Fort Collins, Colorado EMDR Therapy

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What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a research-backed therapy that helps people heal from trauma and painful memories.

When something traumatic or very stressful happens, your brain can get “stuck” holding onto that memory in a way that makes you feel like the danger is still happening now. That’s why triggers, flashbacks, panic, or feeling constantly on edge can happen—even long after the event.

EMDR helps your brain safely process and store those memories as things that happened in the past—so they don’t cause as much distress. It also helps shift any negative beliefs you might have developed about yourself because of the experience.

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What is a session like?

Before we start EMDR, we’ll spend time getting to know what you’re struggling with right now and the specific memories or experiences you want to work on. This is called the “history-taking” phase. Together, we’ll identify the negative thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations connected to those memories.

During EMDR sessions, I’ll guide you to gently focus on those thoughts and feelings while using a process called bilateral stimulation—this might be eye movements, sounds, or tapping that goes back and forth between your left and right sides.

This stimulation helps your brain process the memories more like it does during REM sleep, allowing those difficult memories to be stored safely in the past. Over time, this can reduce the intensity of painful emotions and physical reactions connected to those memories, and open the door for healthier, more positive ways of thinking about yourself and your experiences.

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Ready to take the next step or learn more?

Check out this Introduction to EMDR therapy video below for more info or contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation to decide if EMDR therapy is your next step towards healing.

Request Appointment

FAQs

  • EMDR is different from traditional talk therapy—it’s more structured and doesn’t require you to dive into every detail of your trauma.

    The therapy follows eight key phases to help guide the process:

    1. Getting to know your history and making a plan

    2. Preparing you for the work ahead

    3. Assessing the memories we’ll focus on

    4. Desensitizing the emotional impact of those memories

    5. Installing positive beliefs to replace the old, negative ones

    6. Scanning your body for any leftover tension

    7. Closing the session in a calm and safe way

    8. Reevaluating progress as we go

    Check out the video here for more information.

  • EMDR is best known for helping people heal from trauma—but it’s also helpful for a wide range of emotional and mental health challenges.

    It can support healing for people who are struggling with:

    • Anxiety and panic attacks

    • Attachment wounds and relationship patterns

    • Birth trauma or traumatic medical experiences

    • PTSD and other trauma-related symptoms

    • Grief and loss

    • Chronic pain or illness

    • Depression or bipolar disorder

    • Performance anxiety

    • Sexual assault or abuse

    • Sleep issues

    • Substance use or addiction

    • Eating disorders

    • Emotional stress from past violence or neglect

    If something painful from your past still feels like it’s affecting your present, EMDR might be a great option to help you move forward.

  • Most of the time, our brains know how to heal from hard experiences on their own—but sometimes, when something is really overwhelming or traumatic, that natural healing process gets stuck.

    When you're under intense stress, parts of your brain that help you make sense of what happened—like the amygdala (which senses danger), the hippocampus (which stores memories), and the prefrontal cortex (which helps you think things through)—can stop communicating properly. This can leave you feeling stuck in survival mode, like the past is still happening now.

    EMDR helps “unstick” those memories so your brain can process them and file them away in the past, where they belong. The memory doesn’t go away, but the emotional charge around it does—so you’re no longer triggered in the same intense, fight-or-flight way.