How the methods work, in plain language
People arrive here having already tried something. Usually it helped a little, or it helped and then stopped, or it asked them to go back through the worst of it and they did not want to.
These four are a different bet. Reem's focus is IFS-informed EMDR: EMDR run with parts awareness, so the protective parts of you get consulted rather than overridden. Somatic Experiencing sets the pace the nervous system can hold, NARM works with the patterns that formed in childhood, and Brainspotting comes in where it helps. What follows is how each one works, and what the first weeks tend to look like.
The four methods
NARM
The NeuroAffective Relational Model. Where a lifelong pattern was learned, how it was serving you, and whether it still is.
Somatic Experiencing
What the body is still holding, approached in doses small enough to integrate rather than flood.
EMDR
Finishing the processing of experiences stored raw, with stabilization first. EMDR certified, EMDRIA Approved Consultant.
IFS-informed EMDR
Where most of the work happens. For developmental trauma, and for EMDR that has stalled, flooded or gone nowhere.
Brainspotting and BASE-P come in where they help, and are not separate courses of treatment so much as alternate routes when the main ones will not settle.
How they fit together
They are not four separate treatments you pick between. In practice they interlock: NARM asks what pattern is running and where it was learned, Somatic Experiencing sets the pace your nervous system can hold, and IFS-informed EMDR does the processing once the first two have made room for it.
Which one leads on a given day depends on what you arrive with. A week of acute stress calls for stabilization. A recurring relational pattern calls for curiosity. A memory that keeps intruding calls for processing, once the parts holding it are on board.
You do not have to sort yourself into the right method before making contact. That is what the consult is for.
- NARM
- Why the pattern exists and what it costs you now
- Somatic Experiencing
- How fast we can go without flooding you
- EMDR
- Processing what got stored raw, once there is footing
- IFS-informed EMDR
- Getting internal agreement first, then processing
- Brainspotting
- An alternate route when EMDR targeting will not settle
What the first weeks tend to look like
No two courses of therapy run the same way, and this is a shape rather than a schedule. It is here because "we will work with what you bring" is true and tells you nothing about what you are agreeing to.
- The consult
- Fifteen minutes, free. What is going on, what you have already tried, and whether this is the right practice at all. It ends in a referral elsewhere if that is the honest answer.
- The early sessions
- History-taking and preparation, which is where Reem's emphasis sits. Nothing gets opened in the first hour.
- Before any processing
- Somatic Experiencing builds the footing, in doses small enough to integrate. Any part of you with an objection to the whole project gets consulted rather than argued with.
- Processing
- When the protective parts agree to it, rather than when the protocol says it is time. How long that takes varies, and arriving slowly is not a delay.
- Underneath all of it
- NARM, tracking the pattern rather than the incident, for as long as the work lasts.
Some of this happens outdoors rather than on a screen: walk and talk therapy on a trail, and equine sessions near Dripping Springs.
Between sessions, Effort-less Self-Care is the same work in its smallest form: seven short steps that build the same capacity the preparation phase builds, without asking you to process anything alone.
Questions about the methods
Which method will Reem use with me?
Whichever the week calls for. She is a NARM therapist, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and EMDR certified, so the approaches move with what you bring rather than being chosen in advance. NARM tracks the pattern, Somatic Experiencing sets the pacing, IFS-informed EMDR handles processing when there is room for it.
Do the methods get used in the same session?
Often, yes. They are not sequential modules. A single session can start with noticing what the body is doing, name the pattern that showed up, and end without processing anything at all if that is what the day holds.
Why not just do standard EMDR?
For a single discrete trauma with a stable nervous system, standard protocol often works well. When trauma is developmental and layered, parts of you have organized around keeping it away, and processing that skips those parts tends to flood, stall or stop working. Consulting them first is slower at the start and faster overall.
What is Brainspotting, and where does it fit?
An approach that uses fixed eye position to access where material is held, developed out of EMDR practice. Here it is an alternate route rather than a main one: useful when EMDR targeting will not settle, or when a client processes more easily without the back-and-forth of bilateral stimulation.
How can I learn more?
The frequently asked questions page collects everything that is not specific to one service: fees and insurance, how the methods differ, complex PTSD, what Texas requires of a counselor, and how to start. If the answer is not there either, a free consult is the quickest way to get one.
This practice does not provide emergency care. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Start with a conversation
Therapy consults are fifteen minutes. Supervision and EMDR consultation consults are thirty. Both are free and commit you to nothing.