Online Trauma & PTSD Treatment throughout Massachusetts
Rapid Relief from Trauma and PTSD in Boston
Rapid Relief from Trauma & PTSD in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline for Teens and Adults
Effective, Online Trauma Therapy Available Anywhere in Massachusetts
Whether you’re in a Back Bay brownstone, a Cambridge triple-decker, or somewhere on the Cape, we can work together. No fighting Storrow Drive traffic, circling for parking in Harvard Square, or awkward waiting rooms where you might run into someone from your office.
I am a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) in Massachusetts, which means I can work with you wherever you are in the state: from Gloucester to Fall River, from the Berkshires to Provincetown.
Your nervous system knows something bad happened, and it won’t let you forget it:
A crime or an accident on the Red Line
Family trauma in the suburbs of Newton or Wellesley
Medical trauma at Mass General or Brigham and Women’s
You love Massachusetts for the history, the seasons, and the intellectual energy. But trauma has a way of stealing the things we love…
The Esplanade path you used to run every morning became where you had your worst panic attack.
The Hingham ferry used to mean harbor views and peace. Now it’s where you found out about the affair.
Newbury Street, once your favorite Saturday afternoon ritual, feels too dangerous to enjoy now.
If you work in healthcare at Beth Israel, Boston Medical Center, or any hospital, COVID-19 asked too much of you. You’ve made decisions no one should have to make. You watched families say goodbye through screens and held more dying hands than any person should.
Now, walking into work feels like preparing for battle, even on quiet days. Your body doesn't know the crisis is over because, for healthcare workers, it never really ended.
The corporate world presents its own challenges. Your friends and family think you’ve got it made with your Boston salary and Seaport office, but in reality, the anxiety is crushing. Admitting struggle feels like weakness in an industry that celebrates grinding yourself into a pulp.
The Limitations of Traditional Therapy for Trauma Treatment
If you’ve been in talk therapy before, then I bet you already understand your triggers and where they come from.
But intellectual understanding alone doesn’t calm your nervous system. Understanding why sounds make you jump or hide doesn't prevent those responses. Recognizing that always looking over your shoulder comes from past trauma doesn’t help you sleep soundly at night or bring your A-game to your relationships.
The Neuroscience of Accelerated Resolution Therapy
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) directly addresses trauma at the neurological level, bypassing the need for months of “talking about it”. ART uses eye movements similar to what happens naturally during dream sleep to help your brain reprocess traumatic memories. Most people see results in just 1-5 sessions. You don’t have to share the painful details of what happened; you can keep your privacy while still getting the help you need.
The results of ART are real and concrete: You drive through intersections that used to trigger panic, and your heart rate stays normal. You walk through Davis Square thinking about where you’re going, not planning escape routes. You sleep through the night without constantly checking locks and windows. The best part is that these changes don’t happen because you’re trying harder or using skills. They happen because your brain has moved upsetting memories to the “completed experience” category, and your nervous system no longer sees these things as active threats.
Process Upsetting Memories Without Reliving Them in Detail
Introducing Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART): The Trauma Treatment That Works as Fast as Trauma Happened
Remember how quickly your brain learned to fear? ART helps it learn safety just as fast.
Here’s what makes ART different from talking about your trauma for months or years:
Speed and efficiency that matches your life — Most clients see significant relief in 1-5 sessions. Not 1-5 months. 1-5 sessions. Imagine coming to your first appointment on Monday and feeling different by Friday.
Privacy and discretion — You don’t have to describe the painful details. Keep the parts that feel too raw to share. Your brain knows what happened; we just help it file the memory differently.
Impressive research findings —
94% of people complete ART treatment (compared to 60% for traditional therapy)⁴
Veterans with combat PTSD: 61% showed major improvement⁵
Effect sizes 2-4 times stronger than traditional therapy (1.12 to 3.28 for the research-minded)⁶ — traditional evidence-based therapy scores around 0.8 (which is considered good)
Healing through ART is like the difference between looking at an old photo versus being trapped inside it.
How your brain heals itself (with a little guidance)…
Step 1: Pick a specific memory or feeling. The car accident. The diagnosis. The moment you found those texts.
Step 2: Hold the memory during bilateral stimulation, like watching scenery from a train window while your brain sorts through its filing system.
Step 3: Choose new images to replace the painful ones. Your brain keeps the facts but drops the electric charge.
The Evidence is Clear: ART Creates Profound Change
What Research Shows About ART’s Effectiveness
Military Veterans Study (2013)⁷ — A randomized controlled trial with combat veterans showed 61% response rate for PTSD symptoms. These are veterans who often struggle with traditional therapies, yet over half experienced significant improvement with ART.
Complicated Grief Research (2021)⁸ — Effect sizes reached 2.13 for PTSD symptoms and 1.79 for grief symptoms. To put this in perspective, an effect size over 0.8 is considered “large.” ART’s numbers are extraordinary.
Treatment Completion Rates⁹ — 94% of clients complete ART treatment. Compare this to 60-65% completion rates for traditional PTSD therapies. People stick with ART because they feel better quickly.
