EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a research-supported approach that helps the brain reprocess distressing memories and long-standing patterns. Rather than reliving the past, EMDR supports integration, allowing emotional intensity to soften and clarity to emerge.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a structured, neuroscience-informed therapy that helps your brain, body, and emotions process distressing experiences and old relational wounds so they no longer plague your life today. The eight phases of EMDR expand on the three phase trauma model for therapy: resource stability, reprocess pain, integrate new insights, providing for post-traumatic growth–a more confident, resilient you looking into the future.

We weave attention to past experiences, present triggers, and future possibilities, always building internal resources and grounding first to support your nervous system. Through guided attention, imagery, and bilateral stimulation, your brain naturally integrates old pain, fear, and stuck patterns, allowing you to feel safer, more resilient, and more able to connect authentically with yourself and others.

EMDR Training & Professional Development

I have trained extensively in a range of EMDR approaches to meet the unique needs of your trauma. Whether we are addressing a specific event, repeated experiences, something from the distant past, a recent memory, a present stressor, or a future fear, EMDR can be tailored to the right pace, focus, and intensity. From the very first session, we integrate grounding and resourcing strategies to support your nervous system and attachment longings, creating a safe and contained space for healing and processing your experiences.

2020

Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS)

A parts-based EMDR approach that works directly with dissociation and unmet developmental needs, integrating therapist-to-parts conversation.

Ongoing Training
Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR)

An approach within EMDR that is heavy in the use of relational imagery to repair early relational wounds—not just resolve memories.

Somatic EMDR

Most influenced by Dr. Arielle Schwartz through continued trainings and group consultation focused on the effects of Complex PTSD on the body.

2020

2025

Relational EMDR

Focuses on meeting personal needs and emphasizes the healing power of the therapeutic relationship as we reprocess the pains of your past and fears of your future

EMDR Intensives

I attended an intensive teaching and coaching EMDR therapists in building out our ideal format for EMDR intensives for our ideal clients. With you in mind, I offer half-day to five-day intensive therapy formats designed to support focused, meaningful change ranging from single events to an overall confused identity formed through performing many survival roles for far too many years.

2025

What to Expect in EMDR Sessions

EMDR sessions are paced with careful assessment of your current life circumstances, what kind of trauma or stressor we’re working with, and how intense the side effects of this experience are for you now. We’ll begin by building a foundation of internal and external resources through somatic attunement and imagery—supporting grounding, regulation, and a felt sense of stability so your nervous system can finally exhale.

Only when your system signals readiness, do we begin to pendulate between working with pain and resting in the ease of supportive resources, offering a new neural pathway for future change. You will remain mentally, emotionally, and physically present and in control throughout each session.

As processing begins, we’ll follow your system’s readiness with steady attunement, allowing memory networks, emotions, and body sensations to emerge without overwhelm or retraumatization. Within the safety of the therapeutic relationship, your nervous system receives corrective experiences that support adaptive processing, emotional regulation, and felt safety.

Over time, distress softens, coherence increases, and new internal templates for connection, trust, and self-leadership emerge—shaping how you relate to yourself and others moving forward. Throughout the process, we’ll regularly pause to check in, ensuring your nervous system feels regulated and your attachment system feels supported. This approach supports healing that feels contained, respectful, and deeply restorative, creating space for renewed clarity, resilience, and post-traumatic growth.

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Specialties EMDR Is Great For:

My work is guided by the belief that therapy should meet you where you are. Rather than relying on a single approach, I adapt and blend different methods to support your goals and what you are navigating in the moment. These are the types of sessions we may use this approach in:

At Upward Roots, I work with individuals experiencing depression, bipolar disorder, persistent low mood, or mood swings to understand what’s behind their emotional patterns and find ways to feel steadier and more grounded. Together, we will explore how life experiences, attachment, and stress shape your emotions while building practical tools to help you manage mood swings and respond to emotional stressors with internal ease and peace.

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Couples therapy at Upward Roots supports partners who want to strengthen their foundation before patterns become entrenched, as well as partners navigating longstanding cycles of hurt who need support untangling the impact of trauma or betrayal. Using Attachment Theory, we explore how each partner’s family-of-origin and relationship history shows up in the present, and work together to restore safety, trust, and a more secure, connected bond.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Starting therapy often begins with a massive sigh, an exhaustion of looking for help, for relief, for change. I welcome your curiosities and hope that you will begin to find answers to your unsettled questions on the pages of my website.

