Feeling guilty all the time often comes from a nervous system that learned to avoid conflict or disapproval by taking the blame first. Healthy guilt points to a specific action to repair; chronic guilt floods you for things that don’t violate your values. With IFS, EMDR, and somatic therapy, we identify the protectors behind guilt, regulate the body states that keep it activated, and update the old memories that taught you “I’m only safe when I’m sorry.” Over time, guilt becomes quieter and more accurate—no longer a default setting. That shift makes space for boundaries, ease, and genuine connection.

SAD, burnout, and depression each affect energy, motivation, and mood in distinct ways—but they often overlap more than people realize. Seasonal darkness can thin your resilience, stress can push your system into overdrive, and older emotional wounds can keep alarms active even when life is “fine.” Combining IFS, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and EMDR helps you see which parts of you are trying to cope and what your body has been carrying. Intensives allow these approaches to work together without stopping mid-process, giving you a clearer, more integrated shift. You don’t just feel “less bad”—you feel more like yourself.

Starting is hard when your nervous system confuses effort with threat. That’s why ADHD paralysis often shows up in high-achievers who’ve pushed through for years. EMDR, IFS, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy address the deeper patterns behind that shutdown—healing the body’s association between performance and danger. With nervous system regulation and compassionate self-leadership, action becomes something you can trust rather than fear.

When ADHD triggers conflict, repair often turns into self-blame. Learning to pause, ground, and lead from Self allows for ownership without over-apology. Through IFS, EMDR, and Sensorimotor techniques, it’s possible to calm the body, soften protective parts, and speak from clarity instead of shame. 90-minute+ Intensives offer space for these patterns to shift more fully. ADHD therapy in Washington, DC helps repair feel steady, compassionate, and real.

When anger keeps showing up, it’s often a signal that your body still feels unsafe. You can learn to navigate it through IFS curiosity (“What are you protecting?”), somatic containment (hand-to-heart, feet on floor), and EMDR processing that rewires old emotional loops. These small, body-based shifts help anger lose its grip. What once felt like chaos starts to feel like choice.

As fall invites rest and coziness, it’s easy to confuse true comfort with numbing out. Comfort helps your nervous system settle so you feel more present afterward; numbing disconnects you from yourself and leaves stress intact. Using IFS, Sensorimotor, and EMDR, therapy can help you recognize the difference, befriend the parts that reach for avoidance, and find real relief without the crash. The goal isn’t to “get rid of” numbing—it’s to build capacity for choice, warmth, and grounded calm.

Tiredness lifts when you rest. Burnout lingers because it lives in the body, in patterns of tension, vigilance, and emotional fatigue that sleep can’t touch. For many in D.C., it’s compounded by the collective stress of injustice and constant urgency. Repairing burnout isn’t about stepping away from what matters—it’s about restoring the nervous system so you can stay engaged without losing yourself.

Always being the strong one can look like resilience, but it often hides a quiet loneliness. When you’ve spent years holding it all together, asking for help can feel foreign—even unsafe. Over time, that constant self-reliance can leave you disconnected from your own needs and unsure how to rest. Therapy offers space to slow down, soften old instincts, and relearn what it means to feel supported.

Fall offers the perfect mix of structure, calm, and daylight to support meaningful therapy work. In this season, your nervous system naturally becomes more receptive to change—making it easier to build consistency, regulate, and reset before winter stress hits. Using EMDR, IFS, and Sensorimotor therapy, we can map your patterns, stabilize your body, and reprocess old pain so you feel lighter and more grounded. Whether through weekly sessions or focused Intensives, starting now helps real progress take root.

When you can’t relax no matter how much you try, it’s not a personal failure—it’s a sign your nervous system has been carrying too much for too long. Through trauma-informed approaches like EMDR, IFS, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, therapy helps your body learn that it no longer needs to stay on guard. You begin to feel the difference between “numb” and “calm,” between “on edge” and “at ease.” Healing starts when your body finally believes it’s safe to rest.

