Our systems are brilliant at figuring out how to adapt to our circumstances, which is critical to our survival and is inarguably a good thing. However, later on in life, our brains are very reluctant to give up adaptations that have worked—after all, our strongest instinct is to survive. Why would our brain willingly give up an adaptation that helped us at one point? It makes sense on a deep level to keep doing whatever adaptation protected us way back when.
But it’s not back then anymore, and those adaptations might be causing all kinds of problems, both inside and out. Difficulty trusting, feeling you have to do everything yourself, feeling deeply unworthy or alone, beating yourself up every time you do something imperfectly human. These can all be reflective of adaptations you made back then that are no longer working for you.
People who show up in my office have often tried therapy and other self-healing methods before but found no amount of learning or logic helps them with the feelings held in their core. They know all the reasons they should be feeling the way they are, but the feelings are still there.
This can be a really frustrating experience, but we have lots of beautiful, effective ways to get you unstuck.
I’m a certified EMDR therapist and use this framework across all elements of my work. EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, has a strong body of evidence showing its efficacy for helping us process and move past stuck memories. EMDR allows us to go deeper than traditional talk therapy to target the stuck memories directly, often achieving deeper healing much more quickly than talk therapy. It is important to note that EMDR is effective even when clients don’t come in with explicit memories to work on; there are many effective ways to access the processing and deep healing.
In addition to EMDR therapy, I practice Brainspotting and Ego-State Therapy. Brainspotting is a modality related to EMDR that allows us to access the deep networks in our brains holding the stuck bits in a gentle, profoundly effective way. Ego-State Therapy (related to Internal Family Systems) uses the concept of parts of self to pursue self-understanding, reduction of internal-conflict, increased self-compassion and ultimately, an increased sense of inner calm and control.
In addition to weekly or biweekly 55 minute appointments, I offer EMDR intensives, which can be used as an adjunct to our normal appointments or as a stand-alone therapy. Please see my “EMDR Intensives” page for more information.