Trauma Therapy & EMDR — Telehealth Across Washington State
Evidence-based trauma treatment for PTSD, complex PTSD, combat trauma, childhood trauma, religious trauma, and moral injury. Delivered by secure video with Heinz Malon, LMFT — an EMDR-trained therapist and retired Navy chaplain with 31 years of experience.
Trauma Therapy & EMDR
Trauma is what happens when something overwhelms your nervous system’s ability to make sense of it in the moment. It could be a single event — a car accident, an assault, a combat experience, a death. It could be a pattern of events spread over years — childhood neglect, emotional abuse, an unsafe home, ongoing military deployment, or spiritual harm from a church or leader you trusted. In either case, the event is over, but your body and brain are still treating it as if it’s happening now. That’s why trauma survivors so often feel hypervigilant, easily startled, emotionally numb, or haunted by memories that arrive uninvited. It’s not a character flaw. It’s your nervous system trying to protect you, long after the danger has passed.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy that helps the brain finish processing what it couldn’t process at the time. It’s been rigorously studied for over 30 years and is recommended by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a first-line treatment for PTSD. In practice, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation — typically guided eye movements, tones, or taps — while the client holds a specific memory in mind. Something about the combination allows the brain to reprocess the memory so that it stops carrying the same charge. It doesn’t erase what happened. It lets what happened become a memory rather than an ongoing experience.
Trauma material I work with includes:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD
- Combat trauma and military sexual trauma
- Childhood abuse, neglect, or unsafe family systems
- Single-incident trauma: accidents, assaults, medical trauma, sudden loss
- Religious and spiritual trauma — harm from churches, leaders, or theology
- Secondary or vicarious trauma (common for first responders, healthcare workers, and caregivers)
- Moral injury — the wound that comes from acting, witnessing, or failing to prevent something that violates your values
- Grief complicated by traumatic loss
A few honest notes about trauma work. It is not always fast, and it should not be rushed. Safety comes first. We won’t touch hard material until you have the stability and resources to process it without being re-traumatized. We’ll spend time up front on grounding skills, nervous system regulation, and establishing trust. When you’re ready, we go at your pace.
EMDR can also be done effectively over telehealth. It’s been adapted for video platforms and used successfully by EMDR-trained clinicians with clients all over the country.
If you've been carrying something heavy for a long time, please know: trauma is treatable. You don't have to live forever with the thing that happened to you.
The Three Phases of Trauma Work
Trauma therapy generally unfolds in three phases, though they overlap and loop back on themselves. This is the standard trauma-informed approach, and it’s the framework I use:
Phase 1
Stabilization & Resourcing
Before we touch any traumatic material, we spend time on grounding skills — breathwork, mindfulness, nervous-system regulation, identifying internal and external resources, and building a sense of present-moment safety. For some clients this phase is a few sessions. For others it's several months. It is never wasted time.
Phase 2
Processing
Once you have enough stability and trust in the work, we begin processing specific traumatic memories — typically using EMDR, sometimes in combination with other approaches. This is the 'active' phase most people associate with trauma therapy. We move at a pace that keeps you inside your window of tolerance, never beyond it.
Phase 3
Integration & Reconnection
Once the charge has come out of the worst memories, the work shifts to reconnection — with yourself, your relationships, your values, your future. This is where meaning often lives. Logotherapy shows up in a lot of this work. So does a lot of quiet re-learning about who you are now, on the other side.
Why These Tools, and Why Me
- Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT)
- EMDR-trained (trauma reprocessing)
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
- Logotherapy training (in progress)
- Retired U.S. Navy chaplain
- Retired Lutheran pastor (religious trauma insight)
- 31 years in practice & ministry
- Tricare-paneled
Thinking About Starting Trauma Work?
We can talk about what you’re carrying, what approach might fit, and what the first few sessions would look like — before you commit to anything. Free consultations run 30 to 60 minutes.
What This Service Can't Do
Therapy works best when the match is right — both between you and me, and between you and the format. A few things I’m not the right provider for:
- Active psychiatric crisis (please call 988 or 911 — telehealth is not an emergency service)
- Severe active substance-use disorders requiring detox or intensive outpatient care
- Eating disorders requiring medical monitoring or higher levels of care
- Psychological evaluations, custody evaluations, or forensic assessment
- Children under 12 (my training and focus is 12 and up)
If we talk and I’m not the right fit for what you need, I’ll say so. And I’ll do my best to help you find someone who is.
Other Ways I Can Help
Individual Therapy
For adults working through anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, and meaning.
Veterans & Military Family Counseling
For service members, veterans, spouses, and military kids. Tricare-paneled.
Couples, Family & Teen Therapy
Systems-based work for couples, families, and teens (ages 12–18).
Ready to Find Out More?
The first step is a fifteen-minute call — or a 30-to-60-minute free consultation, if you’d prefer something more in-depth. Either way, there’s no commitment and no pressure.