EMDR Therapy
How Will I Know If My Trauma Is Big Enough for EMDR?
Many clients wonder if what they’ve experienced counts as trauma and whether it warrants talking to a therapist. The truth is that most of us who have lived through adolescence and into adulthood have experienced some kind of trauma in their lives.
Trauma can come in all forms. Some are acute, specific in time, and visible, such as a car accident or rape. Some are more invisible, multidimensional, and chronic, such as experiences of racism or emotional neglect in a romantic relationship. Your pain is valid simply because it happened to you.
Researchers often explain that what constitutes trauma is more about your response to the event than the event itself. If something happened to you that was significant to you, then it is important. Most likely, your most stressful life experiences have changed your perception about how life works, and have become obstacles for you when you are in similar situations.
How Does EMDR Therapy Work?
Throughout life, you will encounter difficult and stressful events. When you don’t receive enough tools or support to manage your stress during these unpredictable situations, it’s normal for you to develop a survival response that is rooted in protective defenses. These patterns served a purpose at one time, but they can also get in the way of allowing you to live freely as you truly desire.
EMDR therapy uses eight phases of treatment which guide you in moving through re-processing psychologically stressful memories at your own pace. This therapy uses bilateral stimulation, which typically involves back and forth eye movements, while you are instructed to focus on a particular memory, thought, or feeling.
At the end of the eight-phase model, you should feel a sense of relief and confidence in the new, adaptive, coping strategies you can use in your everyday life. EMDR will allow you to feel more like you are in the driver’s seat of your life and less like a passenger who is just along for the ride.
If you have been struggling with finding a way forward through your trauma, you are not alone.We begin by getting to know you.
This first phase focuses on understanding your history — the experiences, relationships, and patterns that have shaped your life. Together, we identify themes or memories connected to current symptoms.
This isn’t about reliving trauma — it’s about seeing your story through a lens of compassion and curiosity.
Preparation & Building Safety
Before any reprocessing begins, we focus on creating stability and trust.
You’ll learn grounding techniques, resourcing, and ways to connect with calm within your body Our goal is to ensure you feel safe, supported, and in control throughout the process. Healing happens best in the presence of safety and connection.
Assessment & Identifying the Target
In this phase, we identify the specific memory or experience that still carries emotional charge. We explore how it shows up — through images, sensations, thoughts, or beliefs like “I’m not safe” or “I’m not enough.”
From there, we begin to anchor toward a new belief that reflects your truth — “I am safe now.” “I am whole.”
Desensitization & Reprocessing
This is where the processing begins.
Through bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements, taps, or tones), your brain naturally begins to reprocess distressing memories. You may notice new thoughts, emotions, or sensations arise and shift. The nervous system starts to release old patterns that once felt “stuck.” You don’t have to force anything — your mind and body know how to heal when given the right space.
Installation of Positive Beliefs
Once the distress connected to a memory lessens, we help strengthen the positive belief you’ve chosen.This phase helps you truly feel that new belief in your body — not just think it.
It’s about embodying the truth of who you are now, rather than the pain of what happened.
Body Scan
Trauma often lives in the body long after the mind has made sense of it. In the body scan phase, we gently notice any remaining sensations or tension.If anything feels unsettled, we bring in compassion and tools to help the body integrate the healing fully.
Closure
Every EMDR session ends with grounding and reconnection. We make sure you feel stable, calm, and present before leaving the session. This phase reinforces safety and reminds your system that it’s okay to rest after doing meaningful inner work.
Reevaluation
At the start of the next session, we revisit what was processed — not to re-open it, but to notice what has shifted and what still needs care. Healing is a process, and EMDR honors that rhythm. Each round of reprocessing builds integration and resilience.
What Is EMDR Therapy and How Can It Help Me?
At Midé Integrative Therapies, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is more than a technique — it’s a process of reconnecting with safety, balance, and self-trust.
We honor the wisdom of the body and the resilience of the mind, helping you gently move through what has felt stuck so healing can unfold from within.
Are You Struggling to Move Through Your Daily Life Without Painful or Traumatic Reminders of the Past?
If you have experienced trauma, you may be struggling with symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and hypervigilance. You may find yourself avoiding people or situations that trigger memories of the trauma, or you may feel detached from your emotions and relationships. You may have difficulty concentrating or find that your thoughts race and are hard to control. The impact of trauma can be profound, affecting your daily life and relationships. However, there is hope.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a highly effective and evidence-based treatment for trauma. EMDR helps you process and heal from the traumatic experiences that are impacting your life. EMDR is a safe, non-invasive therapy modality that helps individuals recover from the effects of traumatic stress.
