Everything here is organized around trauma and its aftermath. Some of these approaches process the trauma directly; others build the internal safety that makes any deeper work possible, and are genuinely healing on their own. I match the approach to where your nervous system actually is, not to a protocol.
ART is my primary tool for processing trauma directly. It uses guided bilateral eye movements, similar in mechanism to what the brain does during REM sleep, to reprocess the specific images and sensations that keep a traumatic memory alive. The distinctive step is image replacement: after the distress comes down, you actively direct how the scene resolves, which reassigns the memory’s emotional meaning at a neurological level.
What makes ART well suited to trauma is its speed and its privacy. You keep the facts of what happened, but the involuntary physical response and intrusive charge attached to it substantially diminish. And because it works on imagery rather than narrative, you do not have to describe the event out loud for it to work. Many discrete trauma targets resolve in one to three sessions. ART is also the exclusive modality used in my Trauma Intensives.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is one of the most extensively researched trauma treatments in existence, and it shares a foundation with ART: both use bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess memories that got stored in a raw, unintegrated form. EMDR moves through eight structured phases and generally works through a memory at a somewhat different pace than ART.
I’m EMDR trained and offer it for a simple reason: some people specifically want it, whether because they’ve read about it, started it with a previous therapist, or simply feel drawn to it over ART. Trust in the method matters, so if EMDR is the approach you have confidence in, that confidence is itself clinically useful. ART actually evolved out of EMDR and the two share the same foundation, so in the consultation we can talk through which structure fits you better.
IFS treats the mind as a system of parts, each carrying its own history and job. Trauma tends to hand certain parts extreme roles: the one that stays hypervigilant, the one that numbs, the one that turns to a substance, the one that attacks you before anyone else can. IFS works by getting to know these protective parts and building a trusting relationship with them, rather than fighting or overriding them, so the system can settle and the wounded parts underneath can finally be tended to.
I’m IFS trained, and I want to be clear about something: IFS is not a waiting room for “real” trauma work. It is real trauma work. For people who don’t feel safe enough to turn directly toward a memory, or who simply heal better through relationship than through targeted processing, IFS does its own deep work and often is the whole of it. It also happens to build the internal stability that makes ART or EMDR possible later, if and when that becomes the right step. Both things are true, and neither one reduces the other.
Before (or sometimes instead of) processing a memory, the nervous system often needs a floor. I use DBT-informed skills (distress tolerance, emotional regulation, grounding, and interpersonal effectiveness) to build that floor. This is especially relevant for people whose trauma shows up as emotions that run the show: the intensity, the unstable relationships, and the shaky sense of self that often get labeled borderline traits and are frequently rooted in early relational trauma.
The point is not to white-knuckle your way through feelings, but to widen the window in which you can stay present without being flooded or going numb. For some people this regulation work is preparation for deeper processing; for others, expanding that window is the change they came for. I pull the skills that fit rather than running a rigid full-protocol program.
Trauma doesn’t only store a memory; it writes a story: “I’m fundamentally damaged,” “it was my fault,” “I can’t trust anyone.” Narrative therapy works from the premise that the problem is the problem, and the person is not the problem. You are not your trauma, your diagnosis, or the worst thing that happened to you; these are influences on your story, not its author.
In practice we identify the dominant story the trauma installed and then hunt for the exceptions, the evidence that doesn’t fit it, and build a more accurate and livable account from there. This pairs naturally with processing work: ART and EMDR change the charge on the memory, and narrative work changes the meaning you carry forward about who you are because of it.
None of the above works without a relationship you actually trust. That’s not a platitude; for trauma specifically, and relational trauma most of all, the felt experience of being met without judgment is part of the treatment, not just the setting for it. The techniques are real and the research is real, but no technique lands in the absence of safety between the two people in the room.
I use the person-centered conditions (genuineness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard) as the ground everything else stands on. For people whose trauma taught them they were too much, not enough, or fundamentally unsafe with others, the experience of being heard by someone who is genuinely interested in who you are, rather than just what’s wrong, can itself be where the repair begins.