EMDR Therapy in Tustin & Orange County —
In Person and Online Across California
EMDR therapy helps you heal the experiences your nervous system never finished processing — the ones still driving your anxiety, your food and body struggles, and your hardest-to-shake beliefs about yourself.
I'm Chloe Cox, LMFT, an EMDR-trained psychotherapist with an office in Tustin, centrally located for all of Orange County, and this is the core of how I work.
What is EMDR?
EMDR — Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — is a structured, evidence-based psychotherapy developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro and supported by decades of research. It's recognized as an effective treatment for trauma by the American Psychological Association, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and it's increasingly used to address the trauma and negative beliefs underlying eating disorders, body image distress, and anxiety.
The premise: when something overwhelming happens, the brain sometimes stores the memory in an unprocessed, "stuck" form — with the original emotions, body sensations, and beliefs still attached. Later, everyday triggers reactivate that raw material, and you react as if the old threat were happening now. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (typically guided eye movements or tapping) while you briefly connect with the memory, allowing your brain to finally file it as past rather than present.
How EMDR works:
EMDR follows an eight-phase protocol. In practice, it looks like this:
History and treatment planning. We map the experiences and beliefs connected to your current struggles.
Preparation and resourcing. Before processing anything, you build skills to stay grounded and regulated. You are always in control of the pace.
Reprocessing. Using bilateral stimulation, we process target memories until they lose their emotional charge — they become something that happened, not something that's still happening.
Installation and integration. We strengthen the truer belief ("I'm safe," "I'm enough as I am") and check that the shift holds in your body, not just your head.
EMDR for eating disorders, food anxiety, and body image
This is where my practice is distinct. Eating disorders and body image distress almost always sit on top of unprocessed experiences and identity-level beliefs. Traditional approaches teach you to manage behaviors — essential, but often incomplete.
EMDR goes underneath: the moments that taught you your body was a problem, that food was dangerous, that control equaled safety. When those lose their charge, recovery stops being a daily fight and starts being a settled fact.
Learn more:
Who EMDR helps:
I work with women dealing with eating disorders and disordered eating, body image distress, food anxiety, perfectionism and high-functioning anxiety, single-incident and complex trauma, and the self-trust erosion that comes from years of overriding your own signals.
What EMDR sessions look like:
Sessions are 50 minutes, with extended sessions and EMDR intensives available for concentrated reprocessing work. We move at your nervous system's pace — resourcing first, always. EMDR is fully effective in telehealth format using screen-based bilateral stimulation, so online clients across California receive the same quality of care as in-person clients in Tustin.
FAQs
How long does EMDR take?
1
It depends on history and goals. Some clients feel significant shifts in a few months; complex or long-standing patterns take longer. We'll set expectations honestly in the assessment phase.
Yes. Research and clinical experience support virtual EMDR, and I provide it to clients throughout California.
2
Does EMDR work online?
Will I have to talk about everything in detail?
3
No. EMDR requires far less verbal detail than traditional talk therapy — your brain does the processing; you don't have to narrate it.