Let me start with the honest part: I don’t offer EMDR, and I’m not a licensed therapist.
If you found this page searching for EMDR, you’re probably not shopping for a technique. You’re carrying something old that still has a grip on you, and someone told you EMDR is what handles that. So here’s a straight explanation of what EMDR is, how to find it if that’s what you want, and what I do differently — so you can decide for yourself.
What EMDR actually is
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, and it’s now one of the most widely recognized approaches for working with traumatic memory. The World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association both recognize it.
The core idea: a difficult memory can get stored in a raw, unprocessed form. It doesn’t file itself away like an ordinary memory does. It stays live — so a sound, a smell, or a tone of voice can drop you straight back into it years later.
In an EMDR session, you hold that memory in mind while the clinician guides you through bilateral stimulation — usually side-to-side eye movements, sometimes tapping or alternating tones. The theory is that this helps the brain finish processing what it couldn’t finish at the time. The memory stays. The charge on it comes down.
It’s real work with real evidence behind it, and it’s delivered by licensed mental health clinicians with specific EMDR training.
If you want EMDR, here’s how to find it
I’d rather point you somewhere useful than pretend I’m the answer to every question.
Look for a licensed therapist — an LPC, LCSW, or psychologist — with EMDR training, ideally EMDRIA-certified. The EMDR International Association keeps a directory. Psychology Today’s directory also lets you filter by EMDR and by insurance.
Two things worth knowing before you start calling: many EMDR clinicians in this area have waitlists measured in months, and the process typically includes a preparation phase before you get to the reprocessing itself. Plan for a real commitment.
What I do instead
I’m a board-certified hypnotist and Licensed NLP Master Practitioner. I use NLP and hypnosis coaching for anxiety, depression, and past trauma in a structured eight-session process.
Here’s the honest comparison. EMDR and my work aren’t the same thing, and they don’t come from the same tradition. But they’re aimed at the same place.
Both are working below the level of conversation. Talk-based approaches ask you to understand a memory. Neither of these does. Both assume the problem isn’t your understanding — it’s that your nervous system still reacts as though the thing is happening now. Both go after the emotional charge attached to the memory rather than the memory itself.
Where they differ is the route. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess. I use hypnosis to work in a focused, relaxed state, and NLP to change the structure of how a memory is coded — the images, the sounds, the internal running commentary that fires before you can think it through.
And the frame is different. EMDR is clinical treatment provided by a licensed therapist. What I do is coaching. It is not therapy, not medical care, and not a substitute for either. If you’re in crisis, or you want a licensed clinician, that’s the right call and I’ll tell you so on the phone.
Eight sessions, and you know that from day one
Most approaches to this work are open-ended. You start, and nobody can tell you when you’ll be done.
Mine has a defined shape. Eight sessions. Most people notice a real shift by session four. You know the plan from the first conversation, and there’s no waitlist — if we’re a fit, we start.
If you’ve already tried EMDR
A lot of the people who reach me have done this before. Sometimes EMDR helped and something is still sitting there. Sometimes it never quite landed. Sometimes it was years of talk therapy that helped them understand the problem perfectly without changing how it feels.
That’s not a failure on your part, and it doesn’t mean you’re beyond help. Different approaches reach different things. Something that doesn’t respond to one route sometimes moves quickly on another.
The first session is free
Not a sales call — an actual working session, so you can see how the process feels, ask whatever you want to ask, and decide with real information instead of a website.
If it’s not a fit, I’ll say so, and I’ll point you toward what is.
Call me at 484-889-7706 and tell me what’s going on.