WEEKLY EMDR THERAPY · SHEFFIELD & ONLINE
Heal the memory.
Feel like yourself again.
Weekly EMDR therapy for people carrying difficult experiences from their journey into parenthood. EMDR can support you to process the past and reclaim the present.
↓ Find out more below
Dr Helen Lewis · DClinPsy · Clinical Psychologist
£120 per 60 minute session
Perhaps it comes back in flashes, or in the way your body tightens in certain situations. Maybe you’ve found yourself avoiding things you didn’t used to think twice about, or struggling to feel fully present: with yourself or your new family.
Maybe there’s also a part of you that tells you that you should be over it by now, that what happened wasn’t bad enough to still be affecting you. That voice is wrong. Trauma doesn’t measure itself against what other people have been through; it measures itself against what your nervous system could hold at the time. Your mind has done it’s best to process what’s happened, but sometimes an event gets stored in a way that keeps it active.
Weekly EMDR therapy offers a specific, structured and evidence-based way to process what happened, without requiring you to retell it.
You didn’t expect it to still be affecting you.
WHAT BRINGS PEOPLE HERE
People often arrive having experienced:
A birth that felt frightening, chaotic, or out of control.
A medical emergency during pregnancy or birth.
Time in the NICU, or any period of not knowing whether your baby was going to be alright.
An experience of feeling unseen, dismissed, or not cared for by the people who were supposed to be helping
Fertility treatment that took a toll you weren’t expecting or prepared for.
A previous trauma that the experience of becoming a parent has brought back to the surface
If you're not sure whether your experience fits, please still reach out. Part of what an initial consultation is for is thinking through that together.
ABOUT THE APPROACH
How EMDR works, and why it’s different.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is one of the most respected and evidence-based therapies available for trauma, recommended by the NHS, the WHO, and NICE.
Some experiences don't get stored as neat, packaged events. When something happens that overwhelms the brain's ability to process it in the moment, that experience can stay active and unresolved rather than settling into the past. Long after the event itself has ended, these memories often carry the same intensity: the same strong emotions, physical sensations, and sense of danger. It can feel as though it’s still happening.
EMDR works directly with those memories, supporting your brain to complete the processing it would naturally have done at the time, if conditions had allowed.
In practice, this means there's no need to describe everything in detail, or to relive what happened. EMDR therapy is designed to connect with and process memories in a way that reaches things that talking alone isn't able to touch.
It works quickly
EMDR can shift things that talking for years sometimes hasn't. Because it works beneath the narrative rather than through it, change tends to come faster than people expect.
You remain in control
You choose what to work on and we will never go somewhere before you’re ready. You always have a way to pause or slow down the process.
The goal is ordinary life.
We’re not aiming to cope with it better. Our goal is for the memory to settle into the past. It won't be gone, but it won't be as painful, and it definitely won't be running the show anymore.
Dr Helen Lewis, Clinical Psychologist
ABOUT YOUR PSYCHOLOGIST
My specialism is the psychological experience of building a family — across all routes to parenthood, all family configurations, and everything that can happen along the way.
Using EMDR, I work with people navigating birth trauma, the cumulative weight of fertility treatment, and experiences that have been filed away because life moves on quickly after them. This approach is a well-researched therapy for trauma that doesn't require you to talk through everything in detail to begin to feel differently about it.
My training as a Clinical Psychologist and Schema Therapist adds another dimension to our work: an eye for what older beliefs and relational patterns might be shaping how a more recent experience has landed, and how long it stays. Perinatal trauma is woven into the beginning of a relationship with your child. The pain sits alongside love in a way that makes it difficult to name. Understanding this is central to how I work.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A clear path forward
01
Before anything else, I want to understand you — your history, what happened, and how it's showing up now. A careful assessment shapes everything that follows and means we work on what actually needs working on.
We begin with an assessment
02
Before processing begins, we focus on preparation. This means developing the internal resources that allow you to work with difficult material without being overwhelmed by it: tools you can draw on both in and between sessions. Some people move through this stage quickly; others take longer. The pace is led by what feels manageable, not by a fixed timeline.
