EMDR Therapy in NOLA, Connecticut, and Virginia
Stop Letting the Past Rule Your Present.
Get Unstuck and Unlock a Future Where You Feel Free
EMDR Therapy in NOLA, Connecticut, and Virginia
You have been in therapy for so long. You know the drill. You know the skills.
But they aren’t working.
You can explain your trauma, his trauma, her trauma, your mom’s trauma to everyone and anyone who will listen.
But it is not helping you with your fears, your people-pleasing, your nightmares, your anxiety, your grief.
You are so frustrated. You feel like you are stuck on a loop, repeating the same thing, over and over again.
Maybe this strategy will help. Ooo, maybe this Podcast will be the one thing. Maybe it will help me.
At Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, we incorporate EMDR Therapy, blended with Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy to help you get underneath the thinking that gets you stuck. We help you build reparenting skills, your internal emotional world, and heal the parts of you that struggle to be spoken out loud.
Ready to try EMDR today?
In-Person EMDR Therapy Offered in New Orleans, Louisiana
Online EMDR Therapy Offered Throughout Connecticut, Virginia, and Louisiana
What is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) is an evidence-based treatment created by Francine Shapiro, initially developed to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). However, EMDR can treat much more than trauma, including anxiety, depression, and grief. EMDR’s powerful capacity lies in its ability to address emotional triggers from the past that continue to seep into our present day lives, disrupting our abilities to remain present and influencing our perception of both the present and the potential future.
EMDR works to identify what has been keeping a person stuck and then uses information from these perceptions and triggers to activate the brain’s natural healing abilities, helping you to get unstuck, know that the past is in the past, and finally move forward.
In-Person Therapy Offered in New Orleans, Louisiana
Online Therapy Offered Throughout Connecticut, Virginia, and Louisiana
What Can EMDR Therapy Help With?
Complex/developmental trauma
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Mother wounding
Insecure attachment
Sexual assault and abuse
Anxiety
Depression
Childhood trauma
Emotional abuse and neglect
Immigration trauma
Grief and loss
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During this phase, you and your therapist build your relationship and trust. Your therapist expresses curiosity about your past experiences that create distress, how it affects your present, and what your hopes are for the future.
You and your therapist will also work together to identify what memory/memories you may want to reprocess via EMDR.
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During phase 2, you and your therapist work together to identify what coping strategies you have been using to manage distress, and to identify and practice new strategies to incorporate. This phase is included to support and prepare your body for reprocessing traumatic memories and/or stressful experiences. At Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, we incorporate strategies informed by Ego States Therapy and Polyvagal Theory.
This is an important phase of the process and may be slow-moving to ensure you are mobilized and appropriately prepared for EMDR.
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In Phase 3, we light up the target, or the memory, that has been selected to be reprocessed. By “lighting it up” your therapist will ask you questions about the qualities of this memory; this will include questions about an image related to the memory, a negative belief about yourself, emotions present, body sensations, and the level of disturbance present.
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During this phase, you incorporate Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) or Eye Movements—the classically associated element of EMDR Therapy.
BLS can be accomplished in a number of ways: you may be following a ball on a screen while moving your eyes back and forth, alternating tapping your shoulders, listening to audio switch between your ears, or even combining all of the above. You and your therapist work together to decide what form(s) of BLS work best for you. BLS is provided for you to have a way for your brain to process the intensity of the memory/experience while it is “lit up” in your brain.
Desensitization means that we work to lower the level of intensity or fear that you experience from the memory/experience.
Reprocessing means that we work to shift from being stuck in that experience to zooming out, gaining new perspective on the memory/experience and lowering the overall disturbance to a 0 or 1 (on a 10-point scale).
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In Phase 5, we identify a positive belief that you would prefer to associate with that memory/experience instead and utilize BLS to strengthen the association between the positive belief and the memory/experience.
An example can be something like, “I am in control” or “I am capable.”
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We will do a body scan together to look for any remaining tension in your body associated with this memory/experience. If so, we target this tension for reprocessing.
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This occurs when a targeted memory or experience has not been fully reprocessed/closed. Your therapist will support you in utilizing identified calming/grounding strategies so that you can leave a session feeling supported and regulated.
