Trauma Therapist · EMDR · Somatic Work · Los Angeles
We live in an increasingly overwhelming world. We're not meant to do this alone.
I work with adults and couples who are ready to stop bracing, managing, carrying the weight of their pain — and start healing the root of it. Through EMDR and somatic therapy, we go where talk therapy alone can't reach.
Before becoming a therapist, I was a performing artist and educator — working on Broadway and internationally. I white-knuckled through the highs and lows, learning how to continuously show up, to access something true under pressure, and to build an identity entirely around my craft.
I also learned what it costs when that identity starts to crack. That experience didn't just shape who I am — it shapes how I work. I understand the particular texture of high-achiever anxiety, the way creatives feel everything deeply and struggle to show it, and what it's like to perform wellness long before you've experienced it.
I also come to this work with nearly a decade of immersion in recovery communities — the 12-step world, its language, its philosophy, and its particular kind of radical honesty. I understand what it means to do a searching and fearless inventory. To make amends. To live one day at a time not as a platitude, but as a genuine practice. That framework lives alongside the clinical work — and for clients in recovery, or those whose lives have been touched by addiction and compulsive behavior, it means you don't have to translate yourself for me.
Through EMDR and somatic work, we go beneath the performance — to where the real healing lives.
MA, MFTEMDR TrainedBroadway PerformerRecovery CommunitySomatic PractitionerLos Angeles, CA
Telehealth available to California residents only.
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Katherine Tokarz Dyson, AMFT #147216
Employed and Supervised by Stephanie Book Koehler, LMFT #30659
Cutting Edge Counseling · 3657 Stoner Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90066
My Approach
Different tools. One intention: get you free.
Trauma doesn't just live in memories — it lives in the body, the nervous system, and the relational patterns laid down before we had words. Here's what each approach is, how it works, and what it might look like between us.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing
Evidence-Based · Trauma-Focused · Body-Informed
EMDR is one of the most well-researched trauma therapies available — endorsed by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association. But it's not just for combat veterans or acute trauma. It's powerful for anyone whose past is quietly running the present.
How It Works
Traumatic memories are stored differently in the brain than ordinary memories — vivid, charged, easily activated. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements or gentle tapping) while you briefly focus on a distressing memory. This mimics what happens naturally during REM sleep and helps the brain reprocess the memory so it loses its emotional charge. You still remember what happened — it just no longer feels like it's happening now.
What It Feels Like
Sessions are structured but not rigid. Many clients describe it as "watching the memory from a distance" — the intensity softens, and the story that felt so defining begins to loosen its grip. Most people are surprised by how quickly they notice shifts.
The word "somatic" comes from the Greek word for body — and somatic therapy is grounded in a simple but profound truth: the body keeps the score. Trauma lives in the way you hold your shoulders, the tightness in your chest before a difficult conversation, the freeze response that takes over even when you know you're safe.
How It Works
Rather than only exploring what you think and feel, somatic work brings attention to where and how you feel it in your body. We slow down to notice what happens physically when a difficult topic comes up — a held breath, a clenched jaw, an urge to shrink. By bringing gentle awareness to these patterns, and allowing the body to move through what it's been holding, we release trauma at the level where it actually lives.
What It Feels Like
Sessions might include guided body awareness, breathwork, tracking physical responses in real-time. Many clients describe this as the first time they've felt truly at home in their body. Others find it strange at first — especially those who've learned to live entirely from the neck up. That's completely normal, and we go slowly.
Insight without embodiment is incomplete. When the body finally gets to finish what it started, healing becomes something you feel — not just something you understand.
Attachment Repair
Healing Relational Wounds
Relational · Developmental · Intergenerational
Attachment theory shows us that the quality of our earliest relationships shapes how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world for the rest of our lives. When early attachment was inconsistent or unsafe — even in subtle ways — it leaves a blueprint that shapes everything from how we parent to how we love.
How It Works
Attachment repair happens through the therapeutic relationship itself — a consistent, attuned connection that can offer something the original relationship didn't. We explore where patterns came from, how they show up now, and what it would feel like to relate differently. We work with early experiences not to blame, but to understand the survival strategies you developed — and whether they still serve you.
What It Feels Like
Much of this work happens relationally — in the space between us in sessions. You might notice feelings about our relationship itself: trust, irritation, fear. These aren't problems — they're information, and incredibly valuable data for the work. Many clients describe a gradual softening: a growing sense that connection is possible, and that they are worthy of it.
Especially Helpful For
Relationship patternsFear of abandonmentPeople-pleasingParenting challengesIntergenerational traumaDysregulation
Attachment wounds happened in relationship. They heal in relationship too — including the one we build here, in this room.
Mindfulness
Present-Moment Awareness
Contemplative · Evidence-Based · Integrative
Mindfulness is not about clearing your mind or achieving perfect calm. It's about learning to be with your experience without being hijacked by it. For people carrying trauma, this is genuinely revolutionary. Trauma pulls us into the past or catapults us toward the future. Mindfulness gently, repeatedly brings us back to now — where safety, choice, and healing actually live.
