EMDR Therapy in Tampa, FL for Trauma and PTSD
When the past keeps showing up in the present, healing is possible.
You may know that what happened is over, but your mind and body still react as though it’s happening. Through EMDR and IFS therapy, we help you process painful experiences, reduce emotional triggers, and begin to feel safer, calmer, and more in control of your life.
Serving Tampa and New Port Richey, Florida
EMDRIA Approved Consultant
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Author of Empty Nest, Full Heart
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Featured on WFLA's Bloom Tampa Bay
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Private practice serving adults across Florida
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IFS Trained
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EMDRIA Approved Consultant ✴ Author of Empty Nest, Full Heart ✴ Featured on WFLA's Bloom Tampa Bay ✴ Private practice serving adults across Florida ✴ IFS Trained ✴
As Featured In
Does any of this sound familiar?
Your body is on alert
Anxiety shows up out of nowhere, even when nothing is wrong. Your heart pounds, your chest tightens, or your stomach drops, and you can't say why. Bad dreams and restless sleep leave you tired.
Small things hit hard
Something small happens, and you react like something huge just happened. A tone of voice or a look sends you right back. You feel on guard, even when you know you're safe.
Part of you feels far away
You go numb, shut down, or feel disconnected from your own life. You know it wasn't your fault, and you still carry the shame.
If you nodded along, part of you may still be living in a moment that's already over.
Why the past can feel like it's happening now
Think of your brain as a filing cabinet. Most of what happens to you gets filed away where it belongs. You can remember it, and it doesn't hurt anymore.
When something overwhelming happens, the memory doesn't always get filed. It ends up in a folder sitting outside the cabinet, still holding the fear, sounds, images, and body sensations from that moment.
Then something in the present bumps that folder open. A tone of voice. A smell. A time of year. A look on someone's face. Suddenly you feel what you felt back then, as if it's happening again.
Most of the time, this happens below your awareness. You may not connect it to any memory at all. You just feel it in your body: your heart racing, a wave of anxiety, fear that seems to come from nowhere, or dreams that leave you shaken.
Your nervous system is doing its job. It's trying to protect you. It just hasn't gotten the message that the danger has passed.
Trauma comes in many forms.
Trauma can be one event: a car accident, an assault, a sudden loss, a medical crisis. It can be the aftermath of being in a narcissistic relationship. It can also build up over years: growing up in a home that didn't feel safe, being criticized or ignored, or always having to be the strong one.
If something overwhelmed you and you had no way to process it at the time, that folder may still be sitting outside the cabinet.
PTSD is what can happen when those memories stay stuck. It may look like flashbacks, nightmares, avoiding reminders, feeling constantly on edge, or feeling numb and disconnected. I work with adults healing from single events, childhood trauma, and PTSD.
You know it in your head. You don’t feel it yet.
Many of my clients have already been in therapy. They understand their story. They can tell you exactly where their patterns started. Their logical brain knows they're safe now. It knows it wasn't their fault.
And still, their body reacts like the danger is real.
That's because the logical brain and the emotional brain store things differently. Traditional talk therapy works mostly with the logical brain, which can bring real understanding. Trauma lives in the emotional brain and the nervous system, the parts in charge of survival. Insight alone often can't reach them.
The missing piece is connection. Healing happens when what your logical brain knows finally reaches your emotional brain, so you can feel it too.
EMDR and IFS therapy in Tampa and New Port Richey
EMDR therapy
EMDR helps your brain finally file the folder away. Using eye movements, tapping, or tones, we revisit a memory in small, manageable pieces while you stay grounded in the present. Over time, the memory loses its charge. You still remember what happened, and it finally feels like the past.
EMDR is one of the most researched trauma therapies available. It is recognized by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association as a treatment for PTSD.
IFS therapy and inner child healing
IFS (Internal Family Systems) is parts work. It helps you get to know the different parts of you. The part that stays on guard. The part that keeps everyone happy. The younger part that still feels scared and alone. Instead of fighting these parts, we listen to them, so they can trust that you're safe now and let go of the jobs they took on to protect you.
When your head and heart connect
Together, EMDR and IFS help your logical brain and your emotional brain connect. What you've always known in your head finally reaches the part of you that feels.
Clients often tell me this is the moment everything shifts. They always knew it wasn't their fault. Now they feel it. They knew they were safe. Now their body believes it too.
