EMDR & Attachment-focused EMDR
EMDR
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based psychotherapy used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It helps you process distressing memories that continue to affect your life. Rather than relying on talking alone, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, usually eye movements or alternating taps, while you focus on aspects of an experience. The aim is to reduce the distress associated with the memory and the negative beliefs attached to it.
Are you 'traumatised'?
You may have experienced abuse, neglect, bullying or abandonment without recognising their lasting effects. Perhaps you feel anxious around people, remain alert to danger, struggle to trust others or react strongly to situations that seem manageable to everyone else. Trauma can follow a single event or develop over years of difficult relationships. Its effects may persist long after the circumstances that produced them have ended.
“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”
How EMDR can help
Distressing experiences can remain emotionally charged long after they have happened. EMDR helps you process these memories so they become less upsetting and less likely to trigger the same reactions in the present. You may find that you can remember what happened without feeling overwhelmed by it, and that beliefs such as “I am unsafe” or “It was my fault” begin to lose their hold.
What it helps with
EMDR is an established treatment for PTSD and can help people process traumatic memories arising from accidents, assault, abuse, neglect, bullying, rejection and abandonment. Depending on your circumstances, it may also form part of treatment for panic attacks, fears, phobias, OCD-related difficulties and dissociation. These conditions have different causes and recommended treatments; EMDR is not a first-line treatment for all of them. We assess your difficulties and consider whether processing traumatic experiences is likely to help.
Modifications
I adapt EMDR to your needs. Where appropriate, I integrate it with Internal Family Systems (IFS), attachment-informed therapy and attention to bodily responses. This can be particularly helpful if you become overwhelmed, feel disconnected from yourself or notice that one part of you wants to engage while another feels reluctant or afraid. We take these responses seriously rather than push past them.
“Whether we realize it or not, it is our woundedness, or how we cope with it, that dictates much of our behavior…”
Attachment-Informed EMDR
Attachment-informed EMDR
Not all trauma comes from a single frightening event. Growing up with neglect, abuse, unpredictable care or emotional abandonment can affect how you see yourself and what you expect from other people. You may have learned to hide your needs, anticipate rejection or take responsibility for other people’s feelings. Attachment-informed EMDR explores these experiences and the beliefs they left behind, helping you process the past while paying attention to how it shapes your relationships today.
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.”
Integrating IFS with EMDR
I integrate IFS with EMDR, an evidence-based treatment for PTSD. IFS helps us understand the parts involved in distressing experiences; EMDR can help process memories that continue to affect the present.
"While integrating IFS into EMDR can be beneficial to any client, this integrative approach can be especially beneficial to clients with complex trauma. Recent research recommends a multi-intervention and multi-method approach for complex trauma (Cloitre, 2020; Cloitre et al., 2020; Cloitre, 2021). Integrating IFS into EMDR meets this need for a multi-method approach for clients with more complex systems organized around trauma, including for clients with dissociative parts. By integrating IFS into EMDR, I have seen many successes in clients' treatment in enabling more clients to tolerate EMDR ultimately making it more accessible to more clients as a treatment choice."
Making you feel safe
Resourcing and safety work
Before processing difficult memories, we assess your current circumstances, your capacity to manage distress and the support available to you. We may develop grounding skills, calming imagery and ways to recognise when you are becoming overwhelmed or disconnected. We also pay attention to parts of you that feel wary of the work. Preparation is especially important when there is a history of complex trauma or dissociation.
Understanding which states you tend to move into — and what triggers them — is itself part of the work. It is not just psychoeducation. It is the beginning of having a different relationship with your own nervous system.
This is where IFS and EMDR meet most naturally. The resource team is not so different from the internal family — a cast of inner figures, each with something to offer. Working with both approaches together means the resourcing work is not just preparation for EMDR; it is itself therapeutic.
What happens in sessions?
We begin by discussing your difficulties and agreeing what to work on. When you are ready, I guide you to focus on a memory, feeling or belief while using bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or alternating taps. We pause regularly to notice what is happening and check how you are responding. Sessions include time to settle, review the work and consider what you need between appointments.
“Love it. Saved my life... It’s so weird because it’s like watching a movie in your mind, but it’s different than dreaming. You’re kind of more in yourself but still in another place of consciousness... I came out of it, and I’ve never had stage fright again. Ever.”
— Miley Cyrus, The New York Times / Vogue Interview
The global pop icon credited EMDR with permanently curing her severe stage fright.
Opportunities to be creative with EMDR
EMDR allows us to consider something you'd like to change. We ask you and how does this make you feel? And where does this show up in your body? And what beliefs you hold about yourself, for example, 'I am worthless'. And we bridge back to an earlier time, and locate the origins of your current difficulty, often in your childhood.
EMDR lets us focus on what's going on inside
Gabor Mate puts it very well in his recent book The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. "Trauma is primarily what happens within someone as a result of the difficult or hurtful events that befall them; it is not the events themselves. Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you."
Intensive format
EMDR intensives
EMDR intensives offer extended sessions over an agreed period rather than working solely in standard weekly appointments. They can provide more time to focus on selected traumatic experiences, with preparation, breaks and time to review what has emerged.
Intensives are not simply about doing more therapy in less time: I assess suitability, plan the work around your needs and allow for recovery and integration afterwards.
EMDR intensives accelerate the EMDR therapy process because several months of therapy is condensed into a few days. This means that EMDR intensives are focused, in-depth and immersive.
One of the most significant advantages of intensive EMDR is the potential for rapid progress. In weekly sessions of therapy, it may take several weeks or months to work through a traumatic or challenging event. In contrast, EMDR intensives condense the timeline into a few days which helps you reach your goals and alleviate trauma symptoms more quickly.
Longer sessions
Two to four hours of focused processing time, rather than the standard 50 minutes.
Consecutive days
Sessions can be scheduled across two or three consecutive days to maintain continuity and depth.
Careful preparation
Intensives begin with thorough assessment and resourcing — the foundation has to be solid before the processing work starts.
Who it suits
People with a specific piece of trauma to work through, or those who find weekly sessions too stop-start to build real momentum.
Confidential Connection
Please make contact
Thanks for your interest, please email if you want more information, in confidence. I offer a 30-minute introductory Zoom call.
You can also send a WhatsApp message in confidence to 07525 456544. Thank you.
Prefer to talk first? I offer a free 30-minute introductory call on Zoom — no obligation, completely confidential.