Attachment Trauma & IFS-Informed EMDR
Despite trying to focus on the present, you often find yourself dwelling on painful past events from your childhood or relationships. It can even feel like you are reliving these incidents. These past events can be so much a part of your present that they can affect your self-esteem and current relationships. You are longing to move on from your childhood or past relationships and for your past to no longer hold you prisoner.
You lack trust in yourself, others or the world in general. You find yourself feeling hopeless that you can be free from the past and have the life you dream of. The anxiety and fear that come with putting yourself out there, keep you stuck and isolated.
Despite efforts otherwise, you find yourself continuing the cycle of your wants and needs not being met. You have attracted others who are emotionally unavailable, inconsiderate or even abusive. If you’ve gone through childhood or relationship trauma, it’s important to know that these struggles are common and normal responses to such challenging experiences.
But there is hope…
The good news is that with support, it is possible to work toward greater emotional relief, healthier relationships, and more confidence in yourself. Through trauma therapy, clients often find ways to process past experiences and reconnect with their sense of safety and self-worth. Techniques like EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) help clients address past experiences in a structured, supportive environment. While results can vary, many clients experience meaningful progress in how they relate to themselves and others.
You may find that you are able to:
Reduce distress associated with past events and step more into your present and future
Increase self-compassion when triggered and not feeling the overwhelming need to bury or ignore your feelings
Increase self-trust regarding partner selection and relationship decisions
Explore and improve relationship patterns, such as opening up and getting your wants and needs met
Learn skills to feel safer and more confident in relationships rather than being plagued by fears of being a failure or being abandoned as a partner
FAQ
Those experiences are in the past, why do they affect me so much?
Trauma experienced through our relationships with caregivers and romantic partners leaves a profound impact on us. Such trauma can affect our ability to trust, be vulnerable and give and receive love. As social beings we have a fundamental human need for connection to others. This is part of what can make experiencing childhood and relationship trauma so impactful on your life. You cannot completely avoid your need for connection and acceptance, so you are left to repeatedly be exposed to scenarios that may trigger you to think of the past trauma you have experienced.
What is Trauma Therapy and how can it help me?
The specific trauma therapy I use most often with clients is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR is a powerful type of therapy that can help with healing from trauma, working through negative core beliefs, and processing distressing life events. Just as construction or accidents disrupt traffic flow on Interstate 465, traumatic memories or upsetting life events create blocks in our brains. The process of EMDR helps clear out those blocks, allowing healing to occur much like traffic flow improves once the road is clear.
How does it work?
At the heart of EMDR therapy is bilateral stimulation, engaging both sides of the brain to process memories and events similarly to REM sleep. Have you ever gained clarity and felt better about a situation after a good night’s sleep? This likely isn’t just because you got rest—it’s because of how bilateral eye movements during sleep aid in processing thoughts, feelings, and events.
During in-person sessions, one option for bilateral stimulation is stimulating both sides of the brain by the therapist using hand movements that clients follow back and forth with their eyes. I also have the option to do bilateral stimulation through having clients wear headphones, so they can receive alternating sound in each ear, such as an ocean wave or calming music. Another option is having clients do alternating taps on a part of their body that feels comfortable and good for them. You would get to decide which of these options you want to use in a given EMDR session and could change the form of bilateral stimulation anytime you want or need.
For virtual appointments, I tend to use this website and have clients follow a dot on their screen, which I control the pace of on my end. Other options for bilateral stimulation can be discussed depending on a virtual client’s access to relevant devices to support this, such as headphones, alternating buzzers, etc. Through bilateral stimulation and the corresponding interventions I do, clients are often able to decrease the level of distress they associate with certain thoughts and events while also increasing the level they truly believe in more positive or adaptive thoughts. This shift can lead to meaningful relief for some clients. For more information regarding the process of EMDR, I encourage you to visit the EMDR Consulting website here.
Okay, but does that actually work?
I’ve seen—and experienced—how EMDR can help shift long-standing trauma-based patterns. It supports you in gradually seeing yourself as enough, lovable, and valuable. EMDR also helps with trust, boundaries, and intimacy, guiding insights and changes from within rather than imposing them from outside.
I’ve been through so much already and don’t want to relive it. Can therapy still help me?
Yes. EMDR doesn’t require you to recount every detail of painful events to find relief. The therapy works with the impact those experiences have left on your mind and body, not the story itself. I can explain how this looks in practice so you feel safe and informed.
I’ve experienced sexual trauma, either in childhood or as an adult. Is this something you help with?
Yes. I work with many clients who carry the deep, complex pain of sexual trauma. Whether it happened in childhood, adulthood, or across different moments in your life, the impact can be far-reaching—shaping how you feel in your body, how safe you feel in relationships, and how you relate to yourself.
In our work together, we’ll move at a pace that feels safe and respectful for you. You don’t have to share everything all at once or have the words perfectly formed. I’ll support you in gently reconnecting with your sense of safety, agency, and worth. Healing from sexual trauma is possible—and you don’t have to navigate it alone.
Do I have to do EMDR? Can I change my mind if I initially agreed to do EMDR?
Your consent and autonomy come first. You can pause, take breaks, or decide not to continue EMDR at any time. My role is to guide and support you, helping you move forward safely and at a pace that feels right, with options and clarity along the way.
What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) or parts work therapy and how does it make EMDR more effective?
Our minds can be creative with how they try to protect us from experiencing emotional pain. This can involve things like compartmentalizing traumatic events, emotional numbing, and dissociating. These protections can also be barriers to connecting with the parts of us that are hurting and long to be seen and cared for. Through working with an EMDR therapist who is also trained in IFS, your protector parts will be heard, respected and validated. These are crucial steps for your protector parts to feel even briefly safe enough to step aside and allow access to your parts that are hurting and frozen in a traumatic or upsetting period of your life. Access to these parts on some level is likely necessary for the relief you are hoping for. The process of IFS alone can lead to profound healing resulting in your core Self and your parts working together and coexisting peacefully like you may have never thought possible. Combining IFS and EMDR may increase the likelihood of experiencing relief, healing, and transformation. For more information on IFS visit, the IFS Institute’s website here.
If you have any questions about my approach or whether IFS and/or EMDR therapy may align with your needs, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Your comfort and confidence in the therapeutic process are always my top priorities.
