While EMDR began as a trauma treatment, it has evolved and is not just used for trauma anymore.  EMDR can be used to treat:

• Negative core beliefs about yourself (such as: I’m not good enough, I have to be perfect)
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Social anxiety
• Performance anxiety
• Addiction (substance abuse, food, technology, behaviors)
• Phobias
• PTSD
• Acute pain
• Complicated grief
• Eating disorders
• Panic attacks
• Car accidents
• Parenting concerns
• Codependency
• Self-esteem issues 
• recurring self-defeating patterns of behavior and negative thinking
• Improving body image and self-esteem
• Reducing or eliminating distressing emotions related to painful memories 

EMDR is effective in preparing for a big work presentation, a hard conversation with someone you love, a tough parenting moment, an athletic event, or anywhere you need more confidence! 

EMDR intensives can be done either online or in-person at my office.  

Online intensives are available for residents of the states I’m licensed in: Colorado, Texas, and New Jersey.  In-person intensives are available to anyone who can travel to Denver, CO.

My practice is located in Denver, Colorado, but that doesn’t mean you have to live in Colorado.  Clients can travel from anywhere in the world to Denver to spend a few days with me in an Intensive and then return home to their daily lives. 

An EMDR intensive is an extended and concentrated therapy session where you do a series of EMDR sessions over a longer period of time than a typical 50 minute session. Typically, an intensive will span several consecutive days. This format aims to accelerate the therapy process so you get deeper, longer lasting results, faster.

The length of the intensive is tailored to each individual’s needs.  However, below is a few of my most common intensive schedules:

• Three 3 hour sessions in the same week on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday
• Three 3 hour sessions in the same week on a Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday
• Three 3 hour sessions in the same week on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday

While EMDR can be effective for many people, there are some dissociative disorders and certain mental health conditions that may require careful assessment and preparation before an EMDR intensive.

To reprocess traumatic memories using EMDR, clients should have the ability to:

• be present in their mind and body to notice what’s happening during the session
• be able to feel worse for a short period
• be able to tolerate some distress
• be emotionally equipped to avoid panic
• have established coping skills and outside support

EMDR intensives aim to achieve similar therapeutic outcomes as traditional EMDR but in a shorter time frame. Research suggests that intensives can be particularly effective for certain individuals and types of trauma, but individual responses may vary.

• Intensive application of trauma-focused therapy seems to be well tolerated in patients with PTSD, enabling faster symptom reduction with similar, or even better, results, while reducing the risk that patients drop out prematurely. Learn more here and here.
• Intensive EMDR treatment is feasible and is indicative of reliable improvement in PTSD symptoms in a very short time frame. Learn more here.
• An intensive program using EMDR therapy is a potentially safe and effective treatment alternative for complex PTSD. Learn more here.
• The economic benefit of intensive trauma treatment is compelling: even compared to other trauma therapy, the intensive format may decrease treatment time, because of time not spent on a) checking in at the beginning of each session, b) addressing current crises and concerns, c) focusing on stabilizing and coping skills that the client won’t need after trauma healing, or d) assisting the client in regaining composure at the end of the session. Learn more here.

Yes!  I am more than happy to collaborate with your ongoing therapist.  EMDR intensive treatment can pair very well with ongoing therapy with another provider.  EMDR can be used to process past trauma or adverse experiences from the past that may have become sticking point in your current life.  EMDR can help provide shifts in healing that facilitate your ongoing treatment with your primary therapist. Sometimes clients can cognitively undertand something but they struggle to fully integrate this knowing into their heart and bodies, and an EMDR intensive can help you achieve more thorough integration.  We will identify what format is best for you during your initial consultation.

A half-day intensive offers many resources and can help to either increase performance and confidence, or significantly decrease the devastating effects of single event trauma (e.g. negative cognitions, disturbing emotions and body sensations). While significant healing can occur in one half-day intensive, Complex PTSD deserves more treatment than one half-day intensive and is usually better served by longer intensives unless significant work and EMDR has been done previously.

Participating in a 2-day EMDR intensive presents the opportunity for impactful change more efficiently than weekly, 50-minute sessions or even one half-day intensive.  In a 2-day (full days) intensive, I would generally expect to complete at least some of the 8 phases of EMDR on at least one target; some may move significantly faster than this, and some may move slower.  The speed is generally dependent on each individual person’s processing speed and the complexity of their memory networks and associated core beliefs. 

In another part of your brain, in a separate network, is most of the information you need to resolve the tough memory. It’s just prevented from linking up to the old stuff. Once we start processing with EMDR, the two networks can link up and new information can come to mind and resolve the old problems.

EMDR is designed to help a person process these stuck pieces so that the memory is no longer triggering present day reactions and difficulty. It does this by activating our body’s healing system to help process and integrate the information that got stuck when the trauma happened.

Once the new connections are made, the negative emotions should diminish. I know it can be scary to sit with these old traumatic memories, so one thing I want you to know is that by doing EMDR, we aren’t adding anything negative to what’s already there. Instead, we are opening up some neural pathways that will allow the tough negative stuff to drain out and diminish. This will help you resolve the memory. EMDR will not erase the memory; rather you will be able to remember the story without all the emotional charge that was distressing before the treatment.

