Online EMDR Therapy

You can understand why you react the way you do and still find yourself having the same emotional response.

Online EMDR therapy can help address experiences that continue to affect how you feel, respond, and relate to others—even when you know intellectually that the past is over.

Jodi provides online EMDR therapy for adults throughout British Columbia who are experiencing the effects of trauma, difficult childhood experiences, anxiety, attachment wounds, relationship patterns, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and feeling overwhelmed or stuck.

Sessions are offered securely online, allowing you to access EMDR therapy from the privacy and familiarity of your own space.

What Is EMDR Therapy?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured psychotherapy developed to help people process distressing experiences and memories.

Sometimes experiences are not fully integrated by the brain and continue to be activated by situations in the present. You may know that something happening now is relatively minor, for example, while your emotional or physical reaction feels disproportionately intense.

EMDR works with the memories, emotions, beliefs, body sensations, and responses connected to these experiences.

Rather than focusing only on managing symptoms, EMDR therapy can help address experiences that may be contributing to those symptoms in the first place.

Does EMDR Work Online?

Yes. EMDR can be provided through secure video sessions, and the fundamental therapeutic process remains the same.

During EMDR, bilateral stimulation—alternating stimulation of the left and right sides of the brain—can be provided in several ways. In online sessions, this may include guided eye movements, alternating tapping, or other methods appropriate for virtual EMDR therapy.

You and Jodi will determine which approach works best for you.

Being at home can also make therapy more accessible for people who live outside larger communities, have demanding schedules, or simply prefer the privacy and convenience of online counselling.

What Can Online EMDR Therapy Help With?

People do not always recognize what they have experienced as trauma. Trauma is not determined solely by how dramatic an event appears from the outside. What matters is how an experience affected you and how it continues to be held in your nervous system and memory.

Online EMDR therapy may be helpful for adults experiencing:

• PTSD and trauma symptoms

• Childhood trauma and difficult early experiences

• Attachment wounds

• Anxiety and persistent worry

• People-pleasing

• Perfectionism

• Difficulties setting boundaries

• Relationship patterns

• Shame and negative beliefs about yourself

• Fear of rejection or abandonment

• Feeling responsible for other people's emotions

• Emotional overwhelm or shutting down

• Distressing memories that still feel present

• Reactions or triggers that seem stronger than the current situation warrants

You do not need to have experienced a single catastrophic event for past experiences to continue affecting you.

Childhood Experiences Can Continue Into Adulthood

Some of the experiences that shape us most profoundly happen within relationships.

A child who learns that approval depends on being good, helpful, quiet, successful, or easy to manage may become an adult who has difficulty saying no.

Someone who grew up around unpredictability may become extremely attentive to other people's moods.

Someone who was frequently criticized may become highly accomplished while privately believing they are never quite good enough.

These patterns can look like personality traits. Often, however, they developed for a reason.

They may once have helped you maintain connection, avoid conflict, gain approval, or feel safer.

EMDR therapy provides an opportunity to understand and process the experiences underlying these patterns rather than simply trying harder to stop them.

High-Functioning Trauma Doesn't Always Look Like Trauma

Trauma does not always look like someone who cannot function.

Some people affected by trauma are extraordinarily capable.

You may have a career, relationships, responsibilities, and a life that appears successful while privately experiencing anxiety, perfectionism, overthinking, difficulty resting, fear of disappointing people, or an almost constant sense that you should be doing more.

You may be the person everyone relies upon.

You may also have become very good at ignoring your own needs.

Therapy can explore not only what is going wrong, but also what you had to learn to do exceptionally well in order to cope.

What Happens During Online EMDR Therapy?

EMDR is more than simply moving your eyes back and forth while thinking about something upsetting.

Treatment begins with understanding you.

Before trauma processing begins, Jodi will learn about your history, current concerns, important relationships, symptoms, strengths, coping strategies, and what you would like to change.

Together, you will identify experiences and patterns that may be connected to what is happening in your life today.

EMDR therapy generally includes preparation and stabilization before directly processing traumatic or distressing memories. The pace of therapy is individualized rather than predetermined.

The goal is not to erase your memories.

The goal is for experiences from the past to feel like they belong in the past.

You Don't Have to Tell Every Detail of What Happened

One reason some people choose EMDR is that it does not require repeatedly describing every detail of a traumatic experience.

You will need to share enough information for Jodi to understand what you are working on and provide appropriate treatment, but EMDR does not depend on giving a detailed verbal account of everything that happened.

For people who find talking extensively about painful experiences difficult or exhausting, this can be important.

Online EMDR Therapy Throughout Canada

Jodi provides virtual EMDR therapy to clients located throughout Canada while being based in the West Kootenays of BC.

Online counselling means that your location does not have to determine whether you can access a therapist trained in EMDR. You can attend sessions from home without commuting, parking, or adding travel time to your day.

All you need is a private space, a reliable internet connection, and a device that allows you to participate comfortably in your session.

Is Online EMDR Therapy Right for You?

EMDR may be worth considering if you find yourself thinking:

• I know where this comes from, but knowing hasn't changed it.

• I understand that I'm safe, but my body doesn't seem to know that.

• I keep repeating the same patterns even though I don't want to.

• I don't know why I react so strongly.

• I've talked about this before, but it still affects me.

Understanding your history can be extremely valuable. Sometimes understanding alone, however, does not change the way an experience is stored or the response that gets activated in the present.

That is where EMDR therapy may offer something different.

Start Online EMDR Therapy

If past experiences continue to influence how you feel about yourself, your relationships, or the way you respond to situations today, you do not have to wait until things become unmanageable before seeking support.

Jodi offers online EMDR therapy throughout British Columbia for adults wanting to understand and work through the experiences and patterns that continue to affect their lives.

Book a consultation with Jodi to discuss whether online EMDR therapy may be a good fit for you.