EMDR eases what still hurts, loosens the negative sense of self it left behind, and lets the brain finish what it couldn’t at the time. What you’ve carried can begin to lift, and something new can take root.
EMDR is among the trauma treatments most international guidelines recommend as a
first choice.
You may already see how your past shapes your struggles now. That understanding matters, but on its own it often isn’t enough to change how you feel.
Perhaps it was one event — an accident, an assault, a sudden loss — and you can point to the day. Perhaps it was something that went on, often in childhood: years of feeling unsafe, unseen or alone. What remains then is less a single memory than a climate: fragments, a feeling in the body, a sense of yourself that formed around it. The first is usually called trauma; the second, complex trauma.
EMDR can help with both. With a single event, we can often go straight to the memory. With a longer history, we work more gradually, starting from whatever is there: an image, a sensation, a moment that stands for many, and following where it leads. Either way, the aim is the same: that what is still raw becomes something you can remember without reliving.
DANIEL JONATHAN, PHD, LCSW-C
I’m a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in Annapolis, Maryland. I trained at the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis and the National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York, where I also trained in EMDR. I combine the depth and intensity of psychodynamic therapy with work that reaches the brain and body directly.
1
Having chosen together what to work on, you bring it to mind: a memory, or with a longer history, an image, a feeling or a moment that stands for many. We notice what comes with it: the emotion, where you feel it in your body, and the sense of yourself that formed around it. That’s where we begin.
2
In short sets of under a minute, you simply follow a light moving gently from side to side, or soft alternating tones or small pulsers in each hand, and notice whatever comes up: a picture, a sensation, a thought, a feeling, sometimes something that seems unrelated. You don’t hold on to anything or try to make anything happen. After each set we pause, you tell me briefly what you noticed, and we go on from there.
3
As the memory loses its charge, a truer sense of yourself begins to take its place, and we turn our attention to whether anything is still held in the body. Before you leave, we use the calming resources we built at the start, so you go home grounded. In the days after, you may notice new memories, vivid dreams or shifts in feeling. That’s your brain continuing its work, and we’ll make room for it next time.
EMDR works from the bottom up. It reaches the physiology of trauma: the body’s alarm, reactions in the older parts of the brain that come before thought, and sometimes experiences from before you had words for them. Psychodynamic therapy works from the top down, engaging the mind in its full range: not only reasoning, but imagination, feelings and thoughts not yet put into words, and whatever comes to mind as we sit together. It happens within the relationship between us, where something new can take shape.
During EMDR, more than the original memory often comes up: other images, old feelings, connections you hadn’t seen before. Rather than leaving these behind once the distress eases, we can return to them in our sessions, where there is room to wonder, imagine and see what they open up.
Sometimes EMDR is one part of our work together. Sometimes it is the whole of it. If you want EMDR on its own, in focused weekly sessions or an intensive, or alongside therapy you’re already doing with someone else, we can do that too.
Every way begins with a free 15-minute phone consultation, followed by an initial evaluation, where we decide together what fits.
EMDR becomes one part of our ongoing work. What surfaces in processing finds a place in our relationship, where there is room to wonder, imagine and let it take on new life. The pace can change week by week.
Suited for: those who want an integrated approach.
Weekly sessions that focus on painful memories and the symptoms tied to them, without ongoing talk therapy. If you already have a therapist, EMDR can sit alongside that work, and with your permission I’ll coordinate with them.
Suited for: those who want to work directly on what still troubles them, without beginning ongoing therapy.
Concentrated work over a half day, a full day or several days, with preparation beforehand and an integration session after. Each day includes breaks for movement, such as a short walk, which research suggests supports the work.
Suited for: those whose schedules, travel or distance make weekly sessions hard, or who want to keep momentum.
Initial evaluation: $350 per
55-minute session
Evaluation includes standard screenings that show how readily you can stay present with difficult memories. I score them and go over the results with you, along with a recommendation for where to begin. Sometimes that means gentler preparatory work before EMDR. Evaluation usually takes more than one meeting.
Research on intensive trauma treatment has found something simple and encouraging: concentrated work helps about as much as weekly sessions, and far more people finish it. Momentum may be part of why. When the next session is tomorrow rather than next week, there is less time for avoidance to close back over what has opened.
Studies of people with long and complicated histories have found lasting improvement a year later. The research on EMDR intensives in particular is still young. It has been tested in randomized trials, though so far mostly in group formats, and much of the rest comes from programs that combine several methods. I’d rather tell you that plainly than promise more than the evidence holds.
As far as research can tell, yes, about equally well. The clearer difference is that people are more likely to complete intensive treatment. Whether an intensive suits you depends on your history and circumstances, which is what we assess together first.
It often feels that way. Contact with a memory comes in short sets rather than long retellings, and there is no homework. In direct comparisons, the two work about equally well.
Yes. With your permission, I’ll coordinate with your therapist before, during and after our work.
Not at all. EMDR is one of several ways I work, and we’ll decide together what fits.
I’m an out-of-network provider. You pay me directly and receive a detailed invoice you can submit for possible reimbursement. Insurers often reimburse long sessions only in part, so it’s worth checking your plan before booking an intensive.
You pay either the full fee or half of it when you book. Half of the total is non-refundable, so if you cancel after paying in full, the other half is returned to you. You can move your dates once, with at least 14 days’ notice, without losing your deposit. The full terms are on the payment and insurance page.
EMDR isn’t the right first step for everyone.
If you’re in crisis, or in circumstances that are still unsafe,
we start elsewhere and return to it when the ground is steadier.
A free 15-minute call about what brings you and whether EMDR makes sense.
Usually more than one meeting. We look at what needs attention, choose where to begin, check whether this is the right time, and choose a format together.
We build the inner resources that let you stay present with difficult material. For some people this takes a session or two; for others, longer.
Weekly or intensive, as we’ve planned, with integration sessions at the end so the changes have somewhere to land.
