EMDR for Trauma and Attachment Trauma
Processing, integration and healing with EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful therapeutic approach that helps people heal from trauma or emotional wounds that haven’t been fully resolved. Whether you’ve experienced a single distressing event or a buildup of painful moments over time, the impact of overwhelming experiences can linger. Sometimes that impact hums quietly in the background, just beneath awareness. Other times, it’s loud and disruptive—a persistent reminder that something inside still doesn’t feel safe.
When we go through something threatening, our brains don’t always process the experience like a regular memory. Instead, the event can get “stuck,” and we become more sensitive to anything that reminds us of it. These triggers can show up unexpectedly – through a sound, sensation, or interaction – and suddenly we’re flooded with emotions, memories, or beliefs that seem to come out of nowhere.
Trauma isn’t just about what happened—it’s about what stayed behind in the body and nervous system. It’s how we shut down, go into overdrive, or lose touch with a felt sense of safety, worth, or connection.
Trauma changes us. It shifts the way we see ourselves, the people around us, and the world at large. What once felt stable may now feel fragile. What once felt safe might now feel dangerous or uncertain. Even if you seem to be holding it together, you might feel like you’re carrying something heavy beneath the surface – something talk therapy alone doesn’t always reach.
What can EMDR treat?
When people think of trauma, they often picture life-altering or catastrophic events. But trauma can also take root in quieter, more chronic experiences—the ones that slowly chip away at your sense of safety, worth, or belonging. EMDR can support healing from a wide range of these lived experiences.
Maybe you grew up in relationships that felt misattuned or painful, especially with caregivers or family members who couldn’t meet your emotional needs. Maybe you experienced neglect, felt abandoned, or carried the quiet ache of being misunderstood. Separation from loved ones, adoption, or a sense of disconnection from your roots can also leave lasting emotional imprints that EMDR can help address.
Even subtle but repeated experiences like being dismissed, bullied, gaslit, or invalidated can live in the body as trauma. EMDR can help gently release the weight of those wounds, along with the complex emotions that often come with shame, guilt, betrayal, or broken trust.
Many people turn to EMDR after enduring long periods of high stress, emotional burnout, or medical, perinatal, or health challenges that left them feeling powerless, unseen, or exhausted. Others seek support in healing from emotional, physical, or sexual abuse—or from traumatic exposure through military service, first responder work, or violence.
This kind of therapy can also be a powerful support during major life transitions, like the loss of a relationship, job, identity, or sense of purpose. It can also help you through the deep work of healing spiritual wounds, changes in spiritual beliefs, or disconnection from your own spirituality.
How does it work?
EMDR helps the brain and body reprocess stuck experiences, so that they no longer hold the same emotional charge or interrupt your life in the same way. It uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or gentle tapping, to engage both hemispheres of the brain and mimic how it naturally processes experiences and emotions during deep sleep.
The goal isn’t to relive the pain, but to allow the brain to reorganize and integrate stuck experiences so they no longer have the same grip on your nervous system.
It works not just at the level of thought or memory, but at the level of the limbic system, the deep part of your brain that is designed to help us survive and respond to threat, fear, shame, and pain.
And EMDR isn’t just about processing the hard stuff—it’s also about building strength. Along the way, we’ll focus on your inner resources: cultivating a deeper sense of safety, self-compassion, self-trust, confidence, and calm. This helps you feel more grounded in the present, better equipped to handle future challenges, and more connected to who you really are.
You deserve to feel safe in your own body and at peace in your own mind. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened—it means reclaiming your life, reconnecting with your wholeness, and moving forward from a place of empowerment and authenticity. You don’t have to carry this alone. Together, we can work toward the peace, freedom, and connection you deserve.
Attachment Trauma
At our practice, relationships are at the heart of what we do. We deeply understand how the power of connection, or the painful absence of it, and its profound role in shaping how you see yourself and show up in your relationships.
When you experience your connections as mismatched, inconsistent, fractured, or unsafe, this leaves hurts that can ripple out into every corner of your life.
Attachment trauma happens when our most important people -parents, family, partners, or trusted others – missed or weren’t able to offer the presence, security, or love we needed to feel seen and secure.
You may now find yourself fearing abandonment, struggling to trust, trying to control closeness, locked down behind your protective walls, or feeling deep down that you’re unworthy of love. These aren’t flaws. They’re adaptations—your nervous system’s way of protecting you.
As these patterns repeat, relationships can begin to feel unfulfilling or even painful. You might find yourself over-functioning, emotionally checking out, chasing unavailable connections, or pouring yourself into work, caregiving, or other distractions. It can feel like you’re doing the same dance over and over, hoping for different results.
But these patterns aren’t permanent. With care, curiosity, and support, it’s possible to unlearn what no longer serves you and begin building relationships that feel safer, more secure, and more aligned with what you truly need.
Process of Change
EMDR offers a powerful pathway to healing the deeper wounds. Not just by talking about them, but by helping your brain and body truly release them. It works by helping your brain and body process and release the relational pain that’s been held in your nervous system—those old survival strategies that were once necessary, but no longer serve you. Through this process, we begin to reshape your inner map for connection.
Together, we’ll begin to notice and gently unravel the beliefs that formed in the midst of pain—stories like “I have to earn love,” “People always leave,” or “I can only depend on myself.” EMDR helps make space for new, more truthful messages—ones grounded in your inherent worth, your right to safety, and your capacity for connection.
Whether you tend to hold on tightly out of fear or keep others at a distance to protect yourself, EMDR can help you feel more secure and balanced in your relationships. Instead of reacting from old wounds, you’ll begin to respond from a place of calm, clarity, and self-trust.
This work is both tender and life-changing. By going to the root of attachment pain, EMDR helps you let go of old patterns, communicate your needs more openly, set boundaries with confidence, and invite deeper intimacy into your life.
Your attachment story doesn’t have to define your future. Healing is possible—and you don’t have to do it alone. We’d be honored to walk with you as you move toward connection, trust, and the love you deserve.