You can be surrounded by friends and still feel lonely. Often, what we crave isn’t more social events, but deeper emotional connection — the kind that feels safe, reciprocal, and nourishing. Old protective patterns, trauma, anxiety, or ADHD can make intimacy feel risky, leaving you stuck in surface-level connection. With approaches like EMDR, IFS, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and therapy intensives, it’s possible to soften those barriers and experience closeness that feels authentic and sustaining.

Trauma doesn’t always look like flashbacks or panic attacks. For many high-functioning adults, it hides behind productivity, perfectionism, and people-pleasing—while inside there’s exhaustion, emptiness, or anxiety that won’t turn off. These quieter signs are easy to miss, but they’re still evidence of unresolved pain that lives in both the body and mind. With trauma-focused therapy—like EMDR, IFS, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and intensives—you can finally move beyond survival mode and toward real freedom.

Living with ADHD often means navigating a world that wasn’t designed with your brain in mind. Therapy can be transformative, but the traditional one-hour-a-week format doesn’t always match the way ADHD brains process, focus, and integrate information. If you’ve ever left a therapy session feeling like you were just starting to get somewhere—only to have to shut it down until next week—you’re not alone.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too sensitive,” you know how painful those words can feel. They carry an edge of judgment — as if your emotions are somehow excessive, wrong, or a flaw that needs to be fixed. For many of my clients, especially those navigating ADHD, anxiety, or relational trauma, this label has been following them since childhood.

If you’ve spent any time on therapy websites or mental health social media, you’ve probably seen ads for therapy intensives – half‑day or multi‑day deep‑dive sessions that promise big shifts in a short amount of time. People sometimes ask me, “Can I keep seeing my regular therapist and still do an intensive?” The short answer is yes. Intensives can be a powerful complement to your ongoing therapy, but there are some important things to consider. In this post I’ll explain how intensives fit into your healing journey, how to collaborate with your current therapist, and how to navigate dual support ethically and effectively.

Trauma leaves its mark in different ways. Some people feel numb and disconnected; others have nightmares, intrusive memories or panic attacks; still others develop chronic pain, digestive issues or a persistent sense of shame. If you’ve been searching for relief, you’ve likely encountered a menu of therapeutic acronyms—EMDR, IFS, SP—and wondered what they really mean and whether one of them might help you. In this blog, we’ll explore how each modality works, who might benefit most, and why integrating them can be so powerful.

If you’ve been exploring options for trauma healing or nervous system regulation, you may have come across two popular modalities: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and hypnotherapy. Both are often seen as alternatives to traditional talk therapy—and both can bring relief where “just talking about it” hasn’t worked. But while they can look similar on the surface (they both involve nontraditional techniques and can feel a little mysterious at first), they’re actually quite different in how they work and what you can expect.

If you live with ADHD and find yourself constantly anxious, you’re not imagining the connection. The overlap between anxiety and ADHD is more than just common—it’s baked into the way ADHD brains function. And yet, many people are left feeling confused, overwhelmed, or misdiagnosed, wondering: Why can’t I relax, even when nothing is technically wrong? Why does everything feel so urgent all the time?

Let’s explore how ADHD and anxiety interact—and how trauma-informed therapy (including EMDR, IFS, and therapy intensives) can help you find clarity, calm, and lasting relief.

When most people hear “EMDR,” they think of trauma therapy—and they’re not wrong. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) was originally developed to help people heal from painful or overwhelming life events. But what many don’t realize is that EMDR can also be a deeply powerful tool for people living with ADHD—especially when it’s tangled with shame, perfectionism, and emotional intensity.

ADHD isn’t just about distraction or forgetting your keys. For many adults, especially those who weren’t diagnosed until later in life, ADHD can quietly chip away at your time, your money, your self-esteem, and your sense of peace.

It’s not just the missed appointments or the half-finished projects—it’s the emotional toll of constantly wondering if you’re falling behind, disappointing others, or “just not getting it together.”

And here’s the hard part: sometimes, traditional therapy doesn’t move quickly enough to catch up to the urgency you feel inside.

That’s why therapy intensives can be such a powerful option for people with ADHD. They allow you to dive in, create momentum, and actually feel a shift—in a fraction of the time.