Offering individual, couples, family and group therapy in-office and online.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
“Freedom comes not from avoiding our wounds but from learning to meet them with compassion.”
Trauma stops time. One moment, your life has meaning and rhythm. The next, it’s shattered. As Freud wrote, a traumatic event can so overwhelm the psyche that we become permanently absorbed in the past, unable to return fully to the present.
Do you recognize yourself here?
You crave connection but live in fear of abandonment.
You’ve been betrayed, struggling to trust again.
You turn to unhealthy behaviors or compulsions, hurting yourself and those you love.
You’ve endured abuse—emotional, sexual, or physical—that continues to echo.
You carry unmet emotional needs, feeling unseen, unheard, unloved.
We all deserve to be seen and heard. Pain is inevitable; suffering is an option.
It’s familiar. But it’s exhausting.
With help, you can change your story.
Trauma is universal, yet deeply personal. It can erupt from a single shocking event—an assault, an accident, a sudden loss—or accumulate quietly over years of neglect, conflict, or betrayal. “Big T” traumas may include combat, childhood abuse, or sexual violence. “Small t” traumas—bullying, divorce, job loss, chronic stress—are no less significant when the psyche is overwhelmed.
Unresolved trauma lingers in the body and mind: insomnia, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, panic, nightmares. It erodes self-esteem and disrupts relationships. Left unaddressed, it becomes a prison. But with help, it doesn’t have to define your future.
When the wounds are too overwhelming to process, the nervous system cannot fight or flee; energy collapses inward—becoming trapped in neural networks. We adapt. We withdraw. We numb. We repeat.
Early trauma leaves its fingerprints on our most essential needs: trust, autonomy, connection, and intimacy. Survival strategies that once kept us safe in childhood—numbing, denial, people-pleasing, compulsions—become self-sabotaging in adulthood, cutting us off from emotional regulation and from feeling fully alive.
Freud called this repetition compulsion—the unconscious drive to re-create the very wounds we couldn’t control. Addictions, destructive relationships, self-sabotage—these are the echoes of unhealed trauma. Yet avoidance brings only temporary relief. Over time, the old wounds repeat themselves in new forms.
But that brings only temporary relief.
Psychotherapy offers a way to trace those treads, unwind the patterns, and create new possibilities where only pain once lived.
Dissociation is the psyche’s escape hatch. It ranges from mild distraction to total detachment, even dissociative identity disorder in the case of severe, ongoing childhood abuse.
While it begins as a brilliant survival tool, dissociation often lingers, making intimacy, self-regulation, and trust inexorably fractured. Many who live with complex trauma and dissociation carry profound loneliness, emotional instability, addictions, and an aching inability to feel attuned or securely attached.
Healing means welcoming back the split-off parts of yourself—with compassion, not judgment.
Healing from trauma requires more than insight. It requires methods that reach the nervous system, not just the mind. This is where integrative approaches like EMDR and Mindfulness come in.
There’s a good chance you have already heard about it.
It’s Bessel Van Der Kolk’s preferred trauma treatment.
It helped Adam Clayton-Holland grieve the death of his sister.
The New York Times ran a piece in 2022 on its effectiveness.
Prince Harry shared his virtual EMDR therapy in Oprah’s “The Me You Can’t See.”
It’s widely recognized for its effectiveness and is endorsed by the APA, VA, DOD, and ISSTD.
During sleep, REM cycles help us process and file the day’s data. But when trauma overwhelms the system, painful experiences remain “stuck” in neural networks—replaying as anxiety, panic, or flashbacks.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) uses bilateral stimulation—eye movements, alternating tones, or tactile pulses—to unlock these frozen memories. The emotional charge softens, negative beliefs shifts, and new neural pathways for safety and meaning emerge.
This isn’t erasure. It’s integration.
EMDR is particularly effective in the treatment of both single-episode trauma and ongoing developmental trauma. It is used to treat:
The length of treatment varies depending on the person and goals. EMDR is typically incorporated into a more comprehensive therapeutic plan. Sessions may be weekly, extended, or scheduled as part of a 2-3 day intensive.
EMDR Intensives are no more beneficial than weekly EMDR therapy, but their results are more expedient. You get better faster:
Trauma pulls you into the past; mindfulness brings you back to the present. Learning to notice sensations, thoughts, and emotions without judgment creates a pause—a space where choice and healing become possible.
Mindfulness doesn’t erase trauma, but it softens its grip. It teaches you to sit with what arises rather than be hijacked by it. This skill builds emotional regulation, grounds the nervous system, and makes deeper trauma work—such as EMDR—more effective.
For more on this, see my page on Mindfulness.
I have practiced EMDR since 2006, working with Dr. Francine Shapiro and associates. I am certified and trained in several protocols: Flash, Feeling-State Addiction Protocol, Ego State Therapy, Attachment Relational EMDR, R-TEP (following the Stoneman Douglas Shooting), and work intensively and with Intensives as well and standard sessions.
My EMDR work is shaped by seasoned clinical practice and a relational understanding of trauma. I bring technical skill alongside a compassionate appreciation for trauma’s many complexities—how it lives in the body, memory, and the stores we tell ourselves.
Staying stuck costs far more than the work of recovery.
Therapy is not just an intervention—it’s an invitation to step into who you truly are. You don’t have to be ruled by your past; EMDR offers a path to restore your life.
Start your healing today. Whether it’s a single devastating event or years of ongoing pain, trauma counseling and EMDR can help you move forward—with clarity, strength, and peace.