Single-event trauma
An accident, an assault, a medical procedure, a sudden loss — discrete events whose memory keeps intruding on daily life. Often the fastest to respond to targeted EMDR or brainspotting work.
Focus Area Focus
Trauma therapy.
EMDR, brainspotting, and evidence-based trauma-informed care in Sacramento. Reach the trauma that talk therapy alone often can't.
Trauma reshapes the nervous system in ways narrative alone rarely resolves. EMDR and brainspotting work at the physiological level — where the memory is actually held, not just where it is talked about.
A client can understand, intellectually, that they are safe now — and still find their heart rate spiking at a sound, a smell, or a tone of voice that resembles an earlier event. That mismatch is trauma’s clinical signature: the mind knows the story is over; the body has not caught up. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and brainspotting are two of the most researched body-based trauma modalities available, both grounded in the same underlying principle: the memory needs to be reprocessed physiologically, not just discussed.
Areas of focus.
Complex & relational trauma
Trauma that isn’t a single event but an accumulated pattern — a nervous system that has learned to stay braced. Requires careful pacing and often longer stabilization before reprocessing.
Caregiver burnout & vicarious trauma
The exhaustion and moral weight carried by people whose lives orbit someone else’s illness, disability, or crisis. Often unaddressed until it manifests as its own trauma response.
Military spouses & the military community
The specific, often invisible weight carried by partners and families of servicemembers. Cheryl brings personal understanding to this work as the surviving spouse of a disabled Navy veteran.
Life transitions & reintegration
Major transitions — a loss, a diagnosis, a role change — can activate old trauma patterns even when the transition itself isn’t traumatic. Space to metabolize what’s changing without becoming dysregulated by it.
How we work.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing uses bilateral stimulation — usually guided eye movements — while a client briefly holds a traumatic memory in mind. The working theory is that this process helps the brain do the “filing-away” work it wasn’t able to do at the time, so the memory becomes something that happened to you rather than something that keeps happening to you.
Brainspotting
A newer body-based approach that uses fixed eye positions (“brainspots”) to access unprocessed material held in the subcortical brain. Often useful when a client knows something is stuck but can’t articulate what — brainspotting can reach material that language alone struggles to locate.
Integrated & trauma-informed
Neither modality replaces stabilization work. Real trauma therapy braids body-based reprocessing with grounding skills, CBT tools for the surface-level patterns, and careful attention to pacing — so the work is powerful without becoming overwhelming.
Ready to begin trauma work?
Book a free 15-minute consultation with Cheryl Runkle, AMFT, APCC. For help finding the right fit or to speak with our clinical director, call or text (916) 990-2326 or email [email protected].
Telephone
(916) 990-2326
Email
[email protected]
Research Cited
- “A Randomized Controlled Study of EMDR versus Waitlist for the Treatment of Traumatic Bereavement.” European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 2023.
- “Efficacy of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy in Reducing Post-Traumatic Symptoms.” Frontiers in Psychology, 2021.
- “Brainspotting: A New Brain-Based Psychotherapy Approach.” Journal of Neurology & Neuroscience, 2020.