We build the foundations
03
Processing sessions use eye movements or another form of bilateral stimulation to help the brain complete the processing it wasn't able to finish at the time. Gradually, what happened begins to lose its charge. The memory becomes part of your story rather than something that's still happening to you.
We process, at your pace
IS THIS RIGHT FOR YOU?
Weekly EMDR may be the right fit if…
You want space in between sessions
Weekly therapy allows for a gradual, contained processing with time to integrate between sessions. If you value that rhythm, or if you might benefit from extra time to prepare before processing begins, this format is designed for you.
You prefer a more manageable investment
Sessions are priced per appointment rather than a concentrated block, making this format more accessible if a full intensive isn’t the right fit right now.
You’re currently pregnant or recently postpartum
Weekly therapy offers the consistency and relational continuity that this phase of life particularly benefits from.
Your schedule can’t fit in an intensive
Arranging three consecutive days away from family or work isn't always possible. Weekly sessions fit into the ordinary rhythm of life without asking you to reorganise it around them.
WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE
Life on the other side.
The memories start to lose their charge. You find yourself more present with yourself, and the people around you. What happens becomes part of your story rather than something that feels like it’s still happening.
Our goal isn’t to forget, or to be unchanged by what you went through. Instead, we want the experience to take up exactly as much space as it deserves, no more, so that it no longer shapes everything else.
Your body starts to relax once the memories that made you feel frighted or out of control start to lose their power.
Feel safe in your body again
What happened doesn’t disappear and it doesn’t need to. It finds it’s place in your history and becomes something that happened, rather than something that organises everything else.
A place for it in your story
When triggers don’t control you anymore, you start to feel more present with yourself and with the people that you love.
Feel like yourself again
STARTING IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK
Four steps from here to there.
01
A 20-minute conversation, no pressure, no commitment. A chance to talk about what you've been carrying and to explore together whether an EMDR intensive feels like the right path for you.
Book a free consultation
02
Getting to know your history, understanding what happened, and building the resources you need before approaching the memory itself.
Assessment & Preparation
03
The EMDR work itself: processing the memory, reducing its charge, and shifting the beliefs that formed around it. Sessions are paced carefully and feel managable.
EMDR Processing
04
Consolidating what has shifted, and making sure the work has settled before we close. This is also a time to notice what has changed: in how you feel and how you relate to the memory.
Integration & Endings
A free, no-pressure conversation is all it takes to begin.
READY TO START?
20 minutes · no commitment required
or email: helen@philospsychology.co.uk
QUESTIONS
What people ask before getting in touch
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EMDR is not contraindicated in pregnancy, and the research supports its safety. In practice, how we work will depend on where you are in your pregnancy and what you are bringing. Stabilisation and preparation work are appropriate at any stage. Whether we move into active processing during pregnancy is something we would consider carefully together — though for many people, it is both safe and important not to wait.
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EMDR works well beyond a formal trauma diagnosis. Pregnancy loss, failed fertility treatment, a birth that did not go as hoped: these experiences often carry traumatic elements such as intrusive memories, avoidance, distress that lives in the body. If something is still feeling active, EMDR may be helpful.
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The word trauma can feel like it sets the bar too high. What matters is whether an experience is still affecting how you feel, think, or move through your days — not whether it meets a particular clinical threshold. If you are unsure, the consultation call is a good place to explore that.
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After a brief check-in, we identify what we are working with and move into the processing itself. This involves holding the memory in mind while following a bilateral stimulus — usually eye movements, tapping, or audio tones. I guide you through noticing what comes up, though you do not need to narrate it aloud. Sessions are 60 minutes, although extended sessions can also be arranged.
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No. For many people, this is one of the things that makes EMDR feel different. You hold the memory in mind during the processing, but you do not need to narrate it in full. The work happens without everything needing to be put into words.
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It is common to feel a little stirred up between sessions, particularly early in the processing phase. This is not a sign that something is going wrong. The preparation phase exists for exactly this reason, and you will have what you need to manage what comes up between sessions.
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It depends on what you are bringing and how complex it is. A single incident often responds in a relatively small number of sessions. More layered presentations take longer. We will have a clearer picture following assessment.
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This is genuinely hard to predict before we have met. The assessment gives us both a much better sense of what the work involves and roughly how long it might take.
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Sessions are £120 per 60 minute session.