Do certain memories or emotions keep looping through your mind, no matter how much inner work you’ve done or how hard you try to let go?
Maybe it’s trauma you’ve never fully processed. Or anxiety and depression that linger like a shadow you can’t shake. Maybe you feel stuck in patterns that don’t make sense – only that they keep showing up in your relationships, your creative work, or your sense of self.
You might’ve heard of EMDR therapy – but what is it, really? And more importantly: Can it help you?
At Creative Minds Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, I specialize in EMDR therapy that’s grounded in the neuroscience of relationships and healing – attuned to deep relational wounds, and tailored to the creative, rich mind. Whether you’re navigating the aftermath of trauma or feeling blocked from your full potential, EMDR offers a transformative path forward – in particular when it is grounded into a psychoanalytic approach and in neuroscience.
Let’s explore what EMDR is, how it works, and how it might help you reconnect with your life, your own voice and creativity, and your sense of agency – your emotional freedom.
What Is EMDR Therapy?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a powerful, evidence-based therapy that helps the brain reprocess trauma and release emotional conflicts, blocks, and distress. Originally developed for PTSD, it’s now widely used to treat a range of issues – from anxiety and panic attacks to complex trauma and attachment wounds to performance anxiety and creative blocks.
At Creative Minds, I use Attachment-Focused EMDR – a trauma-informed, relational approach that supports your unique healing journey with safety, connection, and depth.
EMDR can help with:
- Childhood trauma or emotional neglect
- Attachment wounds (anxious, avoidant, or disorganized attachment)
- Depression, shame, or inner criticism
- Rejection and abandonment
- Creative blocks or performance anxiety
- Relational trauma and breakups
- Panic, phobias, or social anxiety
- Grief and loss
- Emotional abuse or toxic relationships
- Addictive patterns and behaviors
Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR doesn’t require you to talk through every painful memory. Instead, it activates your brain’s innate healing systems – helping you process stuck emotional experiences in a way that often feels faster, deeper, and more relieving than talk therapy alone.
When EMDR is paired with psychoanalytic therapy, the results can be even more profound – reach deeper.
Psychoanalysis helps you uncover the unconscious roots – while EMDR helps rewire how those experiences live in your body. Together they help shift deeply affective and embodied states that come with self-defeating feelings, beliefs, and actions. It’s not just healing – it’s transformation at the source.
How Does EMDR Therapy Work?
Trauma memories are like emotional time capsules – stuck in the body, mind, and nervous system. EMDR helps gently “unlock” these memories so they can be reprocessed, integrated, and resolved.
Here’s what the EMDR process typically looks like:
- Identify the root experiences: Together, we uncover the memories, feelings, beliefs, and body sensations connected to your current challenges.
- Activate the memory network: While holding a memory in mind, we use bilateral stimulation (eye movement activating movements or tapping) to help your brain unlock and engage the memory network.
- Reprocess the emotional charge: As your mind and brain begins to reprocess, you may notice how deeply held the memories start to release their hold. You can see and feel your experiences from a different, more empowering emotional space – feeling less intense, less threatening, more distant or insightful.
- Replace old feelings and beliefs with healthier ones: You take in more empowering beliefs like “I am safe,” “I matter,” or “I can move forward” – to support real change in how you feel and relate to yourself and others.
Many clients report feeling lighter, more clear, and more emotionally connected. Over time, you may notice more joy, creativity, and ability to have choices in areas where you used to feel stuck.
What Happens in an EMDR Session at Creative Minds Psychotherapy?
At my Los Angeles practice, EMDR sessions are deeply personalized. Whether you’re a creative struggling with blocked expression or someone healing from relational trauma, we move at the pace your nervous system can safely hold. And, more importantly we shift from functioning from a fake and trauma based emotional space to start responding to life from your real self and an emotional place of being in touch and attuned to yourself. You can start responding to life situations as opposed to being on defense or reactive mode.
The beginning of your EMDR therapy journey is more about:
- A warm, exploratory conversation about your history, goals or dreams, and creative or emotional challenges
- Building safety and emotional resources before working with difficult material
- Identifying “targets” – memories, themes, ego states, or core beliefs that hold you stuck
- Starting with resourcing your nervous system and your body – which is healing in itself and also prepares you to start process the identified targets
Throughout our work, I integrate psychoanalytic depth, affective neuroscience, and EMDR to support both insight and embodied healing. This work isn’t about fixing you – it’s about helping you come home to yourself.
