We direct bill counselling services to Pacific Blue Cross, GreenShield, Canada Life & Sun Life! For a full list of direct billing providers, click here.
Skip to content We direct bill counselling services to Pacific Blue Cross, GreenShield, Canada Life & Sun Life! For a full list of direct billing providers, click here.
EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Despite the weird acronym and unconventional way it’s conducted, most clients find EMDR to be beneficial because it gets to the root of an issue, offering insights on deeper dynamics at play.
It doesn’t require the traumatic retelling of events and its effects are often seen within a shorter amount of time when compared to traditional talk therapy.
Essentially, EMDR taps into your brain’s natural wiring by engaging in specific cadences of bilateral stimulation that mimics REM sleep processes and physical motion. Both of these processes help you address the subconscious neuropathways that are keeping your internal alarm active beyond what you find necessary. As you’re guided through the protocol, it works to help you build the neural networks that will actually work for you.
Contrary to popular belief, EMDR can be used for a wide range of concerns and is not limited to what is traditionally quantified as “PTSD” or “Trauma”. EMDR can be effective for addressing various concerns, including:
Anxiety and phobias
Depression
Chronic pain and chronic conditions
Addictions
Stress and performance anxiety
Initial EMDR counselling session involve mapping the experiences and beliefs that you want to work through, while exploring what practices of bilateral stimulation have already been useful for you. Your therapist may also support you in building grounding supports and/or do a mini EMDR processing test to build your personalized bilateral stimulation cadence. This mini EMDR test also helps to ensure that the impacts of EMDR feel sustainable for you before diving into more rooted experiences and memories.
You’ll then be guided through the bilateral stimulation process, which may involve eye movements, body movements, tapping, drumming, and/or auditory cues, while your brain processes freely. As emotions or insights arise, your EMDR therapist will provide support and support you in navigating them.
General Considerations
Because EMDR therapy has a specific protocol, we recommend you book an 80-minute session with your therapist so that we have enough time to work through the complete sequence we’re processing in each session.
As with all therapies, there are potential impacts to be aware of. General considerations specific to EMDR include a temporary increase in emotional distress or physical sensations during processing, experiencing more vivid dreams between sessions as the brain continues to process, experiencing an emergence of previously suppressed memories, and feeling more emotionally vulnerable between sessions. Your therapist will help guide you through these potential impacts and support you in developing resources to mitigate them as you’re moving forward with sessions.
EMDR can be a standalone practice or engaged in conjunction with other counselling services. Depending on what you’re looking to process, your EMDR therapist may recommend continuing with a series of EMDR sessions before returning to other therapeutic processes. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to book a free consult with one of our EMDR-trained therapists!
Our EMDR therapy sessions are typically 80 minutes long and cost $240 per session. The longer session length allows for proper preparation, processing, and integration of the EMDR work.
We offer direct billing to most extended health insurance plans and accept funding through CVAP, ICBC, WorkBC, FNHA, and Autism Funding.
Book a free 15-minute consultation to discuss pricing and insurance options.
We offer direct billing to select insurance providers and funded programs. Start with a free 15-minute video conversation to find out more.
Each of our counsellors brings a different lens to EMDR Therapy.
Here’s how they approach it, so you can sense who might feel like the right fit.
For folx whose concerns are connected to fitting — or not fitting — into spaces that were never built for them. Jess works with people who have spent a long time editing themselves to conform to the “rules”, and are ready to stop measuring their worth against standards that never accounted for who they actually are. Her sessions draw on art therapy, walk and talk, and EMDR, and suit folx who want to experiment and access healing supported by neurobiology, creativity, and community.
Work with Jess if you’ve spent a long time being told who you should be, and you’re more interested in figuring out what actually fits.
*Currently only accepting therapy clients through community referral.
Please email to book.
If you want to use EMDR as a tool for identity exploration rather than trauma processing alone, Abby works with it that way. Her sessions use EMDR alongside creative prompts, IFS, Pain Reprocessing Therapy, somatic and integration work to help people understand themselves more clearly, particularly around identity, relational patterns, and the internalized beliefs that shape how people move through the world. She works primarily with practitioners and adults navigating complex ethical and personal terrain, and brings humor, directness, and political clarity to that work.
Work with Abby if you’re looking for a therapist who names power directly, asks lots of questions, and uses humor to stay honest without pretending things aren’t hard.
Q&A
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy in Vancouver and Port Moody is an evidence-based treatment that helps your brain process traumatic memories and experiences in a new way. Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR doesn’t require detailed retelling of traumatic events. Instead, it uses bilateral stimulation – typically eye movements, but also tapping, drumming, or sounds – to activate your brain’s natural healing processes, similar to what happens during REM sleep. This helps reprocess stuck memories and reduce their emotional charge, allowing you to develop new, healthier perspectives on past experiences. Sessions can be virtual across BC or in-person at our Vancouver and Port Moody locations.
EMDR therapy is effective for much more than just PTSD or traditional trauma. It can help with anxiety and phobias, depression, chronic pain and chronic conditions, addictions, self-esteem and self-worth issues, grief and loss, stress and performance anxiety, and relationship issues. EMDR works by addressing the underlying memories and beliefs that contribute to current symptoms, making it effective for a wide range of mental health concerns.
