About Our Trauma Therapy and EMDR Practice in Atlanta
Built for the work most therapy doesn't reach
If you've landed here, you're probably looking for the right person to do this work with. Maybe you've tried therapy before and it didn't quite reach. Maybe you've been considering it for years and finally feel ready. Maybe someone you trust sent you, and you're checking to see if we're who they say we are.
Whichever brought you here, we're glad you took the time. The fit matters more than most therapists are willing to admit.
What you’ve been carrying that nobody’s named
There's a version of you that's been functioning for a long time. You show up. You take care of the people who depend on you. You hold the boundaries you've worked hard to learn. From the outside, the life you've built looks intentional, maybe even enviable. But it’s been quietly costing you, and you've started to suspect that the cost is no longer sustainable.
Most of the people around you don't see it. You've gotten good at making sure they don't.
For the one carrying something inherited.
Some of what you're holding wasn't yours to begin with. It was passed down through people you loved, in patterns nobody named. You've come to recognize the weight even if you can't always trace the origin. You're aware that "just doing therapy" isn't going to fully address what your family didn't have language for.
For the one who knows what's underneath and can't unknot it.
You've connected the dots. You can name the parent, the moment, the pattern. You've journaled about it. You've explained it to other people, sometimes more than once. And the explanation hasn't been the same thing as the relief. The knowing didn't equal the freeing.
For the one watching from a few feet away.
Her bedroom door closes earlier than it used to. His "I'm fine" comes faster. The friend who used to call now only texts back two days later. You're not imagining it. You can feel the room they've slipped into, even if they haven't told you they've gone there. You don't want to be the one who makes it worse. You also don't want to be the one who pretended not to notice.
If any of that landed, you're in the right place to keep reading.
The Matched Care Framework:
How This Practice Treats What Other Therapy Hasn't
Most therapy applies one method to every client. We don't. This practice operates on a framework built around three matches: the right method for the work, the right pacing for the client, and the right context for who you actually are. Each one is the difference between therapy that moves things and therapy that doesn't.
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The Right Method
EMDR for what your body has been holding under the story. CBT, motivational interviewing, and psychodynamic work for stabilization and pattern recognition. Developmentally-attuned methods for adolescents. The method gets matched to what's actually in the room, not to what the practice happens to offer.
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The Right Pacing
Weekly sessions for ongoing care. EMDR intensives, three to six hours in a single session, for clients who don't want to spread their healing across a year. Slower starts for clients who need stabilization before deeper work. The pacing fits the client, not the other way around.
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The Right Context
We don't ask you to translate your life before the work can start. Cultural attunement, lived experience, and clinical training that accounts for what you bring into the room. The work meets you where you actually live.
The Clinicians Behind the Framework
The practice is led by Westly Francois, LCSW, an EMDRIA-Approved Certified EMDR Therapist and EMDR Basic Training Facilitator. He's the supervisor and consultant other clinicians come to when they're building their own EMDR practice.
Lauren Francois, LCSW specializes in teen girls and young women. Ciera Barney, LCSW provides virtual therapy across Florida for adults navigating burnout, anxiety, and the work that comes before EMDR.
Each clinician operates within the framework above, using the methods that fit her clients best.
Ready to see if this is the right fit?
Start with a fifteen-minute phone consultation.
No intake form. No commitment. Just a conversation about what's bringing you here and whether the way we work makes sense for what you need.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Atlanta Therapy Practice
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EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy that helps the brain reprocess experiences your nervous system has stored as unresolved. Through guided bilateral stimulation, often eye movements or tapping, the brain reorganizes how it's holding a difficult experience. The result isn't forgetting. It's that the memory stops carrying the same charge, the pattern stops repeating, and the body stops bracing. EMDR is widely recognized by the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association as a leading treatment for trauma and PTSD.
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EMDR intensives are extended single sessions, typically three to six hours, designed to do focused work that would take months of weekly sessions to accomplish. Intensives suit clients whose lives don't fit a weekly therapy schedule, who want to do concentrated work on a specific experience, or who have plateaued in traditional therapy. We're one of the few practices in Atlanta offering this format. Most insurance plans don't reimburse intensive sessions, so they're typically a private-pay investment.
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Westly Francois, LCSW is licensed in Georgia, Florida, and Virginia. Lauren Francois, LCSW is licensed in Georgia. Ciera Barney, LCSW is licensed in Florida and is currently pursuing Georgia licensure. We offer in-person sessions at our Atlanta office and virtual sessions across the states where our clinicians are licensed.
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Start with a free fifteen-minute phone consultation. We'll talk about what's bringing you here, what you've tried before, and which of our clinicians is the best fit for your specific work and life circumstances. If we're not the right fit for what you're carrying, we'll tell you and help you find someone who is.
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Most trauma therapies, including CBT and exposure-based approaches, work through language and cognition. EMDR works on the way the brain stores experience at a more foundational level, which is why it often reaches material that talk therapy alone hasn't moved. For many clients who have done previous therapy without full resolution, EMDR is the method that finally addresses what's been holding underneath the story.
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It depends on the work. Some clients see meaningful change in 6-12 sessions of EMDR for a specific issue. Others benefit from longer-term weekly therapy that integrates EMDR with other methods. EMDR intensives can accomplish in a single session what might take 2-3 months of weekly work. We don't measure success by how long you stay. We measure it by whether the work is actually moving.