Middle of your EMDR Therapy journey:
By now, you may start noticing subtle yet meaningful internal shifts:
- A growing sense of emotional clarity
- Feeling more grounded in yourself
- Less anxious or panicky
- More present and engaged with your life
We continue gathering important pieces of your personal history, and begin processing the key “targets” – the emotionally charged memories or experiences that are at the root of your current struggles.
This phase often unfolds in waves. As we process and integrate trauma, emotional conflicts, and fragmented ego states, you may begin to feel more empowered and connected to your authentic self. Your capacity to tune into your inner world expands. So does your emotional insight, self-awareness, and ability to regulate affective states.
As your integration deepens, a new layer of emotional material often surfaces – older wounds or hidden patterns that are now ready to be processed. This signals that you’re entering deeper therapeutic work.
Many clients describe this part of the journey as an inner transformation that happens without needing to intellectually understand every step. You begin to feel different from the inside out – less reactive, more connected, more open to life. You may find yourself more alive, playful, productive, and creative.
This is what inside-out healing looks like – healing at the root.
The final stage of your EMDR Therapy journey:
Everyone’s experience is unique, but by the end of EMDR therapy, clients often report:
- Emotional transformation: A deep sense of clarity, calm, and internal freedom
- Relational healing: More presence, connection, and self-trust in relationship
- Creative renewal: Reclaiming artistic flow and expression – unblocked, authentic, alive
After the EMDR Therapy people may say things like:
“I remember what happened, but it no longer controls how I feel. I finally feel like myself again.”
“The memory is not hurting or keeping me emotionally stuck anymore.”
“I understand why I felt so trapped in my own skin for so long and feel so relieved to feel free and more in touch with myself.”
“I sleep better, I am more present, more aware, and finally engaged with my life.”
“My creativity unleashed, it feels like it’s coming from my true self not my wounds.”
“I can be on stage and be the performer that I knew I could be, perform from my instincts.”
“ I don’t have to work so hard to fight my nervousness and anxiety about performing, I just perform with my heart open.”
“I am happy with myself with all my challenges and I am happy in my relationships.”
“Once I had a taste of the authentic connection to myself and others, I never want to go back to my injured self.”
“I’m showing up in my relationships and my work in ways I never could before.”
“I can be proud and feel good about myself, how I show up in the world, with other people, and in my creativity.
“Im feeling alive and engaged with my life.”
EMDR doesn’t erase the past – but it changes how the past lives inside you.
Is EMDR Therapy Right for You?
You might benefit from EMDR therapy if you:
- Feel stuck in old emotional or relational patterns that haven’t shifted with talk therapy
- Are a highly sensitive or creative person carrying deep emotional wounds
Struggle with anxiety, grief, or depression rooted in past trauma - Want to move beyond survival into a more expansive, creative, and connected life
Are curious about brain-based, somatic approaches – not just cognitive ones - Want to expand your creativity and be a more authentic performer
Start Your EMDR Therapy Journey
If you’re seeking not just surface-level symptom relief but a deeper transformation with long-term changes from inside-out, this therapy is for you.
At Creative Minds Psychotherapy, I work with creatives, trauma survivors, and emotionally attuned individuals ready to heal at the root from inside-out. Whether you live in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, or in California and you are seeking online sessions, I bring a compassionate, integrative approach that blends EMDR, psychoanalysis, and the neuroscience of connection.
Ready to explore if EMDR is right for you?
Schedule a free consultation today and take your first step toward lasting, inside-out healing -through EMDR, psychoanalysis, and a deep connection to yourself.
I am Dr. Mihaela Ivan Holtz, a therapist specializing in psychoanlytic and EMDR therapy in Los Angeles. With years of experience, she helps adults heal from childhood-rooted relational trauma, anxiety, depression, creative blocks, performance anxiety – creating paths to emotional freedom and authentic living. Contact me today to begin your journey toward emotional freedom.
