others.

EMDR is an eight phase process that can be incredibly efficient when paced out in a way that works for your unique goals and with your history in mind. The preparation phases where you learn grounding resources and explore themes in your history can take anywhere from four to eight sessions but depend heavily on subjective factors that we won’t know till we meet (for instance, many clients with CPTSD take longer and reap a lot of benefits in these early stages before ever processing memories themselves). Actually processing a memory is equally subjective in terms of length: some clients find relief from a memory in one session and others might take several. There might also be weeks where you take a break from EMDR to talk about other things, so the process isn’t completely linear. The good news is that there is no agenda for you to meet or expectation to manage and also no way for you to fail the process.

For the most part, no. While EMDR has many resources and tools for you to use on your own to regulate your nervous system and find emotional safety with yourself, actually reprocessing trauma with BLS on your own is not advisable and can actually be harmful.