EMDR Therapy for Trauma, ADHD, & Anxiety/Depression

EMDR Therapy helps reduce the intensity of emotionally charged memories that create distress in our mind and body. By using your innate capacity to heal, EMDR helps you to trust your mind and body to show the strengths and strategies necessary to take steps for an aligned, authentic life.

EMDR helps to turn scary, hurtful, or infuriating memories into just another experience you’ve had or simply another line in the story of your life. EMDR doesn’t erase its importance, it just takes all the charge and intensity out of it so you have more freedom to BE who you are and experience your wonderfully weird life

What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR and ADHD therapist wearing blue blouse smiles while sitting in white chair behind laptop

I’m Erin, an EMDR-trained therapist

Serving Houston, Ann Arbor, and folks across Texas & Michigan.

When you’ve experienced a lot of challenging life events, it can be hard to know how to move forward, especially if this is all you’ve ever known.

You may try to shove down the pain, and avoid the memories for a LONG time, but eventually it catches up to you. It wreaks havoc on your body, daily life, relationships, and well-being.

That’s where I can offer help as an EMDR-trained therapist.

EMDR is a wonderfully creative modality that I can use to support you in overcoming depression and anxiety, heal your past traumas, and reduce the shame of ADHD.

Why is EMDR Therapy So Effective for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, and ADHD?

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR helps activate pathways of your nervous system and enter a state of mind where you can access painful memories, thoughts, or beliefs without feeling them on full blast.

EMDR is a different way of being with your painful experiences than talk therapy. It can be used as an alternative to talk therapy or as a supplement. It allows difficult feelings, emotions, and memories to be less overwhelming so you don’t stay stuck in them.

Additionally, EMDR allows us to fluidly adapt the steps to fit your needs so that we are targeting what is most painful for you and what will have the greatest impact on your well-being.

EMDR therapy helps you lessen overwhelming emotions, grow your capacity for self-kindness, and tap into your strengths to move through adversity and discomfort.

How Can EMDR Therapy Help You?

Every Adult with ADHD has different and valid experiences who may need different support along the way. 

EMDR for Anxiety and Depression

EMDR therapy can help lessen the overwhelming symptoms of anxiety and depression, help you feel less reactive, and feel better about who you are.

EMDR therapy supports you in untangling self-doubt and gaining clarity so you can work with your capacity to direct your energy toward the things that matter most.

EMDR for Trauma

EMDR therapy provides you with the tools to process your trauma and regulate your nervous system so you can feel less impacted by painful traumatic experiences and more grounded, empowered, and aligned.

EMDR taps into our natural healing process and restores more flow so you feel less distressed by traumatic events.

EMDR for ADHD

EMDR for ADHD can help bolster executive functioning, reduce intensity of shame and rejection sensitivity, and increase your natural strengths for managing your ADHD.

EMDR helps leverage your creativity, grow your self-compassion, and uncover authenticity within yourself and in relationships so you feel more belonging, safety, and self-worth.

The Backstory: How EMDR Therapy Works

EMDR was originally conducted by clients being asked to follow an object back and forth across one’s visual field. We’ve since learned that other forms of bilateral stimulation like self-tapping also activate the same kind of processing – and often your eyes will still move!

The bilateral stimulation is done while concentrating on a distressing memory to facilitate desensitization or reprocessing. This “dual awareness” approach allows us to bridge the gap between the past and now, keeping one foot rooted in the present moment while stepping into the past to recall and process traumatic memories.

It might seem a bit odd and unconventional, and in some ways IT IS! Yet it has been heavily researched, widely used, and has been found to be helpful and effective in many applications.

Learn more about the science and research behind EMDR therapy here.

EMDR therapy helps with a variety of issues and concerns

EMDR was originally designed to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories, but over the years has been applied to effectively address a whole wide range of issues.

While this list is by no means exhaustive, it’s a pretty good snapshot of how I might use EMDR to support your therapeutic treatment plan.

If you see something here that you struggle with (or you notice something that’s missing!), please reach out and ask how EMDR could help you.

  • Anxiety & Panic Disorder

  • Phobias

  • Depression 

  • PTSD

  • Impulse Control

  • Generational or Lifespan Trauma

  • Social Anxiety

  • Body Image Issues 

  • Grief and Loss 

  • After Sexual or Physical Assault 

  • Sleep Difficulties & Nightmares 

  • Executive Dysfunction 

  • Dissociation

  • Self-Esteem

  • Guilt and Shame

  • Supporting decision making/problem solving

  • Chronic Pain

What to expect during EMDR Therapy

  1. We start by building up skills to help you handle distress (in body, mind, emotions) and feel safe and capable.

  2. Once you feel prepared, we’ll identify focus areas or “targets” for desensitization and reprocessing. This could be an emotion, body sensation, image/sound/other sensation, thought, or known memory. 

  3. Once we’ve identified the target, we will gradually hone in on the information associated with that target, “pull it up”, and engage in sets of bilateral stimulation. 

  4. As the sets progress, EMDR helps us to release ourselves from the hold of the memory so that we can feel stronger, safer, and more resilient.

