Now accepting Arizona clients
EMDR & IFS Therapy for Trauma in Arizona and Utah
If you've been carrying the weight of something that happened, something you've tried to move past, explain away, or simply survive, you're in the right place.
EMDR and IFS are two of the most effective approaches available for healing trauma. They work differently than traditional talk therapy. Rather than just talking about what happened, these modalities help your nervous system actually process and release what it's been holding. The result isn't just understanding your patterns. It's no longer being ruled by them.
I'm Sydney Williams, a licensed therapist specializing in trauma, EMDR, and IFS. I work with teens, college students, young adults, and parents, all virtually across Arizona and Utah.
EMDR
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was developed to treat PTSD and has been widely studied for a long list of mental health concerns, including acute, chronic, and complex trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, OCD, and chronic pain. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (BLS), such as eye movement, sound, body movement, or tapping, to help the brain reprocess targeted experiences. It is an 8-step protocol that can be used as a primary therapeutic approach or as a secondary approach within your treatment.
EMDR works on the founding principle that unresolved past experiences are the root of current symptoms. When those past experiences are resolved, the underlying issues behind your current symptoms are addressed too. In EMDR, we may target past experiences, current triggers and symptoms, or future responses.
About Your Therapist
I'm EMDR trained by an approved EMDRIA Basic Training and have completed continued training in EMDR with children and adolescents through the Agate Institute, as well as trainings in treating complex trauma with IFS. I've worked with clients navigating childhood trauma, relationship wounds, dissociation, anxiety, and the kind of deep shame that's hard to even name.
What I've seen, over and over: healing is possible. Not just coping. Actual change.
IFS
Stands for Internal Family Systems. A therapy modality that focuses on self leadership and internal compassion. It is used to treat trauma, attachment trauma, dissociation, anxiety, depression, self harm, and strong behavioral patterns like perfectionism. IFS uses a parts system framework to understand that no one person is one thing at all times. That we all have parts. Some parts of ourselves we like. Some parts we don't. An important founding belief of IFS is that no part of self is bad. All parts have learned to do jobs in one life in an attempt to meet our own needs. The goal of IFS is to liberate yourself from burdens, restore inner trust, create inner harmony, and become self led. IFS is amazing for reducing shame and implementing lasting changes.
