Start your therapy journey with a free consultation

EMDR Therapy for Workplace Trauma

EMDR offers high-achieving women a way to finally process the pressure, harm, and unresolved experiences that often get buried in demanding careers. Instead of talking in circles or pushing past what still lives in your body, EMDR helps you reprocess the moments that changed how you see yourself, your work, and your safety.

Whether you’ve endured toxic dynamics, chronic pressure, subtle undermining, or environments that rewarded endurance over wellbeing, EMDR gives you a path out of survival mode. It allows you to move through your career with more clarity, steadiness, and confidence — without carrying the weight of what you had to get through to succeed.

Recovering From Workplace Trauma

For many high-achieving women, the impact of workplace trauma isn’t obvious until much later. You may have pushed through harmful dynamics, taken on more than anyone realized, or stayed composed in environments that weren’t safe — because that’s what your role demanded.

Often, it’s only when burnout hits, a pattern repeats, or your capacity suddenly shifts that you realize how much you’ve been carrying. Therapy offers a place to process what happened, understand how it shaped the way you show up at work and in life, and begin rebuilding a way of being that feels grounded, honest, and finally your own.

How workplace trauma looks different in women

Because many professional environments were built around male norms, women often experience workplace trauma in ways that go unnoticed or misinterpreted. They learn to stay composed, anticipate needs, and absorb pressure to avoid being labeled “emotional,” “difficult,” or “unreliable.”

In women, workplace trauma may show up as:

  • Masking competence — appearing calm, agreeable, or overly capable even when the environment is unsafe or unfair.

  • Internalizing harm — carrying the blame, tension, or emotional fallout of situations that weren’t theirs to fix.

  • Over-responsibility — stepping in to smooth dynamics, prevent conflict, or hold the emotional labor of the team.

  • Being misunderstood — having ambition or directness dismissed as “attitude,” “intensity,” or a personality flaw.

  • Body-based stress — exhaustion, hypervigilance, or shutdown that comes from navigating subtle or overt hostility.

  • Delayed crash — needing significant downtime after work because the day required constant composure.

These patterns often stay hidden until something breaks the rhythm — burnout, a difficult boss, a major transition, or the realization that no job is worth losing yourself to.

Common struggles I help women navigate:

Therapy helps address the deeper emotional toll of years spent pushing through harmful or high-pressure environments. Many of my clients experience:

  • Being overlooked or undervalued, despite carrying more responsibility than anyone realizes.

  • Internalizing unfair criticism or double standards that shaped how they see themselves at work.

  • Anger, grief, or disbelief over how long they tolerated toxic dynamics just to keep moving.

  • Difficulty knowing what they truly want, after years of adjusting to everyone else’s expectations.

  • Navigating complex workplace relationships where emotional labor becomes part of the job.

  • Exhaustion from staying composed, agreeable, and “professional” in situations that were anything but.

  • A sense of losing pieces of themselves to the roles they had to perform to succeed.

You’re not the problem — you’ve been surviving in systems that demanded too much and gave too little.

How Therapy Helps Career Women

This isn’t therapy that tells you to “cope better” or push through. It’s a grounded space to understand what you’ve carried, rebuild trust in yourself, and create a life that isn’t defined by the environments that hurt you.

Make sense of what happened

Process the impact of unhealthy or high-pressure work environments — the confusion, anger, validation, and relief that come with finally naming workplace trauma.

Recover without collapsing your life

Identify the places where “holding it together” has taken over your days and learn how to loosen that grip in ways that protect your stability, career, and wellbeing.

Reduce pressure and internal overload

Use evidence-based approaches to calm the constant vigilance, overthinking, and exhaustion that come from years of absorbing more than your role ever required.

Name needs & set boundaries

Build clear language for limits, workload, communication, and emotional labor — so you can advocate for yourself without guilt or fallout.

Reconnect with who you are

Move beyond overfunctioning, people-pleasing, and perfectionism to rediscover preferences, identity, and direction that feel genuinely your own.

Create a life that fits

Shape routines, environments, and supports that match who you are — sustainable, values-aligned choices that allow you to succeed without losing yourself.

Why therapy matters

Recognizing the impact of workplace trauma is only the beginning. Therapy gives you space to understand how those environments shaped you — to examine old patterns of coping, release what no longer serves you, and practice new ways of leading and living that support who you actually are.

It’s also a place to finally exhale. To stop performing, stop holding everything together, and be met exactly as you are. With the right support, you can move from constant endurance to a life that feels grounded, honest, and fully your own.

« A wonderfull day! Thank you »

Marie fleurie - Coach mindset

« Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.»

« Awesome! I'm so happy now! »

Alice Wonder - Thérapeute

« Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.»

How therapy works

Start feeling at home in your own life

You don’t have to keep performing to belong.

If you’re ready for therapy that understands neurodivergent women — their strengths, struggles, and ways of thinking — I’d love to work with you

Let's talk about your needs

Book a call and Tell me your story!

« A wonderfull day! Thank you »

Marie fleurie - Coach mindset

« Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.»

« Awesome! I'm so happy now! »

Alice Wonder - Thérapeute

« Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.»

Q&A

What if I’m not sure my experience “counts” as workplace trauma?

That’s completely valid. Many women recognize the impact only after years of pushing through impossible expectations or toxic dynamics. Therapy — and EMDR — can help you understand what you’ve been carrying and why it still affects you.

No. This isn’t about resilience theater or fixing yourself to fit harmful environments. EMDR and trauma-informed therapy focus on processing what happened, reducing the emotional and physical toll, and helping you lead and live without constantly bracing for impact.

EMDR helps your brain reprocess the moments and environments that left a lasting imprint — the pressure, the undermining, the conflict, the seasons of holding everything together. Instead of just talking about what happened, EMDR works at the level where trauma actually lives, allowing you to release the impact and move through your career with more steadiness, clarity, and ease.

Never. Many women begin this work after a job change, a major transition, or simply realizing they’re exhausted from what they survived. EMDR can help you reprocess old experiences so they stop shaping your present — no matter how long ago they occurred.

Any questions?