EMDR and eye movement work in Walnut Creek

What it actually involves

Eye movement work is simpler than it sounds. You bring to mind the thing that still has a charge in it, and while you hold it, your eyes move in a steady rhythm, sometimes following my hand, sometimes following a point I ask you to rest on. That rhythm gives your nervous system something to do while the memory is present, and the memory tends to loosen its grip. There is no trance, no script and nothing you have to perform. You stay awake, aware and in charge of when we pause.

Who tends to come looking for it

Almost everyone who calls me about EMDR has already talked. They have explained the story clearly, they understand where it came from, they can name the pattern it created, and none of that has changed how their chest feels when the subject comes up. Others go blank at one particular topic, or find that a single old moment keeps arriving uninvited in the middle of an ordinary week. If you have done years of talking and you are tired of understanding something that still has hold of you, this is the work you are looking for.

What a session is like

Sessions are 90 minutes. We spend the first part agreeing on exactly what we are working with, so nothing gets opened that you did not choose to open. Then we work, and it is mostly quiet. I stay with you, I watch closely, and I keep the pace where you want it. We always leave room at the end to settle, so you walk out steady rather than raw. You can see fees on the rates page.

Where I usually take it next

Often I will move us from eye movement work into Brainspotting, which uses where you look rather than how your eyes move. In my experience it reaches deeper and stays with one thing longer. That is my preference after forty years of doing this work, not a rule. If eye movement is what you came for and it is doing its job, we stay with it.

Forty years of this

I have been sitting with people for forty years, in Walnut Creek and online in any location. I hold an Eye Movement Integration certificate from 2001, I am a Certified Hypnotherapist, and I trained as a Brainspotting Practitioner at Pacific Trauma Center. EMDR is an approach I work with, alongside those.

This may not be the right fit

I am not a licensed psychotherapist, and I do not practice psychotherapy. I am a hypnotherapist, a Brainspotting practitioner and a coach. If what you need is medication management, a diagnosis, an insurance claim, or a licensed clinician, I am not the right person, and I will tell you so on our first call rather than take your money. If you are in crisis, call or text 988, available 24 hours a day. In an emergency call 911.