EMDR Therapy in Salt Lake City and Online Across Utah
You may understand where certain reactions, beliefs, or patterns come from and still find yourself affected by them. Difficult experiences can continue to shape how you see yourself, respond to stress, or connect with others long after they are over.
EMDR therapy offers a way to work with experiences that continue to carry emotional weight so they have less influence on how you feel and respond today.
When Understanding What Happened Hasn’t Changed How It Feels
How the Past Can Show Up in the Present
The impact of difficult experiences is not always obvious. Sometimes there is a clear connection between what happened and what you are struggling with today. Other times, you may simply notice reactions or patterns that are difficult to understand or change.
You may find yourself becoming overwhelmed in certain situations, questioning yourself even when part of you knows better, or responding to relationships in ways that leave you feeling disconnected or stuck. Certain memories may still carry significant emotional weight, while other experiences may be more difficult to identify or put into words.
These responses often make more sense when we understand them in the context of what you have experienced. EMDR offers a way to work with experiences that continue to shape how you feel, respond, and relate to yourself and others.
How EMDR Therapy Works
EMDR is a structured approach to therapy that helps people process distressing and traumatic experiences. Our experiences are connected to emotions, beliefs, physical sensations, and the ways we respond to the world around us. Sometimes painful experiences continue to feel emotionally present, even when we know they happened in the past.
During EMDR therapy, we identify experiences or memories that may be connected to what you are struggling with today. Bilateral stimulation, often through guided eye movements or other forms of alternating stimulation, is used as part of the processing work.
The goal is not to forget what happened or convince yourself that it did not matter. EMDR can help reduce the emotional intensity connected to what happened and allow you to relate to those experiences and yourself in a different way. Over time, something you once understood intellectually may begin to feel different emotionally as well.
What EMDR Therapy May Help With
You do not need to know exactly which experiences you want to work through before considering EMDR. Sometimes people have a clear memory or experience they want to address. Other times, they recognize patterns, reactions, or beliefs that continue to affect their lives without fully understanding where they come from.
EMDR may be helpful for experiences related to:
Experiences of rejection, loss, or non-affirming environments
Relationship experiences that continue to affect trust and connection
Experiences that continue to affect your sense of safety or trust
Patterns or reactions that have been difficult to change through insight alone
Trauma or painful experiences that continue to carry emotional weight
Distressing memories that remain difficult to think about
Anxiety or emotional reactions connected to past experiences
Shame, self-doubt, or persistent negative beliefs about yourself
Whether EMDR is a good fit depends on what you are experiencing and what you hope to work toward. The initial assessment and preparation process gives us time to better understand what brings you to therapy and consider whether EMDR may be a helpful part of our work.
A Thoughtful, Individualized Approach to EMDR
EMDR is not something we rush into simply because you have experienced trauma or are interested in the approach. Before beginning deeper processing work, we take time to understand what has brought you to therapy, what may be contributing to the difficulties you are experiencing, and what you hope will be different. We also consider what preparation and support may be helpful before working more directly with painful experiences.
Throughout the process, we pay attention to how the work is affecting you and adjust the pace based on what feels supportive and manageable.
EMDR may be an important part of therapy, but it does not have to be the entirety of our work. Therapy may also involve developing greater self-understanding, exploring relationships and patterns, and finding new ways of responding to experiences that have been difficult to change.
Some people benefit from integrating EMDR into ongoing individual therapy. Others may be interested in spending more focused time working with particular experiences through extended EMDR sessions.
Getting Started
We begin with a free 15-minute consultation, available in person or online. This gives us an opportunity to briefly discuss what brings you to therapy, answer questions, and consider whether scheduling an initial assessment feels like a good next step.
During the initial assessment, we'll take more time to understand what you are experiencing, what has brought you to therapy, and what you hope to work toward. It also gives us more time to consider whether working together and EMDR therapy feel like a good fit.
EMDR therapy is available in person in Salt Lake City and through secure telehealth across Utah.