How It Works
In sessions, mindfulness practices are woven throughout rather than treated as a separate exercise. This might look like noticing your breath when something activates you, tracking body sensations without immediately acting on them, or developing the ability to observe your own thoughts with some distance. Over time, this builds "window of tolerance" — the capacity to stay present with difficult material without overwhelming your nervous system.
What It Feels Like
For some, mindfulness feels immediately calming. For others — especially those with significant trauma — it can initially bring up discomfort, as slowing down allows more to surface. We work at your pace, and we always have an anchor: the breath, the feet on the floor, the present moment as a place of return.
Mindfulness doesn't make difficult things disappear. It gives you enough space from them to choose how you want to respond — and that changes everything.
Training and Credentials
Masters in Marriage & Family Therapy, Clinical ConcentrationTouro University
EMDR TrainingEMDR Institute — Rosalie Thomas, PhD
Somatic ExperiencingSEI — ongoing case consultation with Dave Berger, MFT, PT, MA, SEP and Shideh Lennon, SEP, PhD
Foundations in Somatic Therapy for TraumaAbbi Blakeslee, SEP, CMT, MFT, PhD
Healing doesn't only happen in the therapy room. These are books, podcasts, and apps I genuinely recommend — curated for the kinds of people I work with.
You don't have to be in crisis to reach out for support.
These lines are free, confidential, and available around the clock. If something feels urgent, please use them — that's exactly what they're there for.
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988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
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Crisis Text Line
Text HOME to reach a counselor
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Veterans Crisis Line
Call 988 then press 1 · or text 838255
988 → 1
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Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ Youth)
Call, text, or chat · 24/7
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Books
Reading that changed how I think about healing
Books I return to — for myself, for clients, and for the work we do together.
Trauma Foundation
The Body Keeps the Score
Bessel van der Kolk, MD
The seminal text on how trauma lives in the body — and what it actually takes to heal it. Often the book that makes clients say "so that's what's been happening."
Somatic Healing
Waking the Tiger
Peter A. Levine, PhD
A foundational guide to somatic experiencing — how trauma gets locked in the body and how the body can be the path out. Practical, compassionate, and eye-opening.
Intergenerational Trauma
It Didn't Start With You
Mark Wolynn
A revelatory look at how family trauma echoes across generations — often in symptoms we never connected to our family history. Essential for intergenerational work.
Self-Compassion
Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook
Kristin Neff, PhD & Christopher Germer, PhD
A practical, exercise-based companion to the self-compassion research — for softening the inner critic and building genuine resilience. Especially useful for high-achievers who are hard on themselves.
Parts Work
No Bad Parts
Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
An introduction to Internal Family Systems — the idea that we are made of parts, and even the ones we like least are trying to protect us. A gentle reframe for anyone at war with themselves.
Complex PTSD
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Pete Walker
One of the most practical, compassionate guides to complex trauma. Walker writes as both a therapist and survivor. Particularly valuable for adult children of difficult families.
Nervous System
Anchored
Deb Dana
A wonderfully accessible guide to polyvagal theory — how your nervous system works, why it does what it does, and how to gently befriend it. Packed with practical exercises.
Creatives & Identity
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About
Michele Filgate (ed.)
A stunning anthology of essays by writers exploring the silences in their mother relationships. For creatives who process through story — and anyone circling around what they can't quite say.
Memoir
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
A visceral, unflinching memoir about growing up in chaos and dysfunction — and the remarkable resilience that can emerge from it. A testament to the human capacity for change.
Memoir
Committed
Elizabeth Gilbert
A candid memoir about one woman's reluctant journey into her second marriage — and a rich exploration of the cultural and societal expectations that shape how we love and commit.
Memoir
Travels
Michael Crichton
A memoir that blends adventure, self-discovery, and purpose — exploring both the world around us and the world within. A quiet invitation to look inward through the lens of outward exploration.
Intimacy & Desire
Mating in Captivity
Esther Perel
On the tension between the security we want from a partner and the desire that needs distance to survive. A reframe for couples who love each other but feel the spark has gone quiet.
Love & Relationships
All About Love: New Visions
bell hooks
A bold, tender challenge to the cultural myths we've inherited about love — redefining it not as a feeling, but as a verb and a practice. Transformative for anyone rethinking how they give and receive love.
Podcasts
Voices worth listening to between sessions
Especially good for the commute, the walk, or when you want to keep the thread going.
Breath is one of the most immediate tools for regulating the nervous system. Apps like Wim Hof or Othership can complement somatic work powerfully. Check with me first if you have a trauma history.
These resources are offered as supplemental support — not a replacement for therapy or professional mental health care. Books, podcasts, and apps can be powerful companions to the work we do together, but they are not a substitute for it. If something you encounter brings up difficult material, please bring it to our sessions. That's exactly what they're for.
If something here resonated and you'd like to talk it through, I'd be glad to hear from you.
