EMDR Therapy in Massachusetts (Virtual Sessions Available)
Heal trauma, anxiety, and PTSD with evidence-based EMDR therapy. Insurance accepted.
Massachusetts residents deserve accessible, high-quality mental health care. At EMDR Unlocked, we provide evidence-based EMDR therapy to help you heal from trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and depression—all through secure, convenient telehealth sessions. Whether you're in Boston's bustling neighborhoods, Worcester's historic districts, or Springfield's vibrant communities, expert care is just a click away.
Why Virtual EMDR Therapy Works for Massachusetts
From navigating Boston's traffic to managing long commutes across MetroWest, finding time for mental health care can be challenging. Virtual EMDR therapy eliminates these barriers. No more sitting in traffic on I-90 or searching for parking in Cambridge. Access expert trauma treatment from your home, office, or anywhere with an internet connection. Our telehealth platform is HIPAA-compliant and delivers the same effective results as in-person therapy—with the added benefits of flexibility, privacy, and convenience.
Bilateral stimulation — the core mechanism of EMDR — adapts seamlessly to telehealth. Visual tracking follows a moving dot on your screen, auditory tones alternate between your left and right ear through headphones, or you use the butterfly hug technique (crossing your arms and alternately tapping your own shoulders). Research confirms virtual bilateral stimulation is equally effective as in-person delivery. All you need is a private space, a reliable internet connection, and a pair of headphones.
Conditions We Treat with EMDR Therapy
PTSD & Trauma
Process traumatic memories and reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder
Anxiety Disorders
Address panic attacks, social anxiety, phobias, and generalized anxiety
Depression
Work through depressive symptoms and rediscover joy in daily life
Complex Trauma
Heal from childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, and attachment wounds
Addiction & Recovery
Address the trauma driving substance use with EMDR's evidence-based protocol
Virtual EMDR Therapy
Access effective EMDR treatment from anywhere in Massachusetts via telehealth
Bilingual Therapy Services for Massachusetts Communities
Massachusetts is home to vibrant Latino communities in Lawrence, Chelsea, Lynn, and beyond. We're proud to offer fully bilingual EMDR therapy in English and Spanish, ensuring culturally sensitive care for all residents. Whether you prefer therapy in English or Spanish, you'll receive the same expert treatment tailored to your cultural background and experiences.
Meet Sherly Millan, LICSW
Sherly Millan is a Massachusetts Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) specializing in EMDR therapy for trauma recovery. With advanced training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Sherly helps adults heal from PTSD, anxiety, depression, and complex trauma. As a bilingual therapist fluent in English and Spanish, she provides culturally competent care to Massachusetts' diverse communities. Sherly's approach combines evidence-based EMDR techniques with compassionate, personalized support—creating a safe space for healing and transformation.
Sherly holds EMDRIA certification — a credential that goes significantly beyond basic EMDR training. EMDRIA certification requires completing an approved training program, accumulating supervised consultation hours with an EMDRIA-Approved Consultant, and meeting ongoing continuing education requirements. It distinguishes therapists who have invested in deep, accountable EMDR training from those who completed a weekend workshop.
Endorsed by Fellow Clinicians
Verified on Psychology Today
What You Can Expect
Average Sessions
Most single-trauma clients see significant improvement
Virtual & Secure
HIPAA-compliant sessions from the comfort of your home
Free Consultation
15-minute call to see if EMDR is right for you
How EMDR Therapy Works
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based psychotherapy that helps your brain process traumatic memories naturally. During sessions, you'll recall distressing experiences while engaging in bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or audio tones). This activates your brain's natural healing mechanisms, allowing traumatic memories to be reprocessed and stored in a healthier way. Research shows EMDR is highly effective—100% of single-trauma patients and 77% of multiple-trauma patients no longer had PTSD after just 6 sessions on average.
How Bilateral Stimulation Works: The Science Behind EMDR
When we experience trauma — whether as children or adults — our brains are flooded with intense information all at once. Under normal circumstances, experiences get processed and filed away as memories with a clear beginning, middle, and end. But trauma is different. It can get stored with all of its raw emotion, charge, negative beliefs, and physical sensations still intact. This is why traumatic memories feel so vivid — and why our bodies and minds can react to them as though the event is happening right now.
Two brain structures help explain why this happens. The amygdala constantly scans our environment for danger — and when trauma is present, it may begin signaling a threat and triggering the fight-or-flight response even when you are completely safe. The thalamus acts like a switchboard, organizing all incoming information and routing experiences to their proper places in memory. During a traumatic event, the thalamus can become overwhelmed and scattered. As a result, traumatic memories get stored as raw, vivid experiences rather than as neatly categorized past events.
This is where bilateral stimulation — the core mechanism of EMDR — comes in. In simple terms, bilateral stimulation engages both sides of the brain alternately, through eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones that shift between left and right. A helpful way to understand this is through REM sleep. During REM, our eyes naturally move back and forth while the brain processes and categorizes everything we experienced during the day, sorting it all into the correct places in memory. Bilateral stimulation activates this same built-in processing system while you are fully awake. During EMDR, you hold a traumatic memory in mind while engaging in bilateral stimulation — what we call dual attention. This allows your brain to process the emotional charge out of the memory, so it can finally be stored as something that happened in the past, rather than something still happening now.
