Accepting clients virtually throughout NY and CA! Click to schedule or call/text (424) 235-8082

Treating EMDR, trauma, anxiety, and burnout through holistic therapy

Trauma & EMDR Therapy

Anywhere in New York and California

For high-achieving women tired of putting on a brave face.

Are you tired of pretending everything is ok?

You show up for work. You maintain relationships. You handle your responsibilities. Yet, you still feel exhausted and wonder "how did I get here?"

It probably started with the reminders, keeping you on edge, looking over your shoulder, praying that your emotions don’t burst like a pressurized soda pop. You start avoiding your triggers as best you can, yet you still get blindsided by flashbacks and nightmares.

You push yourself harder by staying busy, so you don't spend a single moment alone with your bad memories. You become the “yes, girl”, taking on that next project, going to another event, and dropping everything when someone else needs you.

Brick by brick, your walls go up, and these walls hide the good stuff too. It’s hard to feel love and joy. Everything feels a dampened, like a washcloth over your life. You feel numb, and that scares you the most.

Then, one day, all you see is a sea of disconnection. Relationships you sabotaged and dysfunctional ones still in your life. Superficial friendships and family gatherings you want to escape. Whether you’re by yourself or in a room full of people, you feel empty and alone. Yet, you can’t bear the idea of being abandoned because you aren’t good enough.

Now, you’re looking in the mirror, and you see an exhausted stranger. Someone tired of trying to outrun the loneliness, fear, shame, and guilt. Someone tired of putting on a brave face that is starting to crack. Someone tired of pretending that everything is ok, because it’s not.

What if I told you it's possible to break free from your trauma?

That’s right! You get to smash your trauma with a sledgehammer until it’s a pile of dust in your rearview mirror. The trauma is still part of your story. But, it no longer holds the same charge. It no longer suffocates you. It no longer keeps you imprisoned.

You get to deactivate the alarms. You get to feel safe and energized. You get to enjoy your soda pop, instead of worrying if it's going to burst.

You’re feeling lighter and more confident. You’re no longer going through the motions. Rather, you’re grounded in the present. You experience life fully. You LOL over an inside joke with a close friend. You can actually relax and doze off in the sunshine at the park. You trust your gut, not the fear. You realize whoa…the life I dreamed of is possible.

Book Free Consultation

EMDR and trauma therapy for high-achieving women

There's no "one-size-fits-all" to trauma

Whether your trauma happened recently or a lifetime ago. Whether it was one horrific event, or a thousand little papercuts that built up over time. Your trauma matters.

Trauma isn’t limited to life-or-death situations, sexual assaults, and childhood abuse and neglect…or the “big T” traumas. There can also be “little t” traumas, or any situation in which your thinking brain got turned off and your nervous system took over.

There’s no situation that’s ‘too silly.’ It doesn’t matter if ‘people had it worse.’ If your fight-or-flight kicked in, that memory could still be stuck in your body, driving your problematic patterns, whether you’re aware of it or not.

From the child who got laughed at for falling down at recess, to the adult who survived a rape or motor vehicle accident, trauma comes in all shapes and sizes. Your trauma doesn’t need to be “bad enough.” If something feels off, that’s enough. Your trauma can be healed.

Dr. Emily Altunay, EMDR and trauma therapist, welcomes you to her clinic

Why trauma has you feeling stuck

During a traumatic event, the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) part of your brain turns off and your survival mode kicks in. Because of this, traumatic memories aren’t processed like your other memories. They get stuck in your nervous system.

Perhaps you can recall a past birthday, vacation, or graduation with fond feelings. You enjoy telling others the story of these memories from start to finish, knowing these events are part of your past.

With a traumatic memory, the feelings are bubbling right under the surface, still locked in your nervous system, impacting your day-to-day life. The memory is often fragmented into images, smells, sounds, and other sensations, rather than being a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. Multiple traumatic events can also get stuck together in the same memory network through a common thread, like a negative belief, feeling, or physical sensation.

What to expect

1

Identify your goals and take a thorough assessment of your background and trauma memories that are contributing to your presenting concerns.

