If you have searched EMDR Edmonton and then closed the tab because the whole thing sounded a bit strange, you are not the first person to do that. Eye movements. Bilateral stimulation. Something about following a finger back and forth. It reads like a party trick, and a party trick is not reassuring when you are already nervous about therapy.
I am Carly Colasimone, MA, Registered Psychologist (Alberta). I see adults in person in Edmonton and by video anywhere in the province, including Calgary. EMDR is one of the approaches I use. It is not a separate practice and it is not the whole of what I do. It is a tool, and like most tools it stops sounding odd once you see how it is held.
So here is what I would tell you on the phone.
What EMDR is, in plain language
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Francine Shapiro, and it has been taught and studied steadily since. The EMDR International Association is the main professional body for training and standards.
The idea behind it is short enough to say in one sentence. Some memories do not settle. They stay stored the way they arrived, with the pictures, the body sensations and the beliefs still fused together. Years later something small brushes against one of them and your body reacts as though it is happening now. Your thinking brain knows the difference. The rest of you does not.
EMDR is a structured way of helping a memory finish filing itself. You hold a piece of it in mind while doing something that occupies your attention at the same time, usually side to side eye movements, sometimes taps or tones. Researchers do not all agree on why that helps. One explanation is that splitting your attention keeps the memory from taking over the whole room, so you can be near it without going under.
What it is not is hypnosis. You are awake. You know where you are. You can talk, stop, drink water or ask a question at any point. Nobody is putting you under and nobody is planting anything. If your mental image is somebody staring at a swinging watch and confessing, put that image down.
Most of EMDR happens before any processing does
This is the part people are surprised by, and the part I would most want a nervous person to know.
EMDR has eight phases. The eye movement part, the bit everybody pictures, is phase four. Getting there takes as long as it takes.
Phase one, history
You talk. I ask what brought you in, what your life looks like now, who your supports are, and what has already helped. I am building a map, not collecting a confession.
Phase two, preparation
This one matters more than any other. Before you go near a difficult memory, you build a set of skills for coming back down. Grounding. Breathing. A calm place you can bring to mind. A container image for setting things aside at the end of a session. You practise all of it while you are calm, so it is already familiar when you are not.
Some people move through this quickly. Others stay here far longer. There is no schedule you are falling behind on.
Phase three, assessment
Only now does a specific target get chosen, and even then it stays narrow. One image. The belief attached to it, something like a sense of not being safe, or of it having been your fault. Where you feel it in your body.
Phases four through eight are the processing itself, strengthening a more helpful belief, a body check, closing the session down properly, and reviewing next time. Closure is not optional. I do not end a session with you still open.
You stay in control the whole time
You are not a passenger in this. A few things are true from the first minute.
- You choose the target. If a memory is not one you want to go near yet, it does not get touched.
- You can stop a set at any point. Stop means stop, not stop after this one.
- You can pause EMDR entirely and go back to talking. That is not failure and it is not wasted time.
- You set the pace. I check in constantly, and needing a minute is always an acceptable answer.
I would rather move slowly and have you stay with me than move quickly and have you start dreading Thursdays.
You do not have to describe the worst thing in detail
If the thing stopping you is the thought of having to say it out loud, read this part.
You do not have to. EMDR is unusual that way. Once a target is set up, most of the processing happens inside you, without narration. Between sets I ask something as open as what came up, and you can answer in a handful of words. A colour. A tightening somewhere. A sense that it moved. That is enough for me to work with.
You are allowed to keep the details. I do not need a full account of what happened to work with you. If saying it out loud has been the thing keeping you away from therapy, that alone can make starting feel possible.
Why EMDR is in my toolkit at all
My practice is built around assertiveness, boundaries and people-pleasing. That can look like an odd match with a trauma therapy, until you look at where the pleasing came from.
Most people know fight, flight and freeze. There is a fourth response that gets far less airtime. Fawn. Appease the person who is upset. Read the room before you read yourself. Get small, get agreeable, get useful, and the danger passes.
Sometimes that pattern is a habit picked up along the way, and skills work is the right answer. Sometimes it is older, and it went in deep before there was any language for it. You can know perfectly well that you are allowed to say no, rehearse the sentence in the car, and still feel your stomach drop when the moment arrives. That gap, between what you know and what your body does, is where EMDR sometimes earns its place.
It is also why I do not treat EMDR as a standalone service. If the skills side is what you want, that is Speak Up Skills, and how to stop being a people-pleaser is free to read today. There is more on assertiveness and boundaries in my resources library. If something older keeps blocking the skills, EMDR is one option worth talking about. There is more detail on the EMDR therapy page and the other approaches I work with.
What a session actually looks like
A 50 minute session, once preparation is behind you, tends to run like this.
You arrive, in person at the office or by video. The first ten minutes are a check in. How the week went, and whether anything happening today makes processing a bad idea. Some days the answer is yes, and it becomes a talking session instead.
If you are processing, you bring the agreed target to mind. I start a set of bilateral stimulation. In person that might be following my hand with your eyes, a light bar, or tapping. By video it is usually a moving dot on the screen or tapping your own knees. A set runs about thirty seconds. Then I stop and ask what you noticed. Another set. Repeat.
It is quieter than people expect, and sometimes very little happens, which is information too.
The last ten minutes belong to closing down. Grounding, the container, a check that you are back in the room and steady enough to drive home. If a target is unfinished it gets set aside deliberately, not left hanging.
Fees, format and how to start
Sessions are $220 for 50 minutes and $330 for 80 minutes. A sliding scale is available on request, so ask if cost is the thing in the way. I do not offer direct billing.
In person sessions are at 9811 34 Ave. NW, Edmonton, inside Chiropractic Plus & Wellness, with parking on site. Video sessions are available anywhere in Alberta, including Calgary. I work with adults only.
The first consultation is free and fifteen minutes long. Nothing to prepare. You can phone 780-952-0091 or email colasimonecounselling@gmail.com, and my contact page has the same details in one place.
I am a Registered Psychologist in Alberta, and you can look up any psychologist practising in this province on the public register at cap.ab.ca. Please do that before booking with anyone, including me.
If you need help right now
Please do not wait for an appointment if you are in crisis. The Distress Line is 780-482-4357. You can call or text 988 at any time. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. More Edmonton and Alberta options are listed on my crisis support page.
Your next step
If EMDR still sounds strange to you, that is all right. You do not have to be convinced of it to book a free fifteen minute call. Ask me the question you feel silly asking. If it is not the right fit for you right now, I will tell you so plainly.
You are allowed to want the fear out of your body, not just an explanation for it.