Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Klara “Nat” Granger, and I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, licensed in the state of New York. I graduated from Columbia University School of Social Work in 2014, and have worked in a variety of public health and direct care settings prior to starting my private practice in 2019.

Whether you’ve tried therapy before, or it’s your very first time, psychotherapy is an opportunity to explore yourself. I believe that all of us have an inner wisdom and light that can guide us, but many of us struggle to tune in and hear it due to trauma and distressing life circumstances. It’s as if our inner sunshine – which we are all born with – gets hidden by clouds of pain.

My goal is to help you connect with that inner sunshine using modalities called IFS (Internal Family Systems) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). These are evidence-based methods, which are quite different from standard talk therapy.

I’m certified in EMDR through EMDRIA, following several years of rigorous training. I am also a Consultant-in-Training with EMDRIA, providing support and consultation in applying EMDR to other clinicians who are training towards certification in EMDR.

To complement my EMDR training, I am currently studying IFS, a powerful approach for healing attachment wounds. Woven together, EMDR and IFS techniques create a safe, gentle environment for healing some of the worst pain that someone can feel.

Who can benefit from IFS/EMDR?

The goal of this integrative approach is to help adults heal from attachment wounding and traumatic events, and to develop more harmonious relationships between parts of the self. This approach is calibrated to be effective for individuals who meet criteria for Complex PTSD, PTSD with dissociative features, dissociative disorders, depression, and generalized anxiety. It can also be well-suited for those who struggle with substance dependence/abuse, eating disorders, phobias (including agoraphobia), and personality disorders. This approach can also benefit those with physical pain, sleep disorders, individuals who have suffered medical trauma, individuals who have experienced disturbing episodes of discrimination, and more. I have also experience in treating Psychological Non-Epileptic Seizures with this modality.

If you struggle with shame, self-blame, nightmares, an intense inner critic, difficulty remembering elements of traumatic events you’ve experienced, explosive anger or irritability, or emotional dysregulation when reminded of certain events, this treatment pathway may benefit you. I also have lived experience and specialization in working with neurodivergent brains and making EMDR effective for individuals with ADHD and Autism, though treatment to ‘cure’ these experiences is not aligned with clinical best practices.

What is your approach like?

The work is slow, gentle, careful, and at times painful. A typical plan involves developing comfort and safety using IFS for 4-6 weeks at minimum (sometimes a year or more), gently working with wounded parts of the self to prepare for EMDR. It is possible that with IFS, we may not end up needing to perform EMDR at all. But the option to fluidly move between IFS and EMDR is, in my experience, more powerful and more likely to succeed than either approach alone.

I tend to think of the treatment dynamic as being like gently repotting a tree that’s been growing in the earth for a long time. We don’t just get on in there with a hacksaw and attack the roots of an established tree! If we’re going to take on the endeavor of moving a tree in the first place, we’ve got to be careful and respectful. The tree’s roots extend far deeper into the ground than we imagine. Sometimes the tree feels like it is “just fine” where it’s been growing, even if there’s danger nearby, even if it’s halfway toppling over! So first we work with the tree and make sure it even makes sense to work on moving it. Sometimes it’s too dangerous to move an entire tree, and that’s ok.

Only once the tree can fully get on board with the goal of moving, we gently remove dirt and excavate the roots, see where they go, and help them release from any tangles or knots they’ve gotten themselves into. As we progressively unearth more and more roots, it will be easier and clearer what needs to happen in order to help the tree move.

The thing I emphasize with all my patients is that this work is slow. But that pace is on purpose – it helps ensure that we don’t inadvertently cause a rapid onset of overwhelming symptoms.

What’s a part?

In an IFS/EMDR context, a part is just an experience. If you’ve watched the Pixar movie Inside Out, a part can be thought of as one of the emotions personalized in the film. Most everyone has some surface-level awareness of parts of themselves; how many times have you heard someone say, “Part of me wants… (something) but another part of me wants…(something else).” It’s pretty normal to recognize parts!

But, until we do IFS work, most of us aren’t consciously aware of most of our parts. Once we finally start to “listen” to our parts, it can feel like a whole new world opens up in us and around us.