Our trained therapists at Thrive for the People are here to support you in your journey toward healing. Schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn more about our in-office (Spokane, WA) and online therapy options and see if EMDR therapy can be a good fit for you. You don’t have to face the effects of trauma alone. A life free from the burden of trauma is within your reach.
EMDR Activates Your Brain’s Natural Healing Capacity
EMDR therapy is based on the idea that traumatic experiences can cause disruptions in the brain’s information processing system. These disruptions can lead to negative beliefs about yourself and others, which jeopardize and severely limit your sense of safety. Being that the brain’s number one job is to keep you alive, it’s understandable that the brain develops a set response after trauma with the intent of keeping you safe from harm (however misguided those attempts).
As a therapeutic intervention, EMDR therapy aims to reprocess traumatic memory by activating your brain’s natural healing abilities. Similar to how your body is designed to heal itself, your brain also has natural healing capacities. The pathway to healing after trauma can be demanding, but therapies like EMDR can help you in resetting your innate ability to heal.
EMDR Doesn’t Require You to Retell Your Trauma
Many clients report that they feel apprehensive about retelling painful and upsetting parts of their story to a therapist, as this can sometimes make them feel worse. When you experience trauma, your brain has trouble making sense of something that was not supposed to happen. It can be difficult to recount details of the event(s) and retelling your story can even be retraumatizing.
However, EMDR therapy allows you to nonverbally process your traumatic memory. Throughout reprocessing, traumatic memories and maladaptive beliefs are neutralized so that it no longer causes you distress.
Researchers believe EMDR produces a change in neural circuitry that is similar to what happens in REM sleep. This helps you reintegrate traumatic memories back into the larger context, helping you make better sense of yourself and life.
Who Can Benefit From EMDR Therapy?
EMDR therapy is most commonly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, yet it has been shown to be effective in treating a range of mental health conditions such as phobias, anxiety, and even depression. It can be used with clients of any age, depending on the therapist’s level of training and specialty focus.
EMDR will allow your brain to change its perception of what is threatening and dangerous in the world around you. It will allow you to know yourself more deeply, to appreciate your brain’s evolutionary wisdom, and to create more adaptive responses that will serve you and not keep you stuck.
If you have experienced trauma and are struggling with difficult emotions, EMDR can be particularly helpful for you. Our EMDR trained clinicians at our Ballard clinic can provide a pathway to heal from the effects of trauma.
How Does Ego State Therapy Work?
Ego State Therapy helps you understand and heal the different “parts” of yourself — the inner voices, roles, and emotional states that have developed through life’s experiences. These parts often form as a way to help you survive and adapt, but over time they can become conflicted, disconnected, or stuck in pain.
Ego State Therapy helps bring those inner parts into harmony so you can feel more whole, calm, and in control.
Parts
Your personality is made up of distinct neural pathways that interact within yourself in ways that parallel how people interact. These pathways in your brain communicate with you through thoughts, sensations, memories, and emotions. Some parts are carrying burdens—extreme beliefs, emotions, or fantasies. When your system is overwhelmed, some pathways use different strategies to try and gain influence over your system. But every part—no matter how disruptive—is trying to help.
Placing Parts Into Groups
Protectors - These are the tender, younger parts that have experienced trauma, shame, fear, or neglect. Exiles can become extreme and desperate because they want to be cared for, and they want their story to be heard. These can be child parts who never got the chance to relax and rest.
Managers - These parts run your day-to-day life. They plan, perform, achieve, self-monitor, and try to prevent pain at all costs. Their main goal is to keep you in control of situations and relationships and protect you from hurt or rejection. They operate out of the most rational and logical spaces in your brain.
Reactive Ego - These reactive parts jump in to “extinguish” emotional pain that threatens to break through. They may use distraction or numbing tactics like emotional outbursts, disordered eating, substance use, or self-harm. They’re often misunderstood, but their goal is to put out emotional “fires” quickly. These are the most cherished parts of self because they have worked so hard and for so long.
Do You Feel Like You’re Fighting Yourself?