EMDR follows an 8-phase process:

  • Initial history discovery and treatment planning

  • Preparation

  • Assessment

  • Desensitization

  • Enhancement

  • Body scan

  • Closure

  • Reevaluation

My Unique Approach to EMDR Therapy

  • EMDR is an evidence-based method that’s built on a particular structure, yet we can get very creative with how we approach it. 

    I’m continually blown away by how creativity shows up during EMDR. You can pull from your internal resources, such as powerful symbols, helpful imagery, grounding sensory information, desired emotions, or values to guide you in EMDR processing.

  • We can fluidly move through the components of EMDR to adapt the process to fit your needs. How EMDR flows and what comes out of the process is so wonderfully specific to each person and it’s kind of beautiful.

    In the process, you get to pull from all of your life experiences that have been most helpful, meaningful, and significant to you to help you along the way. This shows up especially within the context of neurodivergence and neurodiversity because there is space for different brains and nervous systems to flow in their own way.

  • Simply put, EMDR helps you trust yourself. EMDR guides your nervous system to lead you down the path you need to traverse the journey of reprocessing. EMDR shows you that you already possess the resources you need to show up for yourself in support of your healing.

  • There are so many ways to apply EMDR principles and incorporate them into other therapy tools and sessions. EMDR often overlaps with other theories and modalities. It also lends itself to integration with things  like self-compassion, parts work, somatic work, etc.

What if I get stuck or overwhelmed during EMDR therapy?

Here’s what we do to prevent you from getting too overwhelmed or stuck during EMDR:

✔Prepare: I’m not going to start EMDR therapy without preparing you with resources to help you feel ready. If you get stuck, I’ll be in the process with you, helping you shift your focus to free yourself from the overwhelm.

✔ Support: You won’t face EMDR processing without any tools or direction. EMDR helps you practice how to be with these difficult emotions in a way that feels softer, less intense, and more compassionate.

✔ Pacing: We won’t rush into EMDR processing head first. We will go at a pace that helps prevent you from getting too flooded, going into a rage, or spiraling into darkness and dissociation.  

✔ Adjust: If you do find yourself feeling completely overwhelmed during or in between EMDR sessions, we can figure that out together and adjust our approach accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions About EMDR

You’re intrigued about EMDR, but have questions about how it works. If you don’t see your question here, please get in touch so we can talk it out and see if EMDR is the right fit for you.

  • This is completely normal and something we can work with in EMDR. When we have ongoing or chronic stressors, it may be hard to point to one particular memory. In EMDR, we have a tool called a ‘float back’ that helps us trace back emotions or body sensations to locate the memories we need to focus on during EMDR therapy.

  • Yes, online EMDR has been shown to be just as effective as in-person EMDR.  We are still able to do all the phases of EMDR, while you’re in the comfort of your own home. You can simulate bilateral stimulation (BLS) by tapping on yourself, while guided by an EMDR-trained therapist.

  • The short answer is: it depends. The duration of EMDR therapy varies based on your unique circumstances. It's influenced if you’d like to focus on a single experience or stressors that were ongoing and frequent. If you experience chronic or complex trauma (or C-PTSD), it might take a while to untangle your ingrained patterns. However, EMDR can still accelerate the process compared to other modalities.  


    Your readiness to engage in EMDR, the presence of coping skills and resources, and levels of support can influence and possibly shorten the length of your EMDR therapy. Above all, we’ll go at your pace using the approaches most suited to your specific needs.

  • While revisiting painful memories can be challenging and distressing, it is a crucial part of EMDR. Traumas and distressing material can get stuck in your nervous system if it is “undigested” or not fully processed. It continues to show up in your present-moment lives because your body cannot tell it’s reacting to a threat that’s no longer there.


    EMDR helps you reprocess these painful memories so that they are no longer causing impact in your present day. For some, facing memories that they’ve been avoiding for years can bring about emotional release and feel empowering. It’s important to know that you will not be bringing up painful memories without the support and tools to reprocess them.

  • You don’t have to share anything you aren’t ready to. During EMDR particularly, you have the freedom to create deep and lasting change without getting specific about the pain of these difficult memories. During an EMDR session, I’ll assist you in restructuring the way you respond to the triggering thoughts and memories by creating a supportive container  for you at every step of the experience.

  • Yes! There are multiple avenues that offer you choice and control during EMDR. When we are determining which memories or difficult emotions to target, you will be able to choose where we start and which feel the most important to tackle first. 


    During EMDR processing you will have the option to start and stop whenever you want, to pick which memory to follow, and which supportive resources to pull in. You can choose which objects can be in the room with you or bring in your pets as support. While tapping, you’ll be able to choose where you tap on your body, and the speed and pressure.

  • Chances are, you already possess so much strength and capacity for your own healing. While assessing readiness for EMDR is unique to each individual, I will take into account the level of support you have, your coping skills, and any gaps we can fill to get you ready for EMDR processing.  Preparing for EMDR is actually part of the EMDR process, so we will approach it with the same care as we do during other parts of EMDR reprocessing.

Tap into your strengths for healing and growth

Loosen the grip of ADHD overwhelm, anxiety, depression, and trauma