Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

EMDR Therapy for Women in Colorado

A song comes on, or a door slams behind you, and your body is somewhere else before you’ve decided anything. You’ve talked it through before and you understand it, and it still happens. EMDR works on the part that talking hasn’t reached.

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EMDR therapy for women at Colorado Women's Center

The Method

What is EMDR Therapy?

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a structured therapy that helps the brain reprocess memories that never finished settling. While you hold a memory in mind, your therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation, usually eye movements, alternating taps, or tones through headphones. The memory remains, but its emotional intensity can diminish, allowing it to feel less overwhelming and take up less space in your present.

Colorado Women’s Center is designed for women, so you’ll spend less of a first session explaining context and more of it on what brought you in. EMDR therapy for women is one of the approaches you’ll find among our therapy methods. EMDR is a well-established treatment for PTSD and is included among recommended clinical approaches for trauma. Our therapists trained in EMDR use it thoughtfully alongside other therapeutic techniques, tailoring treatment to your individual needs and goals.

Want to learn more before reaching out? Our guide, “What is EMDR Therapy”, explains the eight phases of EMDR and gives you a clearer picture of what you can expect during a session.

The memory keeps its place. It stops keeping yours.

Our Promise to You

We Guarantee Our Therapist Matching

EMDR asks you to stay with something difficult while another person guides you through it. That only holds up with a therapist you trust. If the first one isn’t right, tell us and we’ll match you with another at no additional cost.

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What This Works On

How EMDR Therapy Helps Women

EMDR is used most often for trauma, and it isn’t limited to it. None of it has to reach a crisis before it’s worth bringing in. These are what women bring to it at Colorado Women’s Center.

Trauma and PTSD

Something happened, and part of your system never got word that it was over. Trauma and PTSD therapy using EMDR works on the memory itself rather than on your account of it, so the intrusions have less to feed on.

Anxiety That Won’t Quiet Down

Your chest goes tight and your heart races first, and the explanation comes later or not at all. EMDR goes at the experiences your nervous system is still braced against, which is often where that kind of anxiety is anchored.

Panic Attacks

Panic usually has a history behind it, even when nothing in the moment explains it. The work goes at what sits underneath the attack instead of at the attack itself.

Painful Memories

Some memories keep their edge for years while others go soft, and the difference often isn’t how bad the event was. EMDR gives your brain a way to finish filing the ones that stayed sharp.

Childhood Experiences

What happened early shapes what you expect from other people, and what you expect from yourself. EMDR can reach those memories without asking you to build a tidy narrative around them first.

Grief and Loss

When grief gets tangled with guilt, or with a last conversation you’d change, it stalls in place. Grief therapy for women can use EMDR on the one moment that keeps catching, so the rest of your grieving has room to move.

Phobias and Fears

A fear that seems out of proportion often traces back to one specific experience. EMDR works on that experience directly, which changes what your body does when the thing turns up again.

Negative Self-Beliefs

I’m not safe. It was my fault. I’m not enough. EMDR treats those as conclusions your brain drew under pressure, and reprocessing what sits under them is what loosens their grip.

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Our Approach

How EMDR Runs at Colorado Women’s Center

EMDR moves through phases, and the reprocessing is not the first one. Here is the order it happens in.

Start With a Match Call

Before you meet a therapist, you talk with a Wellness Coordinator. She asks what you’re looking for, including whether you want EMDR specifically, and she matches you on that, on which office works for you, and on therapist specialty and experience.

Preparation and Grounding

The first sessions are not bilateral stimulation at all. Your therapist takes a history of what you’re bringing in and how your nervous system behaves under stress. She also teaches you settling skills to use between sessions. That groundwork is what makes the processing workable later.

Reprocessing

You and your therapist pick a target memory, the belief attached to it, and a more accurate belief to grow into. Then come short sets of bilateral stimulation with pauses to check what has shifted. You won’t have to narrate the whole thing, and you can stop a set at any point.

Five Offices or Online

EMDR runs in Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins, Broomfield, and Longmont, and over secure video anywhere in Colorado. Online sessions use taps or tones in place of eye movements. Sessions run seven days a week, 8am to 8pm.

Therapist and client at Colorado Women's Center

Methods We Offer

EMDR
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Gottman Method
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Somatic Therapy
Attachment-Based Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Approaches
Family Systems Therapy

Common Questions

EMDR Questions Women Ask Us

Will I have to talk about everything that happened?

No. EMDR does not require you to describe an experience in detail or in order. Your therapist needs enough to identify a target and to track what comes up during a set, and you decide what else you say. She will tell you before a set what she is asking you to hold in mind.

How is EMDR different from talk therapy?

Talk therapy works mostly through understanding. EMDR works on the memory itself, using bilateral stimulation while you hold the experience in mind. The change happens at the level of how the memory is stored rather than how well you can explain it. Many women do both, often with the same therapist.

Do I need a trauma diagnosis to do EMDR?

No. EMDR is used for post-traumatic stress and it is not limited to it. Women use it at Colorado Women’s Center for anxiety, panic, grief, phobias, and beliefs about themselves that formed a long time ago. If something from your past is affecting how you feel now, it is worth raising on the Match Call.

Does EMDR work online?

Yes. Online EMDR uses alternating taps or tones through headphones in place of eye movements, and it runs over secure video anywhere in Colorado. Women outside the Front Range work this way, and so do clients who have an office nearby and a week that won’t allow the drive. Our online therapy page has the details.

How many sessions does EMDR take?

That’s decided between you and your therapist rather than set in advance. It depends on what you’re bringing in, how much of it is connected, and what you want out of the work. It also depends on how the sessions are sitting with you. If a stretch is hard to tolerate, your therapist slows the pace or comes back to grounding first. That’s part of how EMDR is meant to run.

What if I am not sure EMDR is the right approach for me?

Say so on the Match Call. Your Wellness Coordinator will note that you’re considering EMDR and match you with a therapist trained in it. From there, you and that therapist work out how to approach it. Nothing commits you to a method before you’ve met the person who would be doing it with you.

How soon can I start?

Match Calls are usually available within 48 hours and often within 24. Most clients are scheduled with a therapist within about a week, depending on their own availability. Sessions run seven days a week, 8am to 8pm, at all five Colorado Women’s Center offices and online. Call 720.810.2355 or use the form on this page.

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Related Methods

Approaches That Sit Close to EMDR

EMDR is rarely the only thing in a care plan. These two come up alongside it most often, and your therapist may bring either one in.

Somatic Therapy

Works with the physical side of it, the bracing and the held breath, which is the same territory EMDR moves through.

Somatic therapy →

Exposure Therapy

Approaches a feared situation in planned steps, and pairs with EMDR when avoidance is what keeps a fear in place.

Exposure therapy →

EMDR Therapy by Location

EMDR therapy for women runs at all five Colorado Women’s Center offices. Each page below covers the office itself, the towns it draws from, and how EMDR runs there.