Online EMDR Therapy - How Trauma May Affect You

Do you feel like your life is clouded by a layer of anxiety and discomfort? Maybe you generally feel fine, but occasionally have intense emotional surges that cause problems in your life? Or, maybe your family upbringing was severely impacted by an insensitive or cruel caregiver, and you never learned to feel comfortable and secure in your life?

Trauma can mess up your life with changes in mood, energy, and self-esteem. It can lead to anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and other problems. Symptoms of trauma can be especially common if you had a difficult family upbringing.

For some people, traumatic experiences lead to feeling “too much, too often.” For others, feeling chronically “numb” becomes the new norm.

No matter how you cut it, trauma can have major effects on your life. If left untreated, it can harm your work performance, relationships, and overall well-being.

Hanging Succulent Berkeley EMDR Therapist

“From the unnamed vastness beneath the mind, I breathe my way to wholeness and healing.

Inhalation. Exhalation. Each breath a "yes," and a letting go, a journey, and a coming home” -Dana Folds

EMDR Therapy is Used to Address a Range of Challenges Including:

  • Complex childhood trauma

  • Sexual assault

  • Violence and physical abuse

  • Social anxiety

  • Phobias

  • Substance abuse

  • Low self-esteem

  • Abandonment and trust issues

  • Sleep disorders

  • Dissociative disorders

  • Single event trauma

  • Medical trauma

  • General anxiety

  • Panic attacks

  • OCD

  • Divorce and breakups

  • Grief and loss

  • Anger

  • Eating disorders

  • Somatic disorders

How an EMDR Therapist Can Help


EMDR trauma therapy helps resolve or reduce the emotional, psychological, and physical health symptoms associated with trauma. EMDR therapy has undergone extensive research and is an evidence-based treatment for trauma and adverse life experiences (EMDR research overview).

EMDR therapy will start with teaching you new ways to calm emotions and stressors, and to live day-to-day life with increased ease and comfort. EMDR, like most therapies, is filled with empathy, warmth, and gentle therapeutic care. However, unlike many other forms of therapy, EMDR uses a powerful method for healing painful experiences and associated emotions.

At Winding River, your well-being is our top priority. We build warm, supportive relationships with our clients to ensure therapeutic goals are achieved.

EMDR therapy operates with the basic foundation that you the client get full authority over how therapy proceeds.

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Frequently Asked Questions

  • Conventional talk therapy targets the rational brain (prefrontal cortex). With EMDR, the focus is on the emotional and nonverbal/ nonconscious parts of the brain where memories are stored. By accessing stuck material in these areas, therapy can ease the burden of painful memories and their associated symptoms of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, low self-esteem, insomnia, and sexual dysfunction. As you work through painful memories and emotions, you will gain the emotional freedom needed to revive your life.

    EMDR and IFS therapy tend to work very well together, and we at Winding River can effectively combine these two modalities, upon request. Read more here: https://ifs-institute.com/

    You can read extensively on EMDR through the official EMDRIA webpage: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

  • Sessions can be booked for 50 or 75 minutes. The length of treatment will depend on the specific challenge you hope to overcome. In general, EMDR tends to work faster than other forms of therapy because it directly targets and focuses on the specific challenge you want to overcome. For single-event trauma, EMDR can achieve significant results in as few as five sessions. For more complex, multifaceted forms of trauma, EMDR will inevitably take longer.

  • EMDR therapy sessions will be tailored to your unique therapeutic needs. The first few sessions will provide ample time and space for you to share about your life and current challenges.

    Once you feel comfortable and ready, formal EMDR therapy will begin. You’ll start by choosing a specific memory associated with a present-day problem in your life. Your therapist will then teach you to use bilateral stimulation, which involves listening to an audio track and following a visual prompt on your computer or phone. After about 30-seconds of following the bilateral stimulation while focusing on the chosen memory, your therapist will ask you a question. This sequence will repeat many times throughout the therapy session.

    One of the major goals of EMDR therapy is to uncover stuck beliefs you hold about yourself and the world, and replace them with more realistic and adaptive beliefs.

Free Phone Consultation

Berkeley EMDR therapy (online): We know how important it is for you to choose a therapist with whom you feel comfortable talking with. So we invite you to book a free, 20-minute phone consultation: here. Or, contact us directly to schedule a time, or to ask questions: (510) 761-9818, or admin@windingriverpsychotherapyservices.com. You can ask any questions you might have about EMDR Therapy and our therapy services. Based in Berkeley, CA and online throughout California.