Where most of the work happens
IFS-informed EMDR
Standard EMDR asks you to hold a memory and let the processing run. For people with developmental trauma that instruction often meets an internal objection: a part of you that has spent years keeping the material at a distance, and has good reasons. IFS-informed EMDR treats that objection as information rather than resistance. Processing starts when the protective parts agree to it, not when the protocol says it is time. This is the focus of Reem Glasco's clinical work, and the reason most people arrive here. Sessions are 50 minutes, self-pay, online anywhere in Texas, with Blue Cross Blue Shield accepted.
What it is, in short
- What it combines
- EMDR with Internal Family Systems parts work
- Built for
- Developmental trauma, C-PTSD, and EMDR that has stalled or flooded
- The core move
- Get to know the protector before processing the target
- Emphasis
- Phases one and two, history-taking and preparation
- Reem's training
- IFS-informed EMDR steps one through three, completed 2025; EMDR certified; EMDRIA Approved Consultant
- Format
- Online, anywhere in Texas
- Session
- 50 minutes, $240 self-pay; Blue Cross Blue Shield accepted
Why standard EMDR stalls
If the trauma is a single event and your nervous system is otherwise stable, standard protocol often works well and quickly. If the trauma is developmental, something else is true: parts of you organized around keeping that material away, and they did it for years, competently, because at the time it was the only thing keeping you functional.
Ask those parts to stand aside for a protocol and they will do what they have always done. The processing floods, or it flatlines, or you find yourself unable to bring the target to mind at all. From the outside it looks like EMDR not working. From the inside it is a protector doing its job.
What changes with parts work
Internal Family Systems gives us language for that. Rather than pushing past the protector, we get to know it. What is it afraid will happen if you go near this? What does it need in place first? What has it been carrying, and for how long?
Reem's emphasis is phases one and two, history-taking and preparation, because that is where stalled EMDR actually stalls. Build enough stability and enough internal agreement there, and the later phases stop being a fight.
What this looks like in session
- Naming the parts in the room: the one that wants to heal, the one that wants to leave, the one that thinks this is self-indulgent.
- Unblending, so you can look at a part rather than speak as it.
- Asking permission from protectors before any target gets processed.
- Resourcing and stabilization that a protective part actually trusts.
- Slowing or pausing processing when a part objects, and treating that objection as information rather than resistance.
It tends to fit when
- EMDR has been tried before and went nowhere, or went badly.
- You flood, dissociate or go blank when you approach the material.
- Part of you wants this and part of you really does not.
- The trauma is developmental and layered rather than a single event.
Reem completed steps one through three of IFS-informed EMDR training in 2025, is EMDR certified and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and consults with other therapists on exactly this problem.
Related
Trauma therapy here
Developmental trauma and C-PTSD as a course of therapy, with fees, openings and how to start.
NARM
Names the pattern a protector is defending, which often makes the parts work land faster.
Somatic Experiencing
Builds the capacity a protective part needs before it will agree to anything.
Therapists: consultation
If your own clients' EMDR keeps stalling, this is what Reem consults on. $185 an hour, online.
Questions about IFS-informed EMDR
What is Internal Family Systems?
A model that treats the mind as made up of parts, each with its own job and its own fears, around a core self that is not a part. Protective parts manage pain; exiled parts carry it. The work is relational: you get to know a part rather than overriding it.
Is this the same as full IFS therapy?
No. This is EMDR practiced with IFS awareness, not IFS as a standalone treatment. The parts work is in service of making EMDR usable for developmental trauma, particularly in the preparation phases.
My EMDR flooded me last time. Will that happen again?
It is the specific thing this approach exists to prevent. Flooding usually means processing started before the parts holding the material had agreed to it, or before there was enough resourcing for them to trust. Both are preparation problems, and preparation is where the emphasis sits here.
How is this different from just going slower?
Pace helps, but the obstacle is not usually speed. A protector that believes something catastrophic follows from touching this material will object at any speed. What changes things is finding out what it is protecting and what it needs, which is a different conversation rather than a slower one.
Do I have to believe in parts for this to work?
No. Parts language is a working model, not a metaphysics. Plenty of people use it as a convenient way of describing conflicting impulses they already recognize, and the work proceeds the same either way.
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.