Reclaiming Hope · Approach & Science
The Approach & Science Behind the Work
Explore the research, principles, and practices that inform how I help people move beyond persistent survival responses and reconnect with greater safety, capacity, and choice.
The tools I use across Reclaiming Hope are drawn from multiple bodies of research into memory, nervous-system regulation, emotional processing, somatic awareness, attention, learning, and behavior change.
The common thread: Embodied Integration
Insight is valuable. Understanding what happened, recognizing a pattern, and making sense of why a protective response developed can be an important part of change. But understanding something intellectually does not always change the response that happens automatically.
I call the larger process that connects my work Embodied Integration: helping new information become integrated not only as something a person understands, but through the emotional, sensory, physiological, and learned responses that shape how life is actually experienced.
Insight explains. Integration updates.
The approaches below provide different ways of supporting that process. They do not all work through the same mechanism, and they do not all carry the same level of research—which is why I identify the evidence behind each one separately.
Across my work, I may draw on practices including:
Not every practice I draw on has the same kind of evidence behind it.
Some draw on well-established psychophysiological or psychological mechanisms. Others have promising but developing evidence. And some are included as complementary experiential practices rather than evidence-based treatments.
I tell you which is which. Every approach below carries an honest label.
Supported by systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or well-established mechanisms.
Encouraging findings that are still developing. Larger, more rigorous studies are needed.
Offered for its experiential value, not presented as an evidence-based treatment.
The major approaches, and the research behind them.
A closer look at the main approaches I draw on, what the research actually shows, and how I use each one.
Safety & nervous-system regulation
What the research shows
Much of this work begins with helping the body find a greater sense of safety. Simple regulation tools have real research behind them: a systematic review of slow breathing found effects across autonomic, central-nervous-system, and psychological measures, including changes in heart-rate variability and reported reductions in arousal and anxiety-related states. Other practices in this category, such as grounding and orienting, are used as accessible ways to steady the nervous system, with the strongest research support sitting with breath-based regulation.
How I use it
I treat safety and regulation as the foundation of everything else. Before working with harder material, people build a set of accessible tools they can return to on their own.
Memory reconsolidation & updating learned responses
What the research shows
Memory is not always fixed. Research in memory neuroscience has shown that when a memory is reactivated, it can, under certain conditions, become temporarily open to modification before being stored again. Translating this laboratory finding into clinical practice is more complex, and researchers continue to study when and how reconsolidation occurs in therapeutic settings. It is one proposed mechanism through which new information and corrective experiences may update earlier emotional learning.
How I use it
I draw on these principles by gently bringing aspects of learned emotional responses into awareness while introducing present-day safety, resources, and new information. The goal is not to erase what happened or remove the memory, but to create an opportunity for the response connected to that memory to change-so the activation once associated with it may become less intense, less automatic, and less likely to shape present-day experience.
EFT / acupoint tapping
What the research shows
EFT combines attention to emotional experience with stimulation of specific acupoints. A 2026 systematic review and network meta-analysis of 17 randomized controlled trials linked Clinical EFT to reductions in psychological stress, with smaller effects on physiological measures, while noting that many studies carried some risk of bias. A 2025 review of seven anxiety trials found EFT outperformed no-intervention conditions, with more mixed results against active treatments. A finding especially relevant here: a 2023 trial of 159 women who had experienced prenatal loss reported improvements in anxiety and well-being and reductions in salivary cortisol in the intervention groups.
How I use it
I use tapping as one accessible regulation tool among many. The evidence is promising, and researchers continue to call for larger, more rigorous studies.
Bilateral stimulation & dual attention
What the research shows
EMDR is an established trauma-focused psychotherapy, but research has also examined individual components and mechanisms used within it. Dual-attention tasks-such as recalling emotional material while simultaneously engaging in eye movements or another competing task-have been studied independently. A meta-analysis of 53 laboratory studies found that dual-task procedures reduced the vividness and emotional intensity of emotional memories.
Research is also exploring approaches such as Flash Technique that are designed to work with disturbing memories while minimizing sustained attention to the distressing material. Preliminary findings are promising, including evidence that Flash may reduce memory-related disturbance while being experienced as less distressing or more tolerable, although this research base is still developing.
How I use it
I am trained in EMDR therapy, and that training substantially informs my understanding of memory processing, resourcing, dual attention, bilateral stimulation, and the importance of working within a person's capacity.
In my coaching and integration work, however, I am not providing EMDR therapy. I selectively draw from resourcing principles, bilateral and dual-attention practices, and related learning from my EMDR and Flash training when they fit the work. My emphasis is on helping create enough safety and capacity for integration without requiring someone to remain intensely activated or repeatedly immersed in distressing material.