The Evidence Behind EMDR Therapy
EMDR is one of the most rigorously studied psychotherapy approaches in the world. The World Health Organization (2013) recommends EMDR as one of only two therapies for PTSD in both adults and children, specifically noting that it does not require detailed descriptions of traumatic events. The American Psychological Association (2017) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs / Department of Defense Clinical Practice Guidelines both recognize EMDR as an evidence-based treatment for PTSD.
Clinical trials back this up with striking results. In controlled studies, 84–90% of single-trauma survivors no longer met diagnostic criteria for PTSD after just three 90-minute EMDR sessions (Rothbaum et al., 1997; Wilson et al., 1995). An EMDRIA-cited study found 100% of single-trauma and 77% of multiple-trauma participants were free of PTSD diagnosis after an average of six sessions. Growing research also supports EMDR's effectiveness for anxiety disorders, depression rooted in past experiences, and complex trauma.
The 8 Phases of EMDR Therapy
EMDR follows a structured eight-phase protocol developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro and endorsed by EMDRIA. Each phase builds on the last, guiding you from initial assessment through complete memory reprocessing. Sherly Millan, LICSW, follows this protocol in every session — ensuring systematic, safe, and effective treatment.
Phase 1 — History & Treatment Planning: Sherly gathers your history, identifies target memories, and builds a roadmap for treatment. You share only what you're comfortable with. No details are required.
Phase 2 — Preparation: You learn stabilization techniques and grounding exercises so you always feel safe and in control throughout treatment. Many clients find this phase transformative on its own.
Phase 3 — Assessment: Together you identify a specific target memory, the negative belief it created (such as 'I'm not safe' or 'It was my fault'), and how you'd prefer to feel about yourself.
Phase 4 — Desensitization: Using bilateral stimulation — eye movements, tapping, or audio tones — your brain begins reprocessing the target memory. Most clients feel the emotional charge diminish noticeably within a session.
Phase 5 — Installation: The positive belief you want to hold about yourself is strengthened and locked in. Clients often report a meaningful shift in self-perception during this phase.
Phase 6 — Body Scan: You check for any remaining physical tension or distress held in the body. EMDR recognizes that trauma lives in the nervous system, not just the mind.
Phase 7 — Closure: Every session ends with grounding. Sherly ensures you leave feeling stable, resourced, and calm — never flooded or overwhelmed between sessions.
Phase 8 — Re-evaluation: Each new session begins by checking whether gains from the last session have held and guides the direction of continued treatment.
Is EMDR Therapy Right for You?
EMDR was originally developed to treat PTSD, but research has since expanded its applications significantly. You may be a good candidate for EMDR if you experience persistent anxiety or panic that feels disproportionate to your current circumstances, depression rooted in early or repeated painful experiences, trauma responses from past events that continue to affect your daily functioning, grief or loss that has become stuck and unmoving, or self-limiting beliefs and performance anxiety holding you back from living fully.
EMDR does not require you to describe traumatic events in detail. It works with how memories are stored neurologically — allowing your brain to reprocess distressing experiences without extensive verbal retelling. This makes it particularly effective for people who have struggled to make progress in traditional talk therapy.
Sherly works with adults navigating childhood trauma, relationship trauma, medical trauma, first responder trauma, and cumulative stress. Bilingual sessions in English and Spanish are available throughout Massachusetts.
Insurance Accepted for EMDR Therapy in Massachusetts
EMDR Unlocked is now in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), Aetna, and Cigna in Massachusetts. We are actively credentialing with Tufts Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim, Optum/UnitedHealthcare, WellSense, and MassHealth. EMDR therapy is typically covered as an outpatient mental health benefit — the same benefit that covers any psychotherapy session. We will help verify your specific coverage during your free 15-minute consultation.
Not yet in-network? We provide a superbill for out-of-network reimbursement — many clients recover 50–80% of session costs through their out-of-network benefit.
"Credentialing in progress" means we have applied to join those panels and are completing the provider enrollment process — typically a 3–6 month timeline. We will notify clients as soon as each carrier goes live.
View Insurance & Coverage DetailsFrequently Asked Questions About EMDR in Massachusetts
Serving Communities Throughout Massachusetts
Virtual EMDR therapy available to residents across the Commonwealth
- Boston
- Cambridge
- Somerville
- Brookline
- Newton
- Quincy
- Waltham
- Watertown
- Arlington
- Belmont
- Medford
- Malden
- Revere
- Chelsea
- Everett
- Lynn
- Salem
- Peabody
- Beverly
- Danvers
- Lowell
- Lawrence
- Haverhill
- Methuen
- Andover
- Framingham
- Natick
- Needham
- Wellesley
- Lexington
- Concord
- Marlborough
- Brockton
- Weymouth
- Braintree
- Plymouth
- Worcester
- Springfield
- New Bedford