Licensed psychotherapist · 10+ years · EMDR · Lifespan Integration · Certified HeartMath trainer · English, German, Hebrew · Online, worldwide
Licensed psychotherapist · 10+ years · EMDR · Lifespan Integration · Certified HeartMath trainer · English, German, Hebrew · Online, worldwide
How I work
A gentle approach to attachment and early experience — one that works with the shape of your life rather than picking through individual memories.
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Lifespan Integration is a therapeutic method that works with the timeline of your life as a whole, rather than targeting individual distressing memories.
It was developed by Peggy Pace in the early 2000s, and it's used primarily for attachment injuries, developmental trauma and difficulties with emotional regulation — the kinds of difficulty that don't attach to a single identifiable event.
In practice, you and I build a personal timeline: a sequence of brief cues, one for each year or period of your life, drawn from your own memory. In session, we move through that timeline repeatedly while staying connected to a particular feeling or state.
The repetition is the active ingredient. The proposal is that a system still responding as though an earlier chapter were current gradually registers, at a felt rather than intellectual level, that time has in fact passed — that the sequence ran, that you got through it, and that you are here now.
That last part is what people describe as the difference. Not knowing the past is over. Feeling it.
Lifespan Integration tends to be most useful where the difficulty is diffuse, longstanding, and feels more like a climate than an event — where there's no single memory to aim at.
It's also the method I reach for when other trauma work has been too activating, and someone needs an approach that stays within what their system can tolerate.
Particularly indicated for
This takes a session or two. You gather brief memory cues — one per year, or per period — from across your life. They don't need to be significant or dramatic. A kitchen. A journey to school. A room you slept in. The point is that they're specific to you and locate you in time.
In session, I read the cues back to you in sequence while you hold a particular feeling, image or state. We move through the timeline from the earlier point to the present, and then we do it again. And again.
You don't describe what happened, and you don't have to talk through distressing material in detail. This is a significant practical difference from most trauma work, and it's why people who've found other approaches overwhelming often manage this one.
What people notice varies. Often a gradual settling across passes — the emotional charge on the earlier material reduces, or the memory begins to feel more clearly then rather than now. Sometimes people become tired, or emotional, or quiet. Sometimes very little happens in a session and something shifts in the days afterwards.
I'm trained in both, and I use both. They do different jobs.
| Works with | EMDR: specific memories and incidents Lifespan Integration: the timeline of your life as a whole |
| Best suited to | EMDR: identifiable events, single-incident trauma, phobias, specific triggers Lifespan Integration: attachment injuries, developmental and early material, diffuse difficulty |
| Detailed retelling | Neither method requires it |
| Typical intensity | EMDR: can be activating Lifespan Integration: generally gentler |
| Research base | EMDR: large — recognised by the WHO, NICE and the APA among others Lifespan Integration: considerably smaller — mostly small studies and clinical practice |
| Pace | EMDR: often faster where there's a clear target Lifespan Integration: usually more gradual |
Which one, and when. If there's a clear event or trigger, EMDR is usually the more direct route and it has the stronger evidence behind it. If the difficulty is early, diffuse, attachment-shaped, or if other trauma work has been overwhelming, Lifespan Integration is often the better place to start. Frequently we use both at different stages.
That's a clinical judgement we make together, based on what the material is and how your system responds to it.
In the right situations, it does things that nothing else I've trained in achieves — and I'd rather tell you plainly what the evidence for that is.
I'd rather be straight with you about this than have you discover it yourself later.
The evidence base for Lifespan Integration is limited. There are small studies and a substantial body of clinical practice experience, but nothing approaching the volume of trials behind EMDR or cognitive behavioural therapy. It isn't listed in the major treatment guidelines, and the proposed mechanism — that repeated timeline work helps the system integrate that time has passed — is a plausible model rather than a settled finding.
So why do I use it? Because in specific situations, particularly attachment and early developmental material, I've repeatedly seen it do things that other methods I'm trained in don't achieve, and do them gently. That's clinical experience rather than proof, and you're entitled to weigh it as such.
What that means practically. I don't offer Lifespan Integration as a stand-alone treatment for a diagnosis, and I won't present it as evidence-based in the way EMDR is. It sits inside a broader approach — regulation first, then processing, then consolidation — alongside methods with stronger research behind them.
Lifespan Integration is part of the Integrate stage of how I work.
Before it, we build regulatory capacity using HeartMath coherence training, so there's stability to process from. Afterwards, we consolidate psychodynamically — making sense of what the pattern protected and what replaces it.
Used on its own, any processing method tends to produce change that doesn't hold. Sequenced, it does something different.
Practical
Lifespan Integration is a therapeutic method that works with the timeline of your life as a whole rather than targeting individual memories. Developed by Peggy Pace in the early 2000s, it's used mainly for attachment injuries, developmental trauma and emotional regulation difficulties, and involves repeatedly moving through a personal timeline of memory cues while staying connected to a particular feeling.
EMDR targets specific distressing memories and has a large research base, including recognition by the World Health Organization and NICE. Lifespan Integration works with your whole life timeline rather than isolated events, which suits attachment and early experience where there's no single incident to target. Lifespan Integration is gentler and often better tolerated; EMDR is more established and more extensively researched.
Its evidence base is limited — small studies and clinical practice experience rather than large trials, and it isn't included in the major treatment guidelines. I use it because in specific situations, particularly attachment and developmental material, I've seen it achieve things other methods don't. That's clinical experience rather than proof, and worth weighing as such.
No. Lifespan Integration doesn't require detailed retelling of distressing events. You build a timeline of brief, ordinary memory cues, and the work happens through repetition rather than narration. This is one of the main reasons people who've found other trauma work overwhelming can often manage this.
It's a personal sequence of brief memory cues, usually one for each year or period of your life, drawn from your own recollection. They don't need to be significant — a room, a journey, a place — they simply need to locate you at a point in time. We build it together over one or two sessions and then use it repeatedly.
It varies considerably. Contained material can settle within a handful of sessions; developmental and attachment work is generally slower and less linear. I'll give you an honest estimate once I understand what we're working with.
Yes. The work is verbal and visual rather than physical, so it translates well to video. You'll need a private space and an uninterrupted hour.
Tell me what you're dealing with and what you've already tried. I'll tell you honestly whether Lifespan Integration is likely to be the right tool — or whether something else would serve you better.
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