Maybe part of you wants to take risks and grow—but another part keeps you stuck in fear, shame, or self-doubt. Perhaps when it comes time to care for yourself, you feel overwhelmed or disconnected. You may even wonder: Why do I keep repeating the same patterns, even when I know better?
Instead of trying to “fix” you, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a compassionate, non-judgmental way to understand the different parts of yourself.
Ego State Therapy can support you in healing from:
Childhood trauma or neglect
Anxiety and emotional overwhelm
People-pleasing and burnout
Inner criticism and shame
Feeling “stuck” or disconnected from yourself
Relationship struggles and trust issues
Clients often describe this work as coming home to themselves — feeling grounded, confident, and at peace with all parts of who they are.
At Midé we understand how hard it can be to live with that internal push-pull. You’re not alone - and you’re not broken. Schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn more about our in-office (Spokane, WA) and online therapy options and see if Ego State therapy can be a good fit for you.
What Is Ego State Therapy?
Ego State Therapy is a compassionate and non-pathologizing therapy model that views every person as made up of a system of “parts.” These parts can carry memories, emotions, beliefs, and even protective behaviors to help us survive.
All of these parts are led by a core Self—a core state of presence and compassion that Ego State believes everyone possesses. When we operate from Self, we are better able to lead our lives with confidence, resilience, and emotional intelligence.
Ego State is used across a wide range of settings, including individual, couples, and family therapy, as well as in education, coaching, and trauma recovery. It is especially effective in helping people navigate trauma, depression, anxiety, interpersonal conflict, and identity-related struggles.
The goal of Ego State treatment is to heal the parts of ourselves that have become burdened by life’s hardships, so that the parts can work more harmoniously and allow us to interact with life in ways that align with our values and goals.
What Is The Goal of Ego State Therapy?
Rather than eliminating parts, the goal of Ego State is to create balance and harmony within your internal system, so all parts can exist and contribute their talents. This happens when:
All parts are allowed to contribute their wisdom without taking over
Your Self leads with calm, clarity, and connection
Wounded parts are witnessed, heard, and healed, not silenced or exiled
This work often leads to profound shifts—not just in how you feel emotionally, but in how you make decisions, relate to others, and trust yourself in new ways. Supporting the Self allows you to become an effective leader of your system and be the ultimate decision maker, even when different parts are given input.
Relationships Between the Internal and External Systems
The External Experience
Your external experience is the part of you the world sees — the professional who shows up for work, the caregiver who keeps things running, the friend who seems fine.
It’s the version of you that strives to hold everything together, often at the expense of rest, emotion, or authenticity.
When life feels heavy, that outer self can begin to feel distant from what’s really happening inside.
The Internal Experience
Beneath the surface lives your internal experience — the younger parts, the protectors, the ones who carry old pain, fear, or unmet needs.
These inner voices or sensations may not always match the calm image you project. One part of you might want to move forward, while another part quietly resists, afraid of being hurt again.
Ego State Therapy helps make sense of these internal experiences — not to get rid of them, but to understand and integrate them with compassion.
Whole Self
At Midé Integrative Therapies, we believe that true healing happens when the inner experience and outer expressionof the self come into alignment.
Using Ego State Therapy, EMDR, and mind-body awareness, we help you reconnect with all parts of who you are — mind, body, and spirit — so that you can live from a place of integration, not fragmentation.
What is Psychodynamic Psychotherapy?
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is an evidence-based approach that builds insight into yourself and your perceptions of the world. Through self-reflection, you can identify aspects of yourself that were previously unknown or not fully understood. These aspects of yourself are the gateway to understanding why you're stuck in specific patterns and what it will take to move toward a healthier, more balanced life.
During treatment, your therapist will use your increased insight to uncover the root of your emotional suffering. Identifying the root of emotional suffering is achieved by examining three areas of your experience. First, you will explore your relationship patterns and expand your awareness of how you show up with others and how you let others treat you. Second, you will identify your inner contradictions or areas where you desire one thing but behave in ways that achieve the opposite. Third, you will look at ways you can improve your relationship with yourself and others so that you can make healthier choices in the future.
As you progress through psychodynamic treatment, you will notice that self-examination is focused on unconscious processes and how these influence current behavior and perpetuate emotional suffering. Directing your attention to the unconscious builds a more profound awareness of yourself. This awareness can be used in real-time to change how you react in situations that once promoted previous cycles of suffering.
What is the Goal of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy?