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This will occur at the beginning of each session. Your therapist will check in with you regarding anything you may have noticed in between sessions. Your therapist will also check in about current targeted memories/experiences being processed and assess their current level of disturbance and, if a memory/experience had been closed, evaluate with you where to go next.
What Can I Expect in EMDR Therapy?
Yes, these phases are numbered and in order, but guess what? They do not necessarily have to follow that specific order. There is no perfect way to engage in EMDR as a client. And, in fact, to support your system and safety, it may be important for us to do the phases out of the order that you see here. This is especially true for trauma and complex trauma. EMDR is a slow process, and one that requires attunement to your needs. At Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, we will be checking in every step of the way.
FAQ About EMDR Therapy
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No two sessions may be alike while engaging in EMDR—it may depend on what phase you are in and what you and your therapist agree best meets your needs.
Some sessions may look more like “talk therapy.” You may be reviewing family history, important relationships, and exploring past coping strategies as well as building new ones.
Once you begin BLS sessions (typically phases 4-6), your therapist may begin with reevaluating/checking in with you or “lighting up” the memory you are working on so that its qualities can be held in your brain.
You will move through 16-30 second sets of eye movements (or BLS), guided by your therapist, who will pause you at the end of each set and ask you to notice what you observe internally when you pause. As you engage in eye movements/BLS and pause, your therapist will be tuning in, and supporting you in engaging in the process so that you can feel safe and attend to EMDR.
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Yes and no. During the first two phases of EMDR (History Taking & Preparation), we take a lot of careful time to explore your history and build in skills for your mind and body to mobilize you for EMDR. What this means is that you may increasingly become tuned into and notice emotions, sensations, reactions, and responses that you may have previously tried to ignore, or that parts of you would have done a really good job at blocking out. Sometimes, this process can feel uncomfortable. We build curiosity and compassion towards that discomfort, though, to learn how to work with your system—not against it.
Over time, the full phases of EMDR do get better. Your body’s natural adaptive healing networks—along with learned skills—support your ability to incorporate this information and to integrate this heightened compassion along with the ability to take care of emotions, sensations, and responses when they are present. It converges in new pathways that you forge, allowing you to respond to and attach to yourself differently, and with increased kindness and connection.
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Yes! There are several studies demonstrating the effectiveness of virtual EMDR therapy. At Nurturing Willow Psychotherapy, we utilize virtually-supported EMDR tools to support your ability to engage in EMDR virtually, if that is what is going to best meet your needs.
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I offer EMDR for both adults and teens. EMDR has been studied and seen to be an effective therapy tool for adults, teens, and children.
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This is something you and your therapist will build into your treatment plan in Phase 1 of EMDR.
This is going to look different from person to person because each person’s symptoms and idea of relief is going to look different. In EMDR therapy, and during later phases, your therapist wants to notice and support you in noticing when you are increasingly tapping into moments where EMDR is helping. For example: if you are having fewer looping thoughts/breaking up looping thoughts, experiencing increased self-compassion, expressing empowerment over shame, etc.
One of the overall signs EMDR is helping, though, is that your big “thinking, analytical” part is taking more of a back seat, that you are able to tune into your emotional needs, identify them, and respond to them rather than react to them.
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EMDR has been extensively studied over time, particularly using Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). This means that, when studied, some participants are randomly assigned EMDR as a treatment, and others are not. Over time, across various studies, across diverse populations, and across conditions, EMDR has been demonstrated to be effective at improving symptoms and distress level. To learn more about research on EMDR, you may do so here.
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My rates are:
$200 for a 50-55-minute session
$300 for a 90-minute session
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Feel free to book a consult call with me here or send me an email here to get started.
I can’t wait to meet you!
Online Therapy in Louisiana, Connecticut, and Virginia
In-Person Therapy in New Orleans, LA
Start EMDR Therapy Today
In-Person Therapy in New Orleans, Louisiana
Online Therapy In Connecticut, Louisiana, and Virginia
My in-person office is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. I offer in-person EMDR Therapy in New Orleans and online EMDR Therapy throughout Connecticut, Louisiana, and Virginia.