Meet Jillian Ellison

Clinical Training & Approach

Jillian is a trauma-focused Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist™ (Credential ID: 170620423). She completed EMDR Basic Training through EMDR Consulting (Roy Kiessling model), an EMDRIA™ Approved EMDR Basic Training provider.

She holds a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology (Pepperdine University) and a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics (University of Northern Colorado). She is also a PhD student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology (Walden University), which informs a systems-level understanding of how high-demand roles, organizational conditions, and leadership environments affect stress, burnout, and recovery.

Her clinical work includes residential and outpatient settings supporting addiction recovery and co-occurring disorders, with exposure to trauma-related complexity and high-acuity stabilization needs.

• Veterans navigating moral injury and combat-related trauma
• Medical personnel coping with patient loss and cumulative exposure
• First responders processing chronic high-stakes activation
• Individuals living with persistent grief and identity disruption
• People addressing trauma and attachment patterns that often sustain substance use

Jillian integrates EMDR with somatic, attachment-focused, and psychodynamic approaches. When clinically appropriate, she may incorporate the Flash Technique as an adjunct strategy to reduce initial disturbance and support stabilization—particularly when overwhelm, shutdown, or high avoidance is present.

In addition to standard EMDR therapy, Jillian holds advanced training in EMDR Early Intervention & Crisis Response and Psychological First Aid, supporting structured stabilization, triage-informed pacing, and trauma recovery planning for high-intensity contexts.

For Future Clients

Jillian’s work supports clients ready to heal from the weight of what they’ve carried—whether from a single defining event, cumulative operational stress, or long-term survival patterns.

• Rumination, intrusive replay, and persistent threat activation
• Trauma-bonded relational loops and difficulty emotionally unhooking
• High-functioning burnout, perfectionism, and identity erosion
• Attachment injuries rooted in early misattunement, neglect, or loss
• Life transitions that destabilize identity: divorce, retirement, relocation, career change
• Critical incident recovery supported by crisis-response training and stabilization protocols

Focused Niches

These are the primary clinical lanes I work within. Each has a distinct conceptualization focus and pacing style. Explore EMDR Intensives →

High-Functioning Professionals
For clients whose outward competence hides internal depletion—often driven by early survival learning that performance and pleasing equal safety, and selfhood becomes the cost.

What it often looks like: high output + low capacity—admired externally, privately exhausted or emotionally shut down.

• Targets: perfectionism, hyper-responsibility, self-critique, chronic over-functioning, loss of self
• Protective patterns: fawn (over-accommodation/people-pleasing that becomes self-erasure), flight (staying busy—work travel, overcommitment, volunteering—to avoid feeling), freeze (detachment, numbness; “I’m vulnerable when I feel”—emotion becomes linked with danger and an unconscious fear of overwhelm)
• Goal: nervous-system safety + internal authority so performance becomes a choice, not a survival strategy

Medical Staff, First Responders & Military
For cumulative exposure, critical incidents, survivor’s guilt, and moral injury—paced for high-safety processing and integration.

• Targets: moral injury, cumulative grief, identity rupture, high-stakes decision aftermath
• Patterns: chronic activation, emotional shutdown, intrusive replay, burnout/collapse
• Goal: stabilization + structured reprocessing without overwhelm

Core Belief & Attachment Injury Repair
For identity-rooted distress shaped by early relationships, where entrenched beliefs drive relational looping and self-doubt.

• Targets: “I’m not enough,” “I’m unlovable,” “Everything is my responsibility”
• Patterns: trauma-bonded dynamics, people-pleasing, rumination, difficulty trusting self/others
• Goal: internal safety, self-trust, and secure boundaries

Complex Trauma / Developmental Trauma (CPTSD)
For chronic trauma histories and developmental wounds requiring phase-oriented pacing, resourcing, and careful target sequencing.

• Targets: developmental trauma roots, chronic shame, identity fragmentation, relational templates
• Patterns: dissociation, shutdown, emotional flooding, entrenched survival roles
• Goal: safe reprocessing with strong stabilization and durable integration

Not sure which lane fits? Start with the intensive overview: EMDR Intensives →

Integrated Method Used

Jillian blends EMDR therapy with somatic, attachment-focused, and psychodynamic approaches to address trauma in both memory and body—prioritizing nervous-system safety, stabilization, and durable integration. The work is structured and paced to reduce overwhelm, support readiness, and consolidate change.

We don’t chase catharsis—we build capacity, then we process.

Core elements commonly included:

• EMDR (8-phase model) with careful target selection and sequencing
• Bilateral stimulation (e.g., butterfly hug, tactile tools) to support reprocessing and regulation
• Somatic resourcing (e.g., peaceful place imagery, containment strategies) to build internal safety and capacity
• Attachment-informed work (relational pattern mapping, corrective internal cues) to shift survival-based connection patterns
• DBT-informed skills for stabilization between sessions:
  • Mindfulness to increase present-moment awareness and reduce rumination
  • Distress tolerance to navigate triggers without escalation or avoidance
  • Emotion regulation to decrease flooding, shutdown, and reactivity
  • Assertive communication (interpersonal effectiveness) to strengthen boundaries and reduce fawn responses
• Flash Technique (adjunct when appropriate) to reduce initial disturbance and support stabilization when overwhelm, shutdown, or avoidance is high
• Experiential integration to transform entrenched inner-critical dynamics and strengthen internal authority

Goals often include reduced reactivity, improved sleep, less avoidance/rumination, and a greater capacity to tolerate emotion without flooding or shutdown.

Advanced EMDR Training

My work is grounded in standard EMDR and informed by advanced training in complex trauma, moral injury, and crisis/early intervention. This training helps me pace treatment safely, adapt to complexity, and support clients who feel overwhelmed, shut down, or stuck in chronic patterns.

• EMDR for Moral Injury — working with identity rupture, grief, and the aftereffects of high-stakes responsibility in military, first responder, and medical populations
• EMDR Early Intervention & Crisis Response (EEI Suites) — stabilization approaches and crisis-response frameworks designed for acute stress and high-intensity environments
• Flash Technique (advanced adjunct) — used when clinically appropriate to reduce initial disturbance and support stabilization when overwhelm or shutdown is high
• EMDR Treatment of Complex PTSD — phase-oriented stabilization and reprocessing for chronic trauma histories and entrenched survival patterns
• EMDR-AIP Intervention for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) — AIP-informed targeting for developmental trauma and associated negative beliefs
• Engaging Teens’ Protective Parts — parts-informed strategies to support safety and readiness in adolescent trauma work

How this shows up in your sessions

• Memory that lives in the body vs. the story you can tell — helps us work with distress that is felt physically/emotionally even when you “understand it” logically.
  • Useful for rumination, triggers, and reactions that feel automatic.

  • Helps target what’s driving the loop—not just talk about it.
• Protective responses (avoidance, shutdown, people-pleasing) — treated as protection, not “resistance,” so we keep the work safe and paced.
  • We build stabilization first, then move into processing.

  • Prevents flooding and helps your system learn it’s safe to feel.
• Dissociation awareness + pacing — a framework for recognizing numbness, detachment, or fragmentation and adjusting the pace accordingly.
  • Supports clients who feel “shut down” or afraid of overwhelm.

  • Emphasizes resourcing, sequencing, and integration to keep you stable.

Interventions are selected based on clinical fit and safety—not automatically—so the work stays grounded, paced, and effective.