EMDR therapy itself is not provided as part of this work.
I do not provide EMDR therapy.
Somatic awareness & interoception
What the research shows
Interoception is the sensing and interpreting of internal bodily signals. Research increasingly links it to emotion regulation and psychological flexibility. A 2023 review of 31 randomized trials of interoception-focused interventions found most improved interoception more than control conditions, though evidence for downstream symptom change was less conclusive. A broader review of body- and movement-oriented interventions for PTSD found a moderate average reduction in symptoms, with high variability across studies.
How I use it
I repeatedly bring attention back to the body, not to force an emotional experience, but to notice internal signals, track changes, and build greater capacity to regulate. Regulation does not mean never becoming activated, emotional, or distressed. It means developing greater flexibility-the capacity to recognize what is happening, respond to what is needed, and move through different states without becoming as easily stuck in them.
Self-soothing touch
What the research shows
In a randomized controlled study of 159 healthy adults facing a standardized stressor, both self-soothing touch and receiving a hug were associated with a lower cortisol response than control conditions, although subjective stress and heart-rate measures did not differ. Havening-style touch itself does not yet have a comparable research base.
How I use it
I use gentle self-soothing touch, such as a hand on the heart, as one way to support a felt sense of safety. Related practices, including Havening-style touch, are offered as complementary tools.
Mental rehearsal & future simulation
What the research shows
A meta-analysis synthesizing 123 effect sizes across 5,685 participants found a reliable positive effect of mental simulation on later behavior. A separate meta-analysis of 63 experiments with 6,813 participants found that imagining personal future scenarios can meaningfully influence mood, and that the tone of that imagined future matters.
How I use it
I don't stop with what happened in the past. People also practice imagining and rehearsing new ways of responding to future situations.
Self-compassion
What the research shows
A 2023 meta-analysis of 56 randomized controlled trials found that self-compassion-focused interventions produced small-to-medium immediate effects on depression, anxiety, and stress, with smaller effects at follow-up. The authors noted risk-of-bias limitations across the literature.
How I use it
Self-compassion supports the larger orientation of my work: meeting the body's protective responses without judgment, rather than treating them as failures.
Energy Medicine & Energy-Based Practices
What the research shows
Energy medicine explores the use of the body's energetic and physiological systems as part of approaches intended to support well-being and self-regulation. Research specifically examining Eden Energy Medicine is still limited, although published literature has described the model and its proposed mechanisms, and preliminary studies have begun examining specific Eden Energy Medicine practices. The evidence base is developing, and these approaches remain complementary rather than established medical treatments.
How I use it
My training in Eden Energy Medicine gives me additional gentle, body-based practices I may draw from to support grounding, settling, and awareness of internal state. I have also found the traditional meridian framework fascinating in practice-particularly the associations between specific meridians, emotions such as grief, and patterns described by the meridian clock. At times, the patterns I have observed have felt remarkably specific and relevant to what a person is experiencing. I hold those observations as meaningful experiential information rather than proof of the underlying theory, and use these practices as complementary tools rather than medical diagnosis or treatment. They are used as complementary practices-not to diagnose or treat medical conditions.
Tools & practices I may draw from.
The full range of practices I may draw on across my work, grouped by what they do. Not every practice appears in every program or session, and the final group is offered as complementary practice.
Safety & regulation
Body & sensory practices
Tapping & acupoint practices
Memory & emotional integration
Future & identity integration
Complementary practices
These are offered for their experiential value, not presented as evidence-based treatments.
How I apply these approaches.
The same underlying tools show up in different forms, depending on what someone needs.
Reclaiming Self
Small-group experience
A three-session small-group experience. The methods are used within a structured journey: safety, then updating survival responses, then reconnection and integration.
Rewrite the Signal
Individualized 1:1 coaching
An individualized 1:1 coaching container. Many of the same underlying tools are selected and adapted to the individual's patterns, responses, and goals.
Same foundational toolbox. Different delivery.
Reclaiming Self provides a structured small-group journey. Rewrite the Signal allows for individualized 1:1 application and pacing.
My work is integrative, nervous-system-informed, and educational. It draws from multiple bodies of research rather than relying on a single technique. Some components have substantial research support, others have promising or emerging evidence, and some are included as complementary experiential practices. My programs have not been independently studied as clinical treatments, and nothing here is a substitute for psychotherapy or medical care.
Where would you like to go next?
Interested in a small-group experience?
Looking for individualized 1:1 support?
Represent an organization or community?