Trauma therapy and EMDR for Marbella
EMDR is the most strongly evidence-based treatment for psychological trauma, recommended by the World Health Organization and by NICE in the United Kingdom as a first-line treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr Philippe Jacquet has practised it for more than twenty years. For people on the Costa del Sol, sessions take place online by encrypted video, in English or French.
What EMDR does
When an event is experienced as an intense threat, emotional overload can prevent the brain from processing it in the ordinary way. The memory stays unintegrated, still carrying its emotion, its bodily sensation and the beliefs about oneself that were formed in that moment, and it can reactivate without warning at cues that look trivial from the outside. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess and file the memory properly. The memory remains afterwards; what goes is the charge, and the body stops reacting as though the event were still happening.
Trauma that arrives with a move
People relocate to Marbella for a great many reasons, and some of those reasons are things being left behind rather than things being moved towards: a bereavement, a divorce, a business failure, an illness, a period of drinking that nobody at home has stopped discussing. A move does not process any of that. It postpones it, and the postponement can hold for a surprisingly long time before the symptoms arrive, often in a place where the person has no established doctor, no long-standing friendships and no obvious way to start.
This is also work that suits people who are cautious about being seen. A therapist who is not part of the local community, working by video from London, offers a degree of separation that a local practice cannot.
Where EMDR fits
EMDR is not the whole of trauma treatment and is not always the right first step. Where trauma sits underneath an addiction or an eating disorder, sequencing matters, and that judgement is made at the first consultation rather than assumed. You can read more about the approach on the EMDR therapy page.
Related services in Marbella
See all services for Marbella.
Dr Philippe Jacquet is a UKCP registered psychotherapist, a Jungian analyst and an HCPC registered art psychotherapist, with twenty-five years of clinical practice. His Doctorate of Professional Practice at the University of Essex examined male eating disorders from the perspective of analytical psychology. Registration can be checked on either public register.
How the work is delivered from here
All international sessions are by secure video, in English or French. Online therapy is not a reduced version of consulting room work: it is the format that lets weekly work survive living abroad, travelling, or relocating. Sessions run in United Kingdom hours, which suits most regions, and if your time zone makes none of it workable, say so when you enquire rather than assuming it rules you out.
For clinicians and treatment services
Dr Jacquet supervises clinical teams in private residential addiction treatment and in a private psychiatric hospital. For treatment centres, psychiatric units and group practices looking for external clinical supervision, including in places where no supervisor of this seniority is available locally, team supervision is also delivered by video. For individual practitioners, see clinical supervision.
Common questions
Does EMDR work online?
Yes. EMDR is delivered online by secure video following the same protocol as in-person work, and the evidence for it holds up in that format.
How experienced is Dr Jacquet in EMDR?
He has practised EMDR for more than twenty years, with trauma as one of the practice's core specialisms.
Do I need a diagnosis of PTSD?
No. A great deal of trauma work concerns events that were never formally diagnosed, including childhood experience and cumulative strain rather than a single incident.