EMDR Therapy in Oakland and the East Bay
EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is the modality I use most, trust most, and find most consistently effective. I'll say something I don't think most therapists say plainly enough: EMDR changed my own life. After a long, terrifying (but thankfully non-injurious) fall while rock climbing left me with intrusive thoughts and anxiety that seriously compromised my quality of life, EMDR got me unstuck from that incident in remarkably short order, and opened the door for me to get back to being myself. That's why I sought out EMDR training, why I've continued to deepen my EMDR practice, and why it's at the center of the work I do with clients.
If you've heard of EMDR but aren't sure what it actually is or whether it's right for you, this page will help. If you've already done some research and are looking for an EMDR therapist in Oakland or the East Bay, I'd encourage you to schedule a free consultation and we can talk about whether it's a good fit for what you're dealing with.
What EMDR Is — and What It Isn't
EMDR is a structured psychotherapy approach developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. It's now one of the most extensively researched therapies in existence, endorsed by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association.
EMDR was originally developed as a first-line treatment for PTSD, but practitioners quickly realized that it was useful in treating a wide range of diagnoses. I use it regularly with clients dealing with anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, substance use, depression, and OCD, often with results that outpace what months of traditional talk therapy would produce. Like me after the climbing fall mentioned above, almost none of my patients meet full diagnostic criteria for PTSD, and even fewer consider themselves “traumatized,” but they generally find EMDR has a lot to offer anyway.
The core idea is this: when something overwhelming happens to us, or even just something consistently stressful (in adulthood or childhood), the brain sometimes can't fully process the experience. The memory never fully makes it to long-term memory, but instead gets stored in a way that remains emotionally "live," as if the event is still happening, at least in some partial, fractured way. This is why a person can know, intellectually, that a past experience is over and done with, yet still feel a strong physical or emotional reaction when something reminds them (consciously or subconsciously) of that experience. The anxiety is real, even if the logic says it shouldn't be. Fundamentally, EMDR helps the parts of us that feel threatened, inadequate, or alone connect with the parts of us that feel safe, whole, and capable of connection. I never forgot my climbing fall, but EMDR gave me a profound, felt sense that it was now over, and I was okay. That was all I needed.
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, which involves guiding the client's attention alternately left and right, via eye movements (the original method, hence the name), hand buzzers, audio tones, or even self-tapping, to help the brain do what it couldn't do originally: fully process the experience and file it away as a memory, rather than as an ongoing threat.
What EMDR Actually Looks Like in Session
Before any processing work begins, we spend time getting to know what we're working with, including your history, your symptoms, what's getting in the way, and how you best self-regulate emotionally, and building enough trust and stability that we can approach difficult material safely. This often can happen in less than a session, and almost never takes more than two or three. I send new clients an online intake assessment before the first session that helps us hit the ground running.
In a nutshell, when we do begin processing, sessions typically involve holding a specific memory, belief, or physical sensation in mind while I guide your attention back and forth using one of several bilateral stimulation methods. We activate the thing that’s stuck (i.e. the thing that makes me clam up and shut down, the thing that makes me want to drink), but also activate new perspectives (i.e. my knowledge of my own capabilities and worth, the things I love that substance use threatens) that help that stuck-ness move toward resolution, and we do it in a way that is challenging, but not overwhelming.
One of the great things about EMDR is you don't have to talk through everything in detail, and you can keep private anything you want. As your therapist, I don’t need to know what happened, I just need to know a few important aspects of how what happened is making you feel right now. You don't have to relive experiences in the way that worries some people. EMDR works largely beneath the level of conscious narrative.
What clients typically experience over the course of treatment is a sometimes gradual but often dramatic reduction in the emotional charge of whatever we're working on. My climbing fall memory went from menacing to mundane in one session and never came back. Memories that clients became tearful discussing a month before become more neutral, sometimes even boring. Anxiety and substance use triggers lose their grip. The cognitive change often feels so fundamental and natural that clients wonder how they ever held the negative beliefs that led them to therapy in the first place.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) changed my life and is at the core of what I do therapeutically. In terms of big positive changes in a short period of time, it is the best modality I have used, and I find it applicable to a wide variety of situations and mental health diagnoses.
What EMDR Can Help With
I've used EMDR with clients working through:
Anxiety and panic attacks, including anxiety rooted in past experiences
Substance use, particularly when use is driven by anxiety, trauma, or emotional dysregulation
Performance anxiety and stress in high-pressure professional environments
Depression, especially when linked to specific experiences or beliefs about oneself
PTSD and trauma, including both single-incident and complex/developmental trauma
OCD and phobias
Grief and loss
Working With Me
EMDR can be done in person at my Oakland office or via telehealth throughout California. (Bilateral stimulation works effectively on video.). I work outside of insurance, which means sessions are fully confidential and our treatment isn't subject to third-party review or diagnosis requirements. I offer a free 20-minute consultation to anyone who wants to explore whether EMDR — or any of the other approaches I use — might be the right fit.