In EMDR Therapy we are working both with the challenges of the past as well as ongoing strengthening and resourcing. Through this focus of healing the past AND strengthening your ability to handle the future, clients are often able to achieve lasting healing that spreads to multiple areas of their life.

In an EMDR session, I ensure that clients are grounded in the safety of the present moment in my office. This allows the client to process their past trauma while staying safe and grounded. Think of it this way:  during EMDR, you’ll have one foot in the past and one foot in the present at all times. You are always in control of an EMDR session and can stop at any time.

Researchers are still studying this, but so far, our best guess is that using DAS elicits an orienting response, which means that the DAS will immediately have a physiological and behavioral change as your body responds to the stimulation.

I know this language is a bit intimidating. In other words, this means that during EMDR sessions, you’ll be able to process through memories in a way that talk therapy often can’t achieve. This is because you are healing these memories with a body- and brain-based intervention.

This response is based on Francine Shapiro’s Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory, which is the system in our bodies that helps us heal. Similar to the body’s natural move toward healing after a physical injury, AIP suggests that psychologically the individual also naturally moves toward healing after a trauma.

This is really just a fancy way of saying that DAS can cause you to deeply relax, which will help those adaptive connections to happen.

When you’re doing EMDR, sometimes it can be a bit intense as you face these old memories, because you’ve been working so hard to not face it for all of these years. But, think of it this way — the old stuff is effecting you in so many different ways every day —once we process through the old stuff, while some unpleasant sensation may arise during EMDR, that is a sign that the old material is leaving the nervous system.

Dr. Shapiro began to study and use her new protocol with people suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and found that the people with PTSD after receiving several EMDR Therapy sessions found that their symptoms decreased and they started to feel better. Since then, EMDR has become one of the most researched therapy models to treat trauma. It is now one of the most recommended and researched psychotherapeutic treatments for trauma.

Dr. Gabor Maté explains trauma in a beautiful way. He said:

“The essence of trauma is that, as a result of the overt abuse or neglect, or because of the relational trauma, we lose the connection to our essence. That’s what the trauma is. The trauma is not what happened; the trauma is not that I was raped, the trauma is not that I was abandoned, the trauma is not that I was hit, the trauma is not that my parents didn’t know how to listen to me.

 

That’s not the trauma; the trauma is that, as a result of that, I lost the connection to myself. Hence, I lost the connection to my essential qualities: my joy, my vitality, my clarity, my wisdom, my power, my strength, my courage. That’s the trauma!”

Because we are human, most of us have experienced trauma, or a disconnection to our essence, in some way. EMDR can help us find our way back to ourselves.

People tend to think that EMDR only helps people who suffer from severe experiences like auto accidents, war, sexual abuse, and rape. If you have suffered from these traumas, EMDR might be very helpful for you. But other issues can also be helped with EMDR—such as anxiety, depression, family problems, relationship problems, parenting difficulties, difficult transitions, etc.

Take the brief quiz below to find out if you might benefit from EMDR Therapy.

As a Certified EMDR therapist, I have chosen to continue my EMDR training and consultation beyond what is necessary to ensure you receive the best care possible.  Here are the differences between a therapist trained in EMDR and a certified EMDR therapist.

EMDR Training: The Basics

EMDR training is a lengthy process. There are many places offering EMDR training, but only EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) approved trainings include the theoretical basis for the model, in-depth instruction on all 8 phases, stabilization techniques and 20 hours of practice sessions (practicum) and 10 hours of post-training consultations. Many platforms offer quick (as short as 8 hour) trainings on what EMDR is, but taking a training about EMDR is not the same as being trained in EMDR! Most EMDRIA approved trainings consist of two separate 3 day in person or live web-based workshops. Over the course of the first 3 days, which is 20 hours (10 hours instruction, 10 hours practicum), trainees are taught the basics of how to use EMDR, and are able to begin using EMDR while receiving consultation. After a trainee has taken the second weekend (another 20 hours), and completed required consultation hours, they are considered to be trained in EMDR. To be fully trained in EMDR is 50 hours of training, in addition to whatever graduate degree your therapist holds to be able to provide therapy.

EMDR Certification

EMDR certification is an even lengthier process. At our practice we have both clinicians who are certified and clinicians who are working toward certification. Both are able to use EMDR with clients. EMDR Certification is a designation that allows therapists to be listed on the EMDRIA website as certified. This allows clients to know that their clinician has put in extra hours of training and consultation. To be EMDR Certified a therapist must:

• Have a full independent license to practice as  a therapist

• Be fully trained in EMDR

• Have completed 20 hours of consultation specific to EMDR from an EMDRIA approved consultant (this is often in addition to regular clinical consultation)

• Submit a letter of recommendation from their EMDRIA approved consultant

• Submit two letters of recommendation from colleagues or peers

• Complete 12 hours of advanced EMDR training

• Submit a notarized statement of practice and experience

Depending on the frequency of consultation, this process can take up to several years after training is complete.