EMDR Therapy

Attachment-Focused EMDR

My training is specifically in Attachment-Focused EMDR, developed by Dr. Laurel Parnell, an approach that places the therapeutic relationship and attachment attunement at the heart of the EMDR protocol.

Standard EMDR was originally developed for single-incident trauma. Attachment-Focused EMDR recognizes that for many people, particularly those carrying complex, developmental, or relational trauma, healing requires something more than processing isolated memories. It requires a reparative relational experience woven throughout the work. A felt sense of being genuinely held, attuned to, and responded to, often for the first time.

This shapes everything about how I work. The relationship is not a backdrop to the processing. It is part of what heals.

How EMDR works

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, typically eye movements, alternating taps, or sounds, to activate both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously while the nervous system is in contact with a difficult memory or experience.

This bilateral activation allows the brain to process what was previously stuck. The memory remains, but its charge changes. What once felt immediate and overwhelming becomes something more integrated, more settled, more past.

What EMDR and Attachment-Focused EMDR can reach

Single-incident trauma: accidents, medical events, assault, sudden loss that has lodged in the nervous system and continues to intrude

Complex & developmental trauma: the accumulated weight of chronic adversity, neglect, emotional invalidation, or relational harm across time

Relational & attachment trauma: early experiences of misattunement, abandonment, enmeshment, or emotional unavailability that have shaped how you relate to yourself and others

Childhood wounds: formative experiences that built core beliefs about safety, worth, and what to expect from the world and from people

PTSD & trauma responses: flashbacks, hypervigilance, avoidance, emotional reactivity, dissociation

Anxiety & phobias: fears rooted in specific experiences or memory networks

Grief & loss: when loss has become stuck and grief has nowhere to move

Shame & self-worth: deep beliefs absorbed early that something is fundamentally wrong with you

Relationship patterns: tracing current relational difficulties back to their experiential roots, and processing what formed them

What this work actually looks like

Attachment-Focused EMDR is deeply relational. The bilateral stimulation is a tool, what makes the work effective is the quality of presence, attunement, and safety surrounding it.

Before any processing begins, we take the time to build genuine resources, internal anchors, nervous system stability, and a therapeutic relationship strong enough to hold what surfaces. For people with complex trauma or attachment wounds, this preparation is not preliminary. It is central to the work, and it receives the time it actually needs.

Throughout processing, I remain closely attuned, tracking what is arising in your body and nervous system, moving at a pace that feels workable, staying present with what surfaces rather than moving through it mechanically. We also resource actively during processing, drawing on imagined or real experiences of being held, supported, and safe, which is a hallmark of the Attachment-Focused approach and particularly valuable for those whose early relational experiences were painful or inconsistent.

I also bring EMDR into integration with somatic awareness, IFS parts work, and AEDP, so the approach is always shaped by what your system is ready for, and what the moment needs.

The phases of treatment

EMDR follows a structured eight-phase approach, held fluidly and with attunement:

History & treatment planning: understanding your full picture and building a map of what needs attention

Preparation & resourcing: developing the stability, internal resources, and relational safety needed before processing begins

Assessment: identifying the specific experience, its associated beliefs, body sensations, and what a more integrated relationship to it might feel like

Processing: the bilateral stimulation phase, where the nervous system works through what has been held

Installation: strengthening the more adaptive belief that emerges through processing

Body scan: attending to any residual activation held in the body

Closure: returning to a grounded, stable place at the end of each session

Reevaluation: tracking what has shifted, settled, or still needs attention as we continue

What people often find

People sometimes arrive at EMDR having spent years in talk therapy, understanding what happened, understanding why it matters, and still finding it immovable in the body, in their responses, in how they feel about themselves. EMDR, and particularly the relational depth of the Attachment-Focused approach, often reaches what other approaches have circled without landing.

Processing can feel surprising, images shifting, emotions moving through, unexpected associations arising, a lightness where something heavy used to be. For others the movement is more gradual, with shifts accumulating across sessions. Both are real. Both are part of how the nervous system integrates.

And for those whose core wounds are relational, whose pain came not from a single event but from years of not being seen, held, or responded to, the experience of the therapeutic relationship itself becomes part of what heals. Something the nervous system never had, but can finally receive.

Format & availability

EMDR therapy is offered online across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Sessions are typically 60–90 minutes, particularly during active processing phases. EMDR can be the primary focus of our work or integrated into a broader therapeutic approach, depending on your history and what fits you best.