EMDR Therapy in Los Angeles & Pasadena, CA
A research-backed, somatic-based approach to trauma — including Attachment-Focused EMDR and integration support for psychedelic experiences.
Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR doesn’t ask you to rehash the past. It helps you metabolize it. Using bilateral stimulation — eye movements, gentle tapping, or alternating sound — EMDR works directly with the nervous system to lower the charge on memories that have stayed stuck for years, sometimes decades.
I’m certified in EMDR through the EMDR Center of Southern California, and I’m trained in two specialized extensions of it: Attachment-Focused EMDR and integration work for clients in psychedelic-assisted contexts.
WHEN EMDR TENDS TO BE THE RIGHT FIT
EMDR is especially useful when something from your past is still running the show in the present — a single traumatic event, a relational wound that keeps replaying, a body that goes into fight-or-flight before your mind has caught up. Many of my clients arrive after years of talk therapy, sensing the insight is there but the weight hasn’t lifted.
ATTACHMENT-FOCUSED EMDR (AF-EMDR)
When trauma is relational — neglect, betrayal, a parent who couldn’t be there in the way you needed — standard EMDR can feel too exposing. AF-EMDR builds in imagined safety and an internal support system before reprocessing begins, so the work happens with a scaffolding of care underneath it. It’s the version of EMDR I most often use with clients carrying complex PTSD or developmental trauma.
EMDR WITH PSYCHEDELIC INTEGRATION
For clients working with ketamine in our practice, or integrating experiences from legal psychedelic therapy elsewhere, pairing those altered states with EMDR’s bilateral stimulation can reach material that ordinary consciousness has kept walled off. We prepare together, work during or after the medicine, and integrate over time.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A free 15-minute consultation first
The first few sessions focus on history and resourcing — building the internal supports you’ll draw on during reprocessing
We don’t rush into the hardest material; we build the container first
Sessions are 50 minutes for traditional EMDR, longer for intensive or psychedelic-integration work
Who I Work With
The people who tend to find EMDR useful share a particular kind of stuckness — they often know a lot about themselves already, and the insight isn't moving the needle. The clients I see for EMDR include:
People who have done years of talk therapy and feel they've hit a wall. You understand your patterns. You can name your trauma. You know exactly why you respond the way you do. And none of that knowing has changed how it feels in your body. EMDR works underneath the language layer, where talk therapy can't always reach.
Survivors of single-incident trauma. A car accident, an assault, a medical event, a sudden loss — something happened, and the version of you afterward isn't quite the same as the version of you before. Single-incident trauma often responds well to focused EMDR work, sometimes in a smaller number of sessions than people expect.
Adults carrying childhood material. Neglect, emotional unavailability, families where you had to perform to be loved, environments where you couldn't fully relax. This is where Attachment-Focused EMDR comes in — built specifically for trauma that started before you had words for it.
People with anxiety that hasn't responded to CBT or medication. When the alarm system has roots in earlier experience, calming techniques and reframes treat the symptom but not the source. EMDR works with the source.
Clients in or considering psychedelic-assisted therapy. Whether you're working with ketamine in our practice, integrating experiences from legal psychedelic therapy elsewhere, or preparing for that work, EMDR pairs well with altered-state therapies as a way to consolidate and integrate what surfaces.
LGBTQ+ clients carrying trauma that rarely got named as trauma. The accumulated weight of living queer in a non-affirming world — the hyper-vigilance, the rejections, the years of editing yourself — often shows up in the nervous system long after the events themselves. Affirming EMDR holds space for this without requiring you to translate.
Performers, creatives, and high-functioning professionals. People who look fine from the outside and know something is off underneath. Performance anxiety, perfectionism, freezing when it matters, the specific exhaustion of holding a public version of yourself together. EMDR can reach the original wound under the present-day pattern.
What EMDR Has Evidence For
Beyond the people who tend to walk in the door, it's worth naming the specific presentations EMDR has been studied and validated for. The conditions and experiences I most often address with EMDR include:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR is one of the most researched trauma treatments in existence and is recommended by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the Department of Veterans Affairs for PTSD treatment.
Complex and developmental trauma (C-PTSD). For trauma that started early and never had a clear endpoint — neglect, chronic invalidation, attachment wounds — I rely on Attachment-Focused EMDR, which builds in the relational safety that wasn't there the first time around.
Anxiety and panic disorders. Particularly when anxiety has roots in earlier experience and traditional approaches haven't reached the source.
Specific phobias. Driving, flying, medical and dental settings, needles, enclosed spaces — focused phobia work often resolves in a relatively small number of sessions.