Tampa EMDR located at 4100 W Kennedy BLVD, Suite 322, Tampa, FL 33609
Tampa EMDR office located at 6014 US Hwy 19, New Port Richey, FL
What healing can feel like
What you know in your head, you finally feel in your body.
Old memories feel like they belong to the past.
Reminders don't knock you over the way they used to.
Your body feels calmer. Your heart stops racing out of nowhere. Sleep comes easier.
You respond to people instead of reacting.
You feel more like yourself again.
Ways to work together
Weekly EMDR sessions: 60 minutes, in person in South Tampa and New Port Richey.
Half-day intensives: 2 to 3 hours of focused work on a specific memory or pattern.
Multi-day EMDR retreats: 2 to 5 days at The Hacienda on the Cotee River in New Port Richey, with 6 hours of therapy a day.
Not sure which fits? We'll figure it out together during your consultation.
Leslie de Graaf
EMDR and IFS Therapist in Tampa
I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and EMDRIA Approved EMDR Consultant in Tampa Bay. I help adults who have been carrying trauma for years, often quietly, while everyone around them thinks they're doing fine.
My work combines EMDR, IFS parts work and inner child healing, and a nervous system approach. The goal is to heal at the root, so your head and your heart finally agree, and you don't need therapy forever.
I will not waste your time. I will say what is true. I will go at the pace your nervous system can hold.
Ready when you are.
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We talk for 20 minutes about what you are working with, what you are looking for, and whether this feels like a fit. No pressure to move forward.
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Weekly EMDR therapy in Tampa or New Port Richey, a half-day intensive of two to three hours, or a multi-day retreat at The Hacienda. We decide together based on what your nervous system needs.
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With someone who has done this for years and knows the path.
What clients are saying
EMDR Therapy in Tampa & New Port Richey: Frequently Asked Questions
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Memories that were never fully processed can be triggered by everyday things like a sound, a smell, or someone's tone. Your nervous system reacts before your thinking brain catches up, so you feel the fear or anxiety without knowing where it came from. EMDR and IFS help those memories settle so your body stops sounding the alarm.
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No. EMDR doesn't require you to describe a memory in detail or relive it out loud. Many clients find this a relief.
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Yes. EMDR is one of the most studied therapies for PTSD and is recommended by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association.
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No. There is some talking in therapy, but EMDR and IFS are experiential therapies, which means they go deeper and help get to the root of the issue. Clients often tell me these therapies feel very different from the talk therapy they’ve had in the past. They go below the surface, past the logical brain, to the deeper feelings and beliefs underneath. This lets the logical brain finally connect with the emotional brain, and that’s where real healing happens.
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South Tampa: 4100 W Kennedy Blvd, Suite 322, Tampa, FL 33609. New Port Richey: 6014 US Highway 19, Suite 303, New Port Richey, FL 34652. Online sessions are available across Florida.
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EMDR is effective for anxiety, PTSD, complex trauma, phobias, grief, medical trauma, performance anxiety, and the kinds of nervous system patterns that develop in high-stress lives. If you are not sure whether your situation fits, we can talk about it in the consultation.
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Weekly EMDR is a 60-minute session each week. Intensives are concentrated formats of two to five days, working six hours per day in a private setting at The Hacienda. Intensives are designed for clients who are ready to move further than weekly therapy can take them in the same time frame.
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Yes. EMDR is recognized by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a frontline treatment for trauma. It has been studied for over thirty years.
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Tampa EMDR is a private-pay practice. I do not bill insurance. This decision keeps your records private, allows me to work at the depth and pace that is right for you, and removes the limitations that come with managed care. We can discuss investment during your consultation.
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Book a complimentary 20-minute consultation. From there, we decide together whether weekly therapy or an intensive is the right fit.
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) is parts work. It sees the mind as made up of different parts, including younger parts that still carry old hurts, each trying to help in its own way. We work with those parts with curiosity instead of judgment, which helps your system feel safe enough to heal.
You can heal what happened.
What happened to you matters. Even if you've never called it trauma.
Our Locations
South Tampa
4100 W Kennedy Blvd, Ste 322
Tampa, FL 33609
(813) 444-3106
New Port Richey
6014 US Highway 19, Ste 303
New Port Richey, FL 34652
(813) 444-3106