Heal from within and live freely
EMDR and Eating Disorder Therapy
You were never meant to just survive
This is where your healing begins
You've been carrying the weight of this burden for so long. Quietly surviving, holding it all together, wondering if you'll ever feel truly safe again. I see how exhausting that is, and I want you to know it's okay to be tired of it. It's okay to want more.
I'm Karen Schneller, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, EMDR-trained clinician, and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist practicing in San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles, California. Whether you're here to heal from trauma, difficult relationships, or an eating disorder – or all of the above – I'm here to help you achieve lasting healing, embodied wisdom and the ability to befriend your own nervous system so you can live freely.
– Karen Schneller
My Path To This Work
Growing up in a larger body, I learned early what it meant to navigate a world I didn't fit into. The medical stigma, the weight of other people's judgements, and the common experiences with friends and family I quietly missed out on.
What I didn't know then was that this would become my greatest catalyst for healing. It pushed me to pursue a career into eating disorder recovery, supporting clients in treatment centers, recovery communities, and in private practice. When I discovered EMDR – my north star – this modality helped me process my own emotional layers and reshaped my therapeutic approach entirely.
What is EMDR?
Trauma is all-encompassing. It doesn’t just live in one’s memories, it lives in the body, emotions and all the automatic reactions we have to the world. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a brain-based, research-backed therapy that helps your nervous system resolve PTSD and complex trauma. Instead of spending years talking about what happened, EMDR helps your brain finish processing old, painful memories and gently release the emotional triggers associated with them – often faster than you would expect.
The nervous system is wise, not broken.
Your nervous system is wise, not broken. Trauma put you into survival mode. Those freeze, fight, fawn responses you may experience are not flaws. They are protective instincts that kept you safe when you needed it most. The work is going back to map out what happened and help your brain reprocess the experience and let it go.
My approach to healing is anchored in three truths.
Healing doesn’t have to be slow or brutal.
There’s a misconception that deep trauma work means years of painfully re-living your past. That isn’t true. Backed leading trauma experts, EMDR is a brain-based therapy helping clients release decades of shame, flashbacks, and hypervigilance, and experience rapid relief.
Full recovery is possible with the right tools.
Once the trauma is processed, joy, connection, and a deep sense of worthiness naturally returns.
In our sessions, you can expect warmth, curiosity, and collaboration. By using EMDR's bilateral stimulation (BLS) method, we can reactivate the brain’s innate healing powers to bring peace back into your body.
