Abrah Sprung, PhD
LICENSED CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
My Approach
I use an integrated approach that combines four evidence-based modalities. Each one addresses a different dimension of healing, and together they create the conditions for genuine, lasting transformation that reaches well beyond symptom relief.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is the foundation. IFS (internal Family Systems), somatic therapy, and relational therapy extend and deepen its reach — making it possible to heal not just what happened to you, but how it lives in your body, your psyche, and your relationships.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing)
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing) is central to this work. It’s a therapy supported by 30+ years of research that is especially helpful in processing and healing emotional trauma and overwhelm. EMDR uses a technique called bilateral stimulation (such as moving your eyes back and forth, tapping, and sounds), that is based on what we’ve learned about how the brain and body naturally process experiences in a healthy way, like what happens in REM sleep. EMDR helps your nervous system process and file away emotional trauma and overwhelm that it’s been holding in unprocessed form, so you’re no longer staying stuck and getting triggered by what’s happened to you.
Want to understand how EMDR works at a deeper level? Learn more about the science and process of EMDR therapy or explore what EMDR feels like.
IFS (Internal Family Systems)
IFS (Internal Family Systems) - also called parts work - helps you understand and integrate all the different parts of you - parts that drive you forward, parts that hold you back or shut you down, protective parts, and parts that hold pain. These parts of yourself often originally developed to protect you during difficult or challenging circumstances in your past. IFS work helps you shift from strategies that are overly rigid or don’t serve you well, and helps you to adapt more flexible and effective responses instead.
In my practice, IFS work typically comes before and during EMDR processing — helping you build the internal foundation needed to go deep. Explore IFS-Informed EMDR Therapy in depth.
Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy targets the physical fallout stored in your nervous system - the emotional pain and distress that shows up as tension and bracing, freezing, and emotional exhaustion and numbness. We now understand that emotional trauma and overwhelm lives on in your body, too - not just your mind - and this work helps your body let go of what talk alone can’t reach.
Informed by Polyvagal Theory and Somatic Experiencing, somatic work builds the nervous system regulation needed to process trauma safely and sustainably. Explore Integrated Somatic Therapy & EMDR in depth.
Relational Therapy
Relational therapyaddresses the patterns that keep showing up in your relationships - why you repeat painful dynamics, why intimacy feels scary, why connection feels so hard. This work helps you understand and shift how you relate to others, and to yourself.
In relational therapy, the therapeutic relationship itself becomes the vehicle for change — not just a container for it. For clients with attachment wounds or complex relational histories, this foundation is what makes deep EMDR processing possible. Explore Relational EMDR Therapy in depth.
Why use this integrated combination?
Most therapists who practice EMDR use it as a standalone technique. I’ve found that EMDR reaches its full potential when it’s held within a broader integrative framework.
IFS prepares the internal system — helping parts feel safe enough to allow processing rather than resist it. Somatic work builds the nervous system regulation that makes it possible to stay present with difficult material. Relational therapy creates the safety and trust that allows deep vulnerability. And EMDR does what it does best — processing the stored traumatic material that none of the others can reach as directly or efficiently.
Together they address the whole person: mind, body, parts, and relationship. That’s what makes the change lasting rather than partial.
Ready to move forward?
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