What is EMDR Counseling?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a type of psychotherapy that helps people heal from experiences of trauma and other challenges.
Using eye movements and additional forms of bilateral stimulation, EMDR counseling reengages and reprocesses stuck memories; it doesn’t erase those memories but changes how they’re stored, allowing them to be recalled without intense physical reactions and overwhelming emotions.
At its root, EMDR minimizes the influence of the past on the present.
Is EMDR Counseling Right For You?
It’s also an effective tool for the following:
Anxiety disorders: Calming the nervous system and making it less nervous!
Panic and phobias: Reducing reactions to triggers, such as flying, confined spaces, or heights
Disturbing memories: Stopping the repetitive replay of unsettling past experiences
Negative self-beliefs: Shifting self-doubt to self-worth
Insomnia: Reducing activation, intrusive thoughts, and nightmares
Performance struggles: Overcoming mental blocks on the field, at work, and in school
Attachment and relationship challenges: Reducing reactivity, increasing security, and decreasing emotional responses driven by past relationships
Stress and burnout: Improving regulation, boundary-setting, and emotional balance
Grief and loss: Reducing intensity, increasing flexibility, and releasing trapped emotions
EMDR counseling is highly effective for trauma (minor, major, and everything in between). However, it’s not just trauma therapy.
In addition to traditional EMDR sessions, I also offer EMDR intensives designed to support deep work in a shorter period of time. Taking place over the course of hours or days, EMDR intensives are ideal for busy parents, professionals, and anyone seeking an accelerated path toward healing.
How Does EMDR Counseling Work?
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Preparing you for Healing
We create a safe space that allows you to briefly focus on an upsetting memory, recognize how you feel in your body, rate your distress, and make the memory available for processing.
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Processing the Memory
Using bilateral stimulation (guided eye movements, hand taps, tones, or pulsers), we activate the brain's information-processing system. This allows the brain to reinterpret the memory, reduce emotional intensity, and gain new insight.
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Integrating the Memory
As the memory’s intensity fades, we modify it by adding in more adaptive beliefs.. The memory stays, but it no longer carries the same weight, allowing you to reach a less distressful emotional state. This is achievable because trauma is about perception, not recollection.
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Moving Forward
Once the traumatic stress reactions have been greatly reduced or neutralized, we begin looking at how your future will be different without the traumatic stress symptoms. New insights, reactions, and experiences are applied to your present and future goals. Sounds like healing, and it is!
The Dyana Robbins Difference
EMDR is powerful. But EMDR without preparation can feel overwhelming, destabilizing, or simply ineffective.
The Dyana Robbins Difference is this: I do not rush trauma processing. I build the foundation that makes it successful.
Preparation Is Not Optional — It’s Strategic
I approach EMDR therapy as a phased, relational process — not a quick technique. Many clients come to me after feeling flooded, stuck, or unsure why EMDR didn’t “work” before. Often, the missing piece wasn’t motivation. It was preparation.
Before we begin reprocessing, we carefully assess nervous system capacity, attachment patterns, dissociative responses, and protective parts. We build stabilization skills that are embodied — not just cognitive. When trauma processing begins, you are equipped, resourced, and supported.
That preparation is what allows EMDR to go deep without causing harm.
The Therapeutic Relationship Comes First
Research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of outcome — across modalities. EMDR is no exception.
I prioritize:
Emotional safety
Clear pacing and collaboration
Attunement to subtle shifts in activation
Respect for protective parts
Repair if therapeutic ruptures occur
Trauma healing does not happen in isolation. It happens in relationship. When you feel seen and steady with me, your nervous system can risk doing difficult work.
Specialized Training in Healing Dissociation
Not all trauma presents the same way. For many high-functioning professionals and women with complex trauma histories, dissociation is sophisticated and often invisible.
I maintain ongoing advanced training in:
Healing structural dissociation
Working with complex and developmental trauma
Integrating parts-oriented EMDR
Stabilization strategies for highly capable but internally fragmented clients
We do not push through dissociation. We understand it, respect it, and work with it skillfully.
Parts Work Integrated Into EMDR
Protective parts are not obstacles — they are intelligent adaptations.
I integrate parts work (including ego state and Internal Family Systems–informed approaches) alongside EMDR. Before targeting painful memories, we build trust with the parts that fear change, hold shame, or manage control.
When parts feel heard and included, processing moves more efficiently and with far less internal backlash.
Somatic Techniques for Lasting Change
Trauma is stored in the body, not just in memory networks.
I incorporate somatic interventions to:
Increase nervous system regulation
Expand your window of tolerance
Track subtle body cues
Release stored activation safely
Anchor positive shifts physically, not just cognitively
This integration ensures that insight translates into embodied change.
Why This Matters
EMDR is not simply about reducing symptoms. It is about restoring integration — internally and relationally.
The Dyana Robbins Difference is thoughtful pacing, deep preparation, relational attunement, and specialized expertise in complex trauma and dissociation.
When we begin processing, we are not hoping it works.
We are prepared for it to.