You are not what’s happened to you
— for adults in tampa & across florida
In-Person & Online
EMDR Certified Therapist for trauma
You Just Can’t Put Your Finger on it…
There’s this lingering gut feeling…
No matter your accomplishments, nor relationships, the wins or milestones achieved in your life, you have a deep longing that something is just not right. You might notice a constant tension or underlying sadness. Why can’t you appreciate the good around you now?
Seems like the everyday monotony of life is too much.
You’ve got some story and history. You didn’t ask for this and certainly don’t live your life this way. Your past keeps creeping in... that accident, abuse, life-changing or frightening events. You sense your upbringing was a scary place.
You don’t even want to go there.
Sometimes these memories pop in, when you don’t want them to. Or, you replay these painful experiences like a movie in your mind as you struggle to get to sleep at night or even worse, have nightmares.
This negative energy—that again, wasn’t your choice, may show up as always feeling on edge or sensing a feeling of dread, like a deep pit in your stomach.
You are overwhelmed in handling the stress of life. It’s like there’s a free radical bouncing as it pleases in your head taking charge every day. You notice you avoid certain people, places or activities. You become frustrated—it’s hard for you to trust others.
EMDR Therapy Helps
in Healing your History
How therapy works
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can help you process tough or traumatic experiences that are causing you a lot of emotional pain.
Sometimes your painful past gets stuck in short-term memory in the brain and is stored in the body physically. When this happens, you experience post-traumatic stress and the memory gets easily triggered. Then our brains get confused about being in the past vs. now.
Memories are normally processed and moved to long-term memory as we sleep. We learn from our experiences, good and bad and our brain stores these knowledge nuggets so we know what to do if this happens again.
EMDR therapy helps to “refile” your unprocessed traumatic memories from the short-term memory to the long-term memory. Afterwards, your symptoms begin to go away and the memories lose their charge. You learn what you needed about the experience and go about your business of living.
In our work together, you are guided through EMDR to:
• Reconnect to your body through your unique coping skills
• Safely process painful memories to relieve intrusive thoughts
• Gain helpful insights to positively change you respond to challenges
• Find relief from your past
Holistic Help through…
EMDR
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Art Therapy
Early Sessions
We focus on building your own creative approaches to gain balance and connection with yourself. We will get to know one another and through our relationship, you can gain strength to prepare for deeper processing.
Get to the Root Cause
You are guided through the structured EMDR process by using eye movements or tapping to engage your full brain. When we move and engage your body and mind, you will process your painful experiences without going into every detail.
Respect Your Brain
EMDR follows how your brain has stored your memory and help these memories get unstuck. You can discover useful learnings and appropriate emotions and discard the unproductive and useless emotions, thoughts and body sensations.
After EMDR Session
You may continue to process a memory but hold a foggy feeling the next day. As EMDR progresses, you may notice less intensity or gain new insights or move to thinking about related memories that can be hurtful or pleasant.
Help Your Future
As you gain understanding about your past, we can use EMDR in future sessions to also help you with your present or future things you want to work on.
The Added Bonus
Therapy with me is more than simply talking. In my approach, we can address your body, mind and soul by doing… through EMDR and art therapy methods.
Want more details?
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1. Before We Start. We will discuss your history and develop your goals for therapy. You may create timelines or other supportive projects to identify painful “targets” or memories for future work.
2. Getting Ready. We will get to know one another. I will review the EMDR process and answer your questions. Together, we will co-create specific coping techniques to help you calm and holistically connect to yourself. One helpful image is to ‘draw your calm state in nature.’
3. Determine Where to Start. I will help you floatback to determine a time in your past that you would like to work on. I will guide you to identify an image, beliefs, feelings and body sensations. You will rate the event on a scale of 1-10 and identify what positive belief you would like to have.
4. Desensitization. Here is where I will guide you through bilateral eye movements or tapping while focusing on the event until you report zero stress. As you complete this in session, you will get more familiar with the movement and the processing becomes more natural.
5. Installation. At this point, we will focus on ‘installing’ your positive belief until it feels completely true for you and you are no longer experiencing negative body sensations.
6. Body Scan. Since our body is where trauma is held, we will now check your body by scanning for any lingering pains or negative sensations moving from head to toe.
7. Closure. We will focus on coming back to a calm state. We may visit your calm state in nature and mindfully reconnect to the present moment.
8. Reevaluation. In the next session, we will both revisit an old memory to check to see that your distress is still low and your positive belief is solid.
Get to the Root of Your Trauma
EMDR Therapy can help your brain…
Understand why your brain’s been so anxious
Gain deeper sleep
Stop the negative thoughts
Handle stress better
Process tough times & emotions and see a road forward
Tap into your creative flow with inspiring metaphor & symbols
Calm through mindful & relaxation practices
Reconnect & trust your body
Frequently asked questions about trauma therapy
FAQs
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A: When we think of trauma, you may have experienced natural disasters (like hurricanes or floods), violence (such as abuse, assault, terror attacks or mass shootings) and car crashes or other accidents.
First responders may experience continuous trauma due to the repetitive nature of trauma calls. Military and veterans may have impacts due to trauma in war or terror response.
However, trauma is unique to each individual. It can happen at any time and with each person reacting in their own way. Some people experience the effects immediately and some a long time afterwards.
Trauma can also be experienced as panic attacks, fear over or actually losing your job, worry about injustices in the news, medical conditions or procedures or breaking up with a partner. You may have times as a child when your parent was unreliable, overwhelmed or confused by how to help you. Your caregiver may have been controlling, critical or cared more about what others think.Through EMDR therapy, you will maintain your memories but release the physical pain and charged emotions without having to talk about the trauma at length. Your therapy work can help you overcome patterns of perfectionism, people pleasing or feeling “on guard.”
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I have met certification requirements by completing 20 hours of consultation with an EMDR Consultant™ for EMDR and having practiced these skills with at least 25 different clients in at least 50 EMDR sessions while maintaining ethical standards and completing continuing education. See more here.
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Yes! I specialize in providing EMDR therapy online anywhere in Florida from Pensacola to Miami & in-between.
I will help you create a calm space in your home and we will discuss a backup plan should the connection get interrupted during session. I recommend making yourself comfortable with a favorite drink and comfy seating.
We will ease into the process and will practice calming techniques so you are supported all along the way. -
How you will do in therapy depends on your unique situation, symptoms, goals and commitment to the process.
The greatest indicator of success in therapy is the effective relationship between you and the therapist. I encourage you to read my site to learn more about me.
I offer a free consult to answer your questions. If I’m not your right fit, I can provide other therapists to help you with your goals. -
Yes! As a firefighter spouse, our family has lived the shift lifestyle… from juggling the household to holidays alone. You may be sleep deprived, snapping at others or feel “always on.”
Having worked in a jail, prison and fire ridealongs, the traumas easily begin to pile on for firefighters, law enforcement, medics, dispatchers & correctional officers.
Therapy with me will provide confidential space to process your life’s unique demands. Much like a fire call, life outside the firehouse needs a creative response.
We can partner to help you cope, get insight and strengthen your creativity for with more control with overthinking and emotions than just by talking.
We can meet individually from a convenient online space, saving you the hassle of driving as you juggle your off-duty or family demands.
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Complete the form on the Contact Page to schedule a free 15 minute consultation call. I’ll answer all your questions and we can decide if I'm the right fit for what you need.