2

Stabilize and build your self-regulation toolkit, including relaxation, grounding, positive emotion activation, thought reframing, and more.

3

Heal the root of your trauma with Eye Movement Desensitization (EMDR), Breathwork, and/or other evidence-based, trauma-informed modalities.

4

Build your confidence, self-love and the life you desire through mindfulness, self-compassion, Internal Family Systems (IFS), values work, and/or yoga.

What is EMDR?

EMDR stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. After identifying your target memories for reprocessing, you will be taken through several sets of eye movements, or another form of right-left stimulation (e.g., auditory, tactile). As you do the eye movements, you’ll activate your trauma memory. This dual awareness allows you to keep your nervous system calm and your thinking brain online. Your brain can then link the traumatic memories with your Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) system and release the emotions from your nervous system. You can finally put the trauma(s) in the past...where they belong.

Why choose EMDR?

Rapid Relief: Compared to traditional talk therapy, medication management, and other therapies, EMDR offers faster symptom reduction. Benefits can often be seen in as little as 3-5 sessions.

No Need to Relive: Many trauma treatments require you to relive the events. With EMDR, you stay in the present through the eye movements. This method unlocks the brain’s natural ability to heal. You focus on what needs healing, versus forcing you to re-live it.

Evidence-Based: EMDR is a science-backed method to heal trauma and related conditions. Research strongly supports EMDR’s effectiveness in reducing negative emotions, memories, beliefs, and physical sensations. In addition, these effects have been shown to last months and even years later.

Why does EMDR work?

1. Eye movements have been shown to activate the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system (i.e., our relaxation response). This allows you to stay calm while accessing your traumatic past.

2. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were constantly scanning their eyes back and forth to rapidly assess their environment to see if it was safe from predators. The eye movements help you feel safe as you step forward in processing your past.

3. During Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM) sleep, you dream about whatever isn't getting processed during your conscious hours. Engaging in rapid eye movements while awake help you bring the traumas locked in your subconscious into consciousness so you can process them.

Want to learn more? Schedule Intro Call

Be the Buffalo

When cows are faced with an oncoming storm, they try to run away from it. Eventually, the storm catches up to them, and they stay in the storm longer as they run with it. They are cow-ards.

When buffalos are faced with an oncoming storm, they run straight into it. While it's difficult for a short time, they get to the other side of it faster.

Together, we will channel your inner buffalo.

What is Breathwork?

In healing trauma, the breath is manipulated to activate your nervous system in a safe environment, so you can release the trauma that has been stuck in your body. It's a 3-part, rapid breath cycle that floods your brain and body with oxygen. This opens the trauma stuck in your subconscious, and releases stuck emotional energy. While this approach can be intense , it can also provide rapid relief, even in one session.

What to expect

While lying down, you'll be led through a grounding exercise before activating the 3-part breath. You might experience jerks, cramping, and emotional release, such as crying, yelling, and laughing, as your body releases stuck energy. After this release, your body will be clear to "receive" during a rest period with a slow breath cycle. Music will be added to enhance the experience. The session will end with re-grounding, and verbal processing of your experience and any insights that you received.

Other trauma-informed therapies

In addition to EMDR and breathwork, other trauma-informed therapies may be integrated into your treatment plan:

Internal Family Systems (parts work): You may have a part of you that learned that emotions are dangerous. These protector parts could be getting in the way of accessing the parts of you holding onto your traumas and associated emotions...the exiles. We will work with your protector(s) to help gain access the parts of you, your exiles, so that they can be unburdened and healed.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Sometimes, negative beliefs about therapy, your ability to heal, others and the world are keeping you stuck. You'll learn to challenge your stuck points, so you can achieve the deep healing you deserve. In the case of single-event traumas, I may have you write a narrative of the event to help you connect the trauma to your Adaptive Information Processing system.

Prolonged Exposure (PE): A common trauma response is avoidance of the trauma and its triggers, which keeps you stuck. You'll perform mini experiments, exposing you to your traumatic memory and/or your triggers. This approach helps to build your confidence as you realize that you can handle difficult emotions and that they don't last forever.