I'm an EMDR and complex trauma therapist working online across Washington, and I'm part of the communities I work with. Trauma therapy that's neurodivergent-affirming, queer-affirming, and kink-affirming isn't a specialty add-on here. It's the default.

Trauma therapy for people who usually get misread

If you're a neurodivergent adult, your sensory world, your shutdowns, and your particular way of describing feelings are information we work with, not resistance to be managed. The trauma work gets adapted to your nervous system, not the reverse. If you’re queer or trans, I am not assuming that trauma is the cause. If you're kinky or non-monogamous, I won't treat your desires as symptoms waiting to be decoded. And when old pain and desire really are tangled together (which happens, because trauma is common) we can look at that honestly, without the lazy assumption that the kink is the wound.

What EMDR actually involves

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a lot of syllables for a fairly intuitive idea: traumatic memories get stored differently than ordinary ones. An ordinary bad memory files itself away as something that happened. A traumatic one stays wired into the body's alarm system, ready to replay as if it's still happening. EMDR is a structured way of going back to those live memories and letting your brain finish filing them.

In session, that looks like this: we pick a specific memory and identify the image, the belief, and the body sensation attached to it. Then you hold that material lightly while engaging in brief sets of dual-attention stimulation — one foot in the old memory, one foot here in the present. Between sets we pause, you notice what shifted, and we follow it. You don't have to narrate every detail of what happened, and you don't have to relive it at full volume. The dual attention is precisely what keeps the work from tipping into re-traumatization: you are remembering, not re-experiencing.

EMDR is often called the gold standard for PTSD treatment. I use it for a simpler reason: I've watched it move things that years of insight alone couldn't touch. The memory doesn't disappear (you'll still know what happened) but it stops arriving in the present with its original force.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)

The classic picture of PTSD assumes a single, very bad incident. Plenty of trauma doesn't work like that. Trauma can also mean a childhood spent reading a volatile parent's moods, years of masking to stay acceptable, a relationship that slowly redefined what you thought was normal, or growing up queer somewhere it wasn't safe to be. Complex trauma, or CPTSD, tends to show up less as flashbacks to an event and more as emotional flashbacks: sudden plunges into shame, dread, or smallness with no clear picture attached. CPTSD, especially in combination with autism and/or being born female, is sometimes misdiagnosed as a personality disorder, because it also comes with chronic self-criticism, difficulty trusting even people who've earned it, and a sense of self built largely around staying safe.

EMDR was originally developed around single incidents, and it still works for complex trauma — but it has to be adapted, not just applied. That means more preparation, slower pacing, and real attention to the protective parts of you that have strong opinions about whether any of this is safe. Those parts deserve to be listened to, not overridden; the full picture of how I weave parts work and EMDR together is on my parts work page.

Does EMDR work online?

Short answer: yes. The dual-attention stimulation at the center of EMDR doesn't require my office. We can use screen-based bilateral stimulation, because the dual attention that happens in EMDR doesn’t require any special equipment. Clinicians were delivering EMDR by telehealth before 2020 made it ordinary, and everything the work depends on (including the therapy relationship) can happen virtually. Some people actually find online EMDR easier. You're in your own space, with your own blanket and your own dog, and there's no drive home after a hard session.

Pacing, consent, and the freedom to stop

Trauma work is not something I do to you. It's something we do together, at a speed your system agrees to.

A well-paced piece of trauma work runs on clear structure, informed consent, and the freedom to stop. So we don't open your hardest memory on day one. We build steadiness first, we work in small doses, and you can end a set of eye movements at any point. Stopping isn't failure; it's information, and honoring it is how your protective parts learn that this process can be trusted.

Who’s a good candidate for EMDR?

I offer weekly, individual, outpatient therapy for adults, online. If you're in active crisis, having thoughts of suicide that need more than weekly support, or in a stretch where safety is a day-to-day question, a higher level of care, like an intensive program, or in-person services with more frequent contact, might be appropriate. If you're in crisis right now, call or text 988.

If you're not sure what level of care you need, bring the question to a consult call and I'll give you a straight answer, including pointing you elsewhere if elsewhere is better.