Here are answers to the most common questions I am asked about working with Upward Roots. For any additional questions, please reach out so I can support your next step of growth.

Upward Roots offers trauma-informed therapy, EMDR, attachment-based individual and couples therapy, and EMDR intensives.
- Individual Trauma Therapy (C-PTSD & PTSD)
  Sessions are oriented toward helping the nervous system process and release stored trauma that continues to show up as anxiety, chronic stress, emotional reactivity, or shutdown. EMDR is integrated with parts work and somatic psychotherapy to address developmental, relational, and situational trauma, as well as body-based trauma responses.
- Individual Attachment Therapy
  Early and ongoing relationships shape how we protect ourselves, connect with others, and navigate closeness. This work begins by identifying your unique attachment style and reflecting on relational patterns such as people-pleasing or hyperindependence. Mind-body approaches, including imagery, inner child healing, parts work, boundary setting, and nervous system regulation, support greater security and flexibility in adult relationships.
- Couples Therapy
  Relational distress often emerges from repeated patterns rather than isolated conflicts. Using evidence-based, attachment-focused frameworks such as PACT, the Gottman Method, Attachment Core Pattern Therapy and EMDR for couples, therapy focuses on slowing these cycles, strengthening communication, understanding each partner’s internal worlds, and repairing relational injuries while remaining mindful of the impact of past trauma.
- EMDR Intensives
  For some individuals, extended in-person sessions allow for deeper focus and momentum than traditional weekly therapy. EMDR Intensives range from half-day to multi-day sessions in Carlsbad, California, and are designed for accelerated, immersive trauma processing, integration, and nervous system regulation.
- Support for Therapists and Clinicians
  Holding space for others can make it easy to neglect your own internal landscape. Individual and group settings offer room to explore personal patterns, countertransference, and burnout within a supportive, trauma-informed, relational context.
1. By scheduling a free 20-minute phone consultation. I want to make sure both of us feel confident in our ability to meet your therapy goals together before we start unpacking your history in sessions. We can decide together if weekly sessions, twice a week sessions, or an intensive is the right therapy container for you at this time.
2. We will choose the day and time that works best for your emotional availability for this deeper therapeutic work. Consistency is a key ingredient in felt-safety and trust. We will build safety within predictability, knowing that each week we will meet and attune to your inner world together, on the same day, at the same time, whenever possible.
3. In our first sessions, we’ll explore together the influences on who you are today–the significant people and places that leave you feeling your most confident, secure, and calm self. We will begin with resourcing through imagery, resource tapping, and somatic movement to encourage felt-safety in your attachment and nervous systems.
4. Together, we will set your goals and direction for your healing. We will discuss which formal diagnosis makes the most sense if you are seeking reimbursement on a PPO insurance plan.
5. Healing takes time and trust. We’ll unpack the stories and, with time, find the freedom to move your body and find the flexibility to think more kindly of yourself–past, present and future.
- Individual therapy: 50 minutes – $200 | 80 minutes – $320
- Couples therapy: 50 minutes – $200 | 80 minutes – $320 | 110 minutes – $440
- Extended or deep work sessions: 3 hours – $720 | 4 hours – $960
- EMDR intensives: Half day – $900 | Full day – $1,700
Extended sessions and intensives are prorated. Sliding fee options may be available. Upward Roots is out-of-network for insurance, but Superbills are provided for PPO reimbursement for standard sessions.
At this time, Upward Roots is out-of-network with all insurance providers. If you plan to seek reimbursement, you can contact your insurance company to ask about your out-of-network benefits. Sharing the billing codes used in sessions will help them provide clear and accurate information about your coverage:
- 90791 - All first sessions
- 90834 - 50-minute individual sessions
- 90837 - Individual sessions, 53-60 minute sessions
- 90847 - 50-minute couples session

EMDR Intensives

EMDR Intensives at Upward Roots offer a safe, supportive space to tend deeply to what has felt heavy or unresolved. These focused sessions allow you to move through past wounds, release patterns that no longer serve you, and cultivate resilience and clarity in a shorter, intentional timeframe. Intensives are available to clients in California and to those traveling from outside the state for multi-day sessions. My concentrated approach is ideal for individuals ready to process complex emotions, navigate trauma, or address long-standing patterns in a deeply supportive, personalized environment.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

EMDR Training & Professional Development

EMDR Basic Training

EMDR Child Specialist, Level 1

Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS)