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A few minutes into our first session, Jenna folded her arms and said what I have heard many times: “I watched a video of someone moving their fingers back and forth and calling it EMDR. Is that really therapy?” Her doubt was not unusual. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR therapy, has been studied for more than three decades, yet it still attracts more myths than most therapy approaches. Some of that comes from social media clips that flatten a complex p

Divorce rearranges a family’s map. Parents who once made decisions across the same kitchen table now need to coordinate from different homes, different schedules, sometimes different values. The task is not to reproduce the marriage. It is to build a functioning team focused on the children’s well being. That means learning to collaborate with someone you no longer live with, likely do not agree with, and may still feel hurt by. Good news: many of the most reliable tools fr

People usually arrive at ADHD testing after years of frustration. A parent sees a bright child who melts down each evening over homework. A college student watches deadlines slide while their brain spins on everything except the paper due tomorrow. A partner is exhausted by forgotten plans and half-finished chores. The aim of a thorough evaluation is not to squeeze you into a label, but to study your life, your history, and your current functioning with enough precision tha

Parents often ask some version of the same question during the first call: How much should I be involved? The honest answer is that it depends. Involvement is not a single setting you flip on or off. It is a dial you keep adjusting based on your teen’s goals, the phase of treatment, the type of therapy, and what is happening at home and school. When parents find the right level and style of participation, teens tend to improve faster and sustain gains longer. When we overst

High performers rarely talk about the sweat behind the polish. A trial lawyer with a flawless record checks the restroom mirror for the third time. A senior engineer reheats coffee and rewrites the same slide title until the font looks wrong. A principal violinist can play the concerto blindfolded at home, then fumbles an entrance when the hall goes quiet. Performance anxiety shows up in boardrooms, courts, operating rooms, and on stage, and it does not discriminate between

Most couples arrive to therapy thinking the problem is conflict. Often the deeper problem is the absence of clear no. Without a trustworthy no, every yes in the relationship loses value. Partners start agreeing out of pressure, fantasy, or fatigue rather than choice. Resentment grows quietly until it shows up as distance, sarcasm, or the kind of blowups that feel disproportionate to the moment. Saying no is not rejection. It is the scaffolding that lets your yes stand tall.

Adolescence is a stretch of rapid construction. Brains wire and rewire. Identity, values, and relationships all take shape under pressure. When trauma lands during this window, it does more than hurt in the moment. It plants alarms inside a developing system, and those alarms can start to run the show. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, better known as EMDR therapy, gives teens a way to process upsetting experiences so they stop driving anxiety, shutdowns, and r

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing has a plainspoken goal: help your brain file traumatic or distressing memories in a way that reduces the emotional charge and frees up attention for life now. If you are scheduling your first EMDR therapy session, you are already doing one of the hardest parts. You are choosing to meet the thing you have been avoiding. The rest is planning, pacing, and partnership with a trained clinician. I have guided hundreds of clients th