Grief and complicated loss. Grief that loops, gets stuck, or tangles with guilt and unfinished business can soften with EMDR. The goal isn't to remove the loss; it's to let the love survive the pain.
Performance anxiety and creative blocks. When freezing at the moments that matter has an old memory underneath it, EMDR can address the original event so the present-day pattern stops being haunted by it.
Medical trauma and chronic illness. Diagnoses, hospitalizations, invasive procedures, and the harder-to-name experience of living in a body that doesn't feel safe.
Sexual trauma. EMDR is particularly suited to sexual trauma because it doesn't require detailed verbal recounting — the work happens through the nervous system rather than the retelling.
Attachment wounds and relational trauma. Patterns from early relationships that keep showing up in current ones — fear of abandonment, difficulty trusting, the sense that closeness is dangerous — are core territory for Attachment-Focused EMDR.
Start Where You Are
EMDR Therapy in Los Angeles & Pasadena, CA
You don't need to have it all figured out before you reach out. Most of my clients arrive somewhere between "I think something might be wrong" and "I've been carrying this for years and I'm done." Both are fine starting places. The free 15-minute consultation is just a conversation — a chance to tell me what's going on, hear how I work, and see whether it feels like a fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Less dramatic than people expect, usually. You'll sit across from me — or across the screen if we're working virtually — and we'll start with something already in front of us: a memory, an image, a body sensation, a belief about yourself that you'd like to loosen. Then we use bilateral stimulation (eye movements, gentle tapping, or alternating sound) while you let your mind go where it goes. You stay in control the whole time. We pause often. Some sets bring up vivid material; others bring up almost nothing. Both are part of the work.
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No. This is one of the things that makes EMDR different from most talk therapies. You don't need to narrate the worst moments of your life out loud for the work to happen. We need a target — usually an image, a feeling, a belief about yourself — but you don't have to give me a play-by-play. Many of my clients find this enormous relief. The processing happens in your nervous system, not in the retelling.
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Talk therapy works through insight — understanding what happened, why you respond the way you do, what patterns are at play. That work matters and has its place. But insight alone often isn't enough. People can know exactly why they're stuck and still feel stuck. EMDR works underneath the language layer, with the parts of the brain and body that hold experience in a non-verbal form. That's why clients often describe feeling something shift after EMDR that years of talk therapy couldn't quite reach.
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EMDR follows an eight-phase structure: history-taking and treatment planning, preparation and resourcing, assessment of target memories, desensitization (the bilateral stimulation work most people associate with EMDR), installation of more adaptive beliefs, body scan to clear residual tension, closure to ground at the end of each session, and reevaluation in the next session to see what shifted. The phases aren't a checklist we march through linearly — they're more like a structure we move in and out of as the work calls for it.
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It depends on what you're working on. A single-incident trauma — a car accident, a recent assault, a specific medical event — can sometimes resolve in a handful of sessions once we've built the foundation. Complex trauma, attachment wounds, or material that's been carried since childhood takes longer, because there's more to address and the nervous system needs more time to feel safe enough to do the work. We'll have a clearer sense after the first few sessions, and I'll give you an honest estimate rather than a generic one.
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Yes, with modifications. Standard EMDR was originally developed for single-incident PTSD, and people sometimes assume that's its only application. For complex or developmental trauma — neglect, attachment wounds, chronic invalidation, layered family-of-origin material — I lean on Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR), which builds in imagined safety and an internal support system before we ever approach the harder material. It's slower, more relational, and better suited to the kind of trauma that doesn't have a single date attached to it.
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Yes. Virtual EMDR is well-established and effective — there's good research showing comparable outcomes to in-person work. We use specialized tools (visual, auditory, or self-administered tactile) for the bilateral stimulation. Some clients prefer in-person for the regulation that being in a room together provides. Others prefer virtual for the comfort of being in their own space. Both are options, and we can talk about which makes sense for you.
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EMDR keeps working after you leave the room. Processing can continue for hours or days, sometimes showing up as vivid dreams, unexpected emotions, or a sense of tiredness that doesn't quite match the day. The general guidance: protect the rest of your day if you can, hydrate, eat well, move gently, sleep when you're tired, and skip alcohol or other substances that might interfere with integration. Big confrontations, hard conversations, or major decisions are best saved for another day.
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Not always, and not always at every point. EMDR may not be the right starting place if you're in an active crisis, currently unsafe in your living situation, or dealing with active psychosis or untreated severe substance use. Photosensitive epilepsy is a contraindication for the eye-movement form specifically (other forms of bilateral stimulation are still options). If any of that applies, it doesn't mean EMDR is off the table forever — it means we'd start somewhere else and build toward it. The free consultation is the right place to figure out where to begin.