Open Paths Now Offers EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (Drop Down Box)

Another way seeks to eliminate intimate partner abuse and violence by directly addressing its causes through group, individual and (when safe), couples and family counseling. Our approach is to work with clients, both those who cause harm, and those who have been harmed, to explore, understand, and process past traumas and learn healthy communication and relationship skills.

For those who are or have caused harm, the process also includes fostering personal responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions. Through psychoeducation, our therapists teach strategies to identify, manage and de-escalate strong emotions. Clients are then provided with the necessary tools to understand and engage in healthy relationships and stop causing harm to their partners, thus ending cycles of abuse and violence.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—or EMDR for short—is a short term intervention to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other forms of trauma. It was pioneered by Dr. Francine Shapiro, who was a psychologist and researcher. Much research has been produced regarding its effectiveness. Today’s internationally renowned trauma expert Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D, and others, have deemed EMDR an important treatment modality when working with trauma. Open Paths uses this therapeutic modality to work with clients struggling with chronic toxic stress, discrete traumatic episodes, and/or Complex Trauma: a series of significant traumas that have accumulated without having been mitigated by protective buffers, such as a strong support network; therefore remaining unprocessed.