Your first EMDR session begins with a free 15-minute consultation to discuss your needs and ensure EMDR is a good fit. In your first full session, we’ll map the experiences and beliefs you want to work through and explore what types of bilateral stimulation might work best for you. Your therapist will help you build grounding supports and may do a mini EMDR processing test to create your personalized bilateral stimulation approach. This test also ensures that EMDR feels sustainable for you before working with deeper experiences. Sessions are typically 80 minutes to allow for complete processing cycles.
The number of EMDR sessions varies depending on your individual needs and what you’re processing. Starting with at least 3-6 sessions will give you an idea of EMDR’s effectiveness for you. Some people notice significant changes within a few sessions, while others benefit from longer-term EMDR work. Your therapist will work with you to determine the right approach based on your goals, the complexity of what you’re processing, and how you respond to the treatment. EMDR can be used as a standalone therapy or integrated with other therapeutic approaches.
EMDR is most effective with free association, just let whatever happens, happen! You may experience feelings, thoughts, body sensations. You may experience nothing. Whatever you experience, you will be asked to notice it as if you were passing by it on a train rather than being within the experience. If at any time you feel overwhelmed, you only need to raise your hand to stop the process. We’ll check in with you in the break between sets. There are no right or wrong answers. This information will only guide future sets.
Your feelings surrounding a given event will be rated by you (from 1-10) both prior to and after EMDR session. The aim of every EMDR session is noticeable shifts in your relationship with the events by the time you leave each session.
EMDR sessions can be done in either 50- or 80-minute intervals. Because we want enough time and spaciousness to fully work through both the negative associations with the event AND to build different perspectives into your experience, we recommend doing 80-minute EMDR sessions for the best experience.
EMDR therapy involves eight phases, including history-taking, preparation, assessment, desensitization, installation, body scan, closure, and re-evaluation. In the desensitization and installation phases, you’ll be guided to focus on pre-mapped memories while engaging in bilateral stimulation, typically through eye movements, body movements, taps, drumming, and/or sounds.
You’ll know EMDR is working if you experience shifts in your perspective during sessions or notice fewer triggers in your daily life. Your therapist will ask you to rate your feelings about specific events on a scale of 1-10 both before and after each session, and the goal is to see noticeable shifts by the end of each session. However, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the process or noticing increased distress between sessions, it’s important to let your therapist know so they can adjust their approach. EMDR isn’t the right fit for everyone, and that’s completely okay.
Yes, we offer virtual EMDR therapy sessions across British Columbia. Virtual EMDR can be very effective, and your therapist can guide you through various forms of bilateral stimulation that work well online, including self-tapping, audio cues, or visual stimulation on your screen. Many clients appreciate the comfort and safety of doing this vulnerable work from their own space. You can always switch between virtual and in-person sessions at our Vancouver or Port Moody offices based on your needs and preferences.
Our approach to EMDR therapy is grounded in anti-oppressive, justice-oriented frameworks that recognize how systemic oppression and cultural trauma impact healing. We understand that trauma doesn’t exist in isolation but is often connected to experiences of discrimination, marginalization, and systemic harm. Our EMDR-trained therapists bring both professional expertise and cultural understanding to this work, creating space where you don’t need to explain or justify your identity or experiences. We integrate EMDR with other therapeutic modalities as needed and honor your cultural background as a source of strength in your healing journey.
Yes, our practice is specifically designed to support SDQTBIPOC+ communities who often experience unique forms of trauma related to discrimination, violence, and systemic oppression. Our EMDR-trained counsellors understand how racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of systemic harm create and compound trauma. We provide culturally responsive EMDR therapy that doesn’t require you to educate your therapist about your background or experiences. We also work with survivors of various forms of trauma with specialized understanding of how these experiences intersect with identity and systemic oppression.
That’s completely normal and not a problem at all! If eye movements feel uncomfortable or cause nausea, your therapist can adjust the speed or suggest alternative forms of bilateral stimulation. These might include tapping, drumming, walking, or auditory cues. The key is finding a bilateral stimulation method that feels comfortable and effective for you. EMDR is highly adaptable, and your therapist will work with you to find the approach that works best for your body and nervous system.
If you’ve had a previous EMDR experience that wasn’t helpful, it might be worth exploring what made it ineffective. Sometimes the timing wasn’t right, the therapist wasn’t a good fit, or the approach wasn’t tailored to your specific needs. Our therapists take time to understand your previous experiences and adapt their approach accordingly. We also integrate EMDR with other therapeutic modalities and work within anti-oppressive frameworks that may address aspects of your experience that weren’t considered before. Every person’s healing journey is different, and what didn’t work before might work now, or we might find that other approaches are better suited to your current needs.
EMDR is generally safe when conducted by trained therapists, but there are some temporary effects to be aware of. You might experience a temporary increase in emotional distress or physical sensations during processing, more vivid dreams between sessions as your brain continues to process, emergence of previously suppressed memories, or feeling more emotionally vulnerable between sessions. Your therapist will help you prepare for these potential effects and develop resources to support you through the process. You can always raise your hand to stop the bilateral stimulation if you feel overwhelmed.
Get Matched
We offer direct billing to select insurance providers & funded programs. Start with a free 15-minute video conversation or get your personalized recommendations straight to your inbox, with this 3-minute form.
EMDR therapy works with the nervous system to process experiences that talk therapy alone hasn’t been able to shift. These are some of the concerns our counsellors support through EMDR in Vancouver and Port Moody.
occupying the stolen, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Qayqayt, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) peoples. Our relationship with these lands dictates our commitment to understanding and responding to the ongoing impacts of colonization in our practices in and out of the counselling room.
Learn more about the land you’re occupying at native-land.ca