Our parts carry a lot of lessons from the experiences we’ve lived through. And sometimes those lessons lead to dysfunctional behavior, such as alcohol abuse, numbing out with cannabis or social media scrolling, social isolation, fear of leaving the house, emotional eating, self-injurious behaviors, reckless behaviors, suicidal ideation, and more. Most people come to therapy wanting these behaviors to “go away.”

But from the IFS/EMDR context, the explicit goal is not for these behaviors to just “go away.” Instead, our goal is to understand the parts of us that are driving those behaviors, and develop a relationship with the parts. Our relationship ideally will bear the hallmarks that we call The 8 Cs: connection, calm, compassion, curiosity, clarity, confidence, creativity, and courage.

The goal of IFS is to deeply internalize the understanding that there are no bad parts. Whatever you’re doing, however it is that you’re coping, you’re doing it for a good reason. It can be kind of weird to view these behaviors – many of which are things we’ve struggled with our whole lives – through a non-pathological lens. But that’s the beauty of this approach. That doesn’t mean that we want unhelpful behaviors to continue, of course – but we have to start off with the assumption that our parts are doing what they have learned they need to do. That’s how we gain the trust of parts, and start to develop a collaborative relationship with them. Over time, once trust is earned, and parts feel seen, heard, and understood, we can help parts learn that the dysfunctional behaviors they’re attached to can maybe be adjusted or shifted or changed in some way.

Once wounded parts consent to performing EMDR processing work, we begin to weave that into treatment as well in a way that respects all parts.

What if I just want EMDR?

Most individuals I have treated over the years who specifically approach me for EMDR are actually not good candidates for the standard EMDR protocol. The standard EMDR protocol was built on the assumption of a single event of trauma.

Individuals who have experienced traumatic events or neglect in childhood/teenagehood, or repeated exposures to traumatic experiences as adults, or a combination of many different traumatic experiences are better candidates for an integrative approach.

Sometimes individuals come to me for EMDR therapy for a specific experience and don’t feel like they have complex trauma — but as we explore their history, we discover that they do. This is a very common experience and one that can be emotionally distressing in its own right.

Before ruling out the possibility of having complex PTSD, check out this video and explore the 8 Hidden Signs of Complex PTSD.

The wonderful thing about the integrative IFS/EMDR approach is that whenever your parts are ready for EMDR, we can get started with it! Sometimes it will be after a month of getting to know your parts. Sometimes it will be after a year or more.

Regardless, I’m here to join you on your healing journey for as long as you need, without time pressure on my end.

How much healing is possible with IFS/EMDR? Are there any limitations?

The sky’s the limit! I have seen some patients experience total symptom remission in a relatively quick timeframe. However, this is more of the exception, not the rule. It’s important to have realistic expectations.

Throughout treatment, I will assign symptom assessment measures to evaluate treatment success. This helps us evaluate your symptoms to identify progress.

Often new patients present with parts that want immediate relief from symptoms, and I understand that. Symptoms like suicidal ideation, self-injury, substance use, eating disorders, etc. can be life-threatening, and it makes sense to prioritize them as immediate treatment goals.

In some cases, it may be more appropriate for a patient to seek treatment through an intensive outpatient setting, or even inpatient setting, rather than individual outpatient psychotherapy — at least until these experiences have stabilized enough to no longer be an immediate threat to life. However, we can discuss this during treatment.

In the cases of individuals with psychosis, bipolar disorder, mania, severe depression, OCD, or other conditions with biological contributors, it may be best to also involve psychiatric care in addition to IFS/EMDR. Our work often improves symptoms for those with these conditions, but our work is usually most effective when symptoms feel less overwhelming.

However, I more than recognize the role that psychiatry often plays as a carceral tool of oppression. The non-pathologizing lens intrinsic to IFS aligns with my standpoint, and I affirm those who seek to live life without psychiatric medications. Research increasingly supports options such as Metabolic Psychiatry. Those with hallucinations or other extreme sensory experiences may find comfort in the Hearing Voices Network. I honor and welcome those who have traditionally been excluded from mental health treatment in the private practice context, provided our mutual needs are being met.