What happens when therapy stops being about techniques — and starts becoming about you?

In this deeply reflective episode of Notice That, Bridger and Jen are joined by therapist and trainer Jessica Downs for an intimate conversation exploring the inner life of therapists, professional identity, and the personal work that inevitably emerges beneath clinical practice.

Together, they explore the hidden motivations that draw people into helping professions, the illusion of the “next training” as a solution to therapeutic stuckness, and the moment many therapists encounter when professional development turns into personal reckoning.

This episode moves beyond theory into experience, as Jessica guides a live experiential exercise inviting listeners to connect with younger parts of themselves — demonstrating how EMDR principles, ego state work, and imagination can foster integration and self-compassion.

Themes explored include:

• Why therapists often chase new modalities or trainings
• The relationship between burnout and unresolved inner dynamics
• Countertransference and the therapist’s personal history
• Ego states and parts work through an EMDR lens
• The role of suffering in human experience
• Individuation, identity, and professional evolution
• Healing as wholeness rather than symptom elimination

This conversation is slower, more inward, and intentionally reflective — an invitation to pause, notice, and reconnect with the parts of yourself that brought you into this work in the first place.

In This Episode, We Discuss

• The unconscious reasons therapists become therapists
• When “helping people” isn’t the whole story
• Capitalism, continuing education culture, and therapist insecurity
• Internal imagery and symbolic work in healing
• Parenting, therapy, and mirrors of the self
• Jessica’s “spotlighting” ego state exercise (follow along included)
• The La Loba myth and reclaiming lost parts of self

About Our Guest — Jessica Downs

Jessica Downs is a trauma therapist, EMDR clinician, and co-founder of Iris Training Collective. Her work integrates EMDR, ego state approaches, symbolism, and depth psychology to help therapists reconnect with authenticity and wholeness in both personal and professional development.

Resources & Links

• Iris Training Collective
• Live Well Counseling Center (Grand Junction, CO)
• Notice That Podcast
• Beyond Healing trainings and consultation opportunities

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What if resilience isn’t about “bouncing back,” but about the brain’s ongoing ability to adapt—moment by moment, across a lifetime?

In this episode of Notice That, Bridger and Jen are joined by Laurel O’Neal Thornton, EMDR clinician, consultant, and educator, for a rich conversation on the neuroscience of resilience and what it actually looks like in EMDR therapy.

Drawing from neuroscience, EMDR, and years of clinical experience, Laurel reframes resilience as an innate human capacity—one that exists even in the presence of trauma, depression, neurodivergence, and chronic stress. Together, we explore how shame disrupts resilience, why meaning-making matters, and how EMDR can foster regulation, integration, and adaptability without chasing perfection or symptom elimination.

This episode is especially resonant for clinicians working with complex trauma, neurodivergent clients, chronic depression, or anyone feeling stuck in rigid models of “healing.”

✨ In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why resilience is adaptation, not toughness or “bouncing back”
• How EMDR naturally supports resilience through plasticity, regulation, and integration
• The role of shame as a major disruptor of innate resilience
• Why healing doesn’t mean never being triggered again
• How meaning, purpose, and relational connection show up in resilience research
• Working creatively within the EMDR protocol—especially Phase 2 and Phase 8
• Supporting neurodivergent and highly intelligent clients in EMDR
• Why spontaneity, play, and pattern-breaking matter in therapy
• What it really means to “trust the brain” in EMDR

🧩 Key Takeaways for Clinicians

• Resilience exists before healing—and therapy helps clients reconnect to it
• EMDR doesn’t fix broken brains; it helps glitching systems reintegrate
• Decreasing shame may be one of the most powerful therapeutic interventions
• Creativity and flexibility are not deviations from EMDR—they’re part of its design
• Healing is about faster recognition, quicker recovery, and greater self-understanding

👩‍🏫 About Our Guest

Laurel O’Neal Thornton is an EMDR clinician, consultant, educator, and practice owner who specializes in the neuroscience of trauma, resilience, and neurodivergence. She trains and consults clinicians internationally and is passionate about helping therapists integrate neuroscience in ways that are practical, humane, and deeply respectful of the client’s nervous system.

Learn more about Laurel’s work at Whole Brain Solutions

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In this episode of Notice That, we dive into one of the most avoided—and most essential—topics in mental health: sex, pleasure, and sexual health.

We’re joined by Cassie Krajewski, LCSW, AASECT-certified sex therapist, EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and co-founder of Iris Training Collective. Cassie brings a deeply integrative lens to sexuality—one that moves far beyond technique and into conceptualization, embodiment, and healing.

Together, we explore how sexual health is not a “specialty concern,” but a core dimension of human wellness—and how EMDR therapy offers a powerful, attuned framework for addressing sexual shame, desire, pleasure, and trauma.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why sexual health is a birthright, not a performance metric
• How culture, religion, and shame disrupt embodiment and desire
• The role of pleasure as a healing mechanism, not a reward
• Why many therapists avoid sex—and how that avoidance shows up clinically
• Integrating sex therapy principles into EMDR case conceptualization
• Creative and embodied resourcing for sexual trauma and low desire
• Consent, curiosity, and reclaiming agency in sexuality
• How therapists can reflect on their own relationship to sex and pleasure

This episode is an invitation—to therapists and humans alike—to pause, notice, and gently question the stories we’ve inherited about sexuality… and to consider what healing might look like if pleasure were allowed back into the room.

Free Resources on Cassie's website at inneratlastherapy.com

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