The power of psychodynamic psychotherapy lies in its ability to help you gain insight into yourself. You uncover how your patterns developed, what protective strategies you are using to maintain these patterns, and whether or not these strategies are serving your life. Building these insights leads to more lasting change because, rather than just changing behaviors or thoughts, your worldview begins to transform.
Psychodynamic treatment isn’t only focused on getting rid of problematic behaviors or achieving symptom reduction. Instead, it builds a foundation capable of maintaining lasting change.
What’s your goal?
Here is a list of a few examples:
Engage in more fulfilling relationships
Make more effective use of your talents and abilities
Maintain a realistic sense of self-esteem
Tolerate a broader range of emotions
Face life’s challenges with greater freedom and flexibility
As you participate in self-reflection and self-examination, you can identify what stories and beliefs you’re holding onto. By identifying these beliefs, you hold the power to edit the narratives so they better align with your goals for your future.
What is our work together?
Psychodynamic psychotherapy involves key strategies that lead to healing. Below, we will discuss each strategy by giving a brief overview of what it is, why it matters, and how it will appear in sessions.
Identify Recurring Themes and Patterns
Another tool used in psychodynamic psychotherapy is the identification of recurring themes and patterns that are present in your thoughts, feelings, relationships, life experiences, and how you think about yourself. Your therapist can help you recognize and understand the function of these patterns.
When you can identify and understand how you behave and what you believe about yourself, you uncover the function of the cycles you’re trapped inside. Knowing the function empowers you to redirect your coping mechanisms toward thoughts and behaviors that cultivate healing and growth.
Discussion of Past Experiences
Psychodynamic treatment encourages the exploration of early life experiences. Psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses on how the past affects the present. For this reason, psychodynamic therapists facilitate the exploration of early memories because these experiences influence how you show up later in life. For example, your relationship with your mom can impact how you respond to authority figures at work or your experiences in school may determine who you choose as friends.
Your past shaped who you are and your worldview. By acknowledging and identifying how your past experiences, traumas, and relationships have influenced you, you can break free from old patterns that no longer serve you. You can have the agency to make different choices in how you think, feel, and act. In psychodynamic treatment, you will be encouraged to explore and discuss a full range of emotions, especially ones that are uncomfortable or difficult to name. Your therapist will help you find words for what you’re feeling, even when your emotions feel contradictory. Examples of contradictory experiences could include falling out of love with your partner but not wishing to leave them, feeling drained by your occupation but fulfilled by its demanding roles, or grieving the loss of a friend while feeling unable to reach out to the friends you still have.
Expressing your emotions gives us rich information about yourself, the world, and the relationship between the two. Understanding and expressing your emotions leads to a deeper understanding of yourself. It also gives you wisdom for responding to the world around us.
Get Curious About Avoidance of Distressing Thoughts and Feelings
It is natural to avoid distressing things. However, avoidance isn’t compatible with change. You need to confront what you’re avoiding to build confidence in your ability to navigate difficult experiences.
In psychodynamic psychotherapy, your therapist will be curious about the thoughts and feelings that your conversations suggest but you don’t directly address. You could be unconsciously avoiding things that you need to confront. Your therapist will gently return your attention to the core of your issues.
It can be uncomfortable but be prepared for your therapist to lean into these observations and ask you to explore what you may be avoiding. The purpose of directing your attention to your avoidance is to help you develop the inner strength to manage difficult topics and the accompanying emotions.
Who is a Good Candidate for Psychodynamic Treatment?
Are you feeling stuck in your life? Are you struggling in your relationships? Do you feel like you’re not living a fulfilling life? Psychodynamic psychotherapy can support you in making changes that not only last but feel fulfilling. It gives you tools and strategies that move you toward change while also helping you gain important insight and wisdom into yourself.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy is about depth and transformation. It isn’t just a bandaid for your pain. Instead, it helps you dig deep inside yourself to understand why you do what you do. When you transform how you relate to yourself and the world, it becomes natural to take action and make changes.
“The journey toward wholeness is not a straight road. There are many bends, many detours, and many shadows that must be faced. We must walk the path slowly, noticing the small gifts along the way, listening to the voices that guide us, and accepting both the light and the darkness within ourselves. Only by moving forward step by step do we begin to see the terrain of our own hearts, and only by staying on the road, even when it is rough, do we arrive at understanding, at depth, at life that is fully our own.”