Recent Cancer Survivor Study (2024)¹⁰ — Preliminary results show promising outcomes for medical trauma, expanding ART’s applications beyond traditional PTSD.
Systematic Review Findings¹¹ — Across multiple studies, ART consistently shows effect sizes ranging from 1.12 to 3.28 (remember, 0.8 is considered “good”).
Trauma Therapy in Boston That Helps You Thrive
Through our trauma work together, you’ll stop surviving and start living. Not managing trauma, not coping with triggers, not getting through each day. Actually living with spontaneity, joy, and the freedom to choose your life instead of trauma choosing it for you.
What changes after our work together…
Your nervous system remembers how to rest — That jaw tension you notice in the mornings is gone. Sunday scaries become just Sundays. You stop needing three alarms because you actually sleep until the first one. The random 2pm exhaustion that hits during meetings lifts. Your shoulders drop away from your ears without constant reminders. That weird chest flutter when someone walks behind you disappears. Food tastes like food again, not cardboard you force down.
Connection stops feeling dangerous — You quit analyzing whether your partner’s text seemed “off.” Work happy hours become actually happy, not endurance tests. Dating means excitement instead of detective work. Physical intimacy returns without the mental checklist running. Friends’ successes bring joy, not comparison spirals. You can disagree without preparing for abandonment. Asking for help becomes asking, not a three-day internal debate about worthiness.
Your days gain hours — Morning routines shrink from 90 minutes of procrastination to 30 minutes of actual getting ready. The T ride becomes reading time instead of vigilance practice. You finish work at work instead of replaying every interaction during dinner. Errands happen without the pre-errands pep talk. Evening walks to the Charles become walks, not exposure therapy. Bedtime means sleep, not two hours of "what-if" scenarios. Weekends feel like two days instead of 48 hours of recovery.
Ordinary places become ordinary again — The Prudential Center is just a mall. Your old neighborhood becomes a route option, not a detour requirement. That George Howell Coffee shop at Boston Public Market, where you got the bad news, becomes just your routine coffee shop again. Parking garages lose their threat level. Anniversaries of what happened don’t require a survival strategy. You stop mapping exits before sitting down at one of the North End Italian restaurants. The ping of work emails doesn’t spike your cortisol. Doctor’s offices become healthcare, not panic zones.
Your instincts become reliable guides — You know tired from depressed from overwhelmed, from actually sick. “No” becomes a complete sentence without the guilt hangover. You recognize manipulation immediately instead of three months later. Career moves get decided by opportunity, not by which option feels "safer." You stop fact-checking your own experiences with others. That "something feels wrong" sensation means something IS wrong, not that you're "too sensitive." You trust your read on people without needing committee approval. Your body's signals, like hunger, tiredness, attraction, and discomfort, become information instead of inconveniences. You stop apologizing for having preferences. You know what you want for dinner without it being an existential crisis.
A 90-minute Accelerated Resolution Therapy session is $500.
ART sessions are $500 per session. Each session runs as long as needed to complete the protocol, typically 60-90 minutes. The average length of treatment is 3-4 sessions for most issues.
Total investment for most clients: $1,500-$2,500.
ART is an investment in your freedom and well-being.
Allyson Clemmons, LICSW,
Boston Trauma Therapist
Real healing happens in the nervous system, not just in conversation.
After 15 years in traditional talk therapy, I now specialize in helping my Boston clients who have tried multiple approaches but aren’t finding lasting change. Using ART's bilateral eye movements (similar to what happens naturally during REM sleep), we’ll work directly with how traumatic memories are stored in your brain. Most clients experience their breakthrough in 1-5 sessions instead of months or years.
If you’ve hit a wall with other approaches and want freedom from symptoms (not just management), you’re exactly who I work with.
Licensed in Massachusetts (LICSW #126480)
100% Online
Get in touch
Self-Schedule Your First ART Session or Contact Me
If you already know you would like to get scheduled, please do so using the button below. No need to contact me first unless you want to.
The link will take you to my secure, HIPAA-compliant scheduling tool where you can choose a day and time and pay for your session to reserve it. Within 24 hours, you’ll receive an email invitation to complete your new client forms. Then we’ll meet on your scheduled day!
-
Traditional talk therapy often takes months or years; the eye movement approach I use (called Accelerated Resolution Therapy) typically resolves trauma in just 1-5 sessions. Most of my Boston clients see significant relief within 3-4 appointments. You could start on Monday and feel fundamentally different by the end of the week.
-
Understanding your trauma intellectually doesn't calm your nervous system. You might know exactly why something in your life triggers panic, but knowing doesn't stop it. The approach I use works directly with how your brain stores traumatic memories, bypassing the need to talk through everything repeatedly. This is why clients who have been in therapy for years finally find relief.
-
No. Unlike exposure therapy or other traditional trauma therapies, where you detail everything that happened, my approach lets you keep painful specifics private. Your brain knows what happened; we just help it file the memory differently. Many clients prefer this because they can heal without verbalizing experiences that feel too raw to share.
-
My sessions are $500 per 60-90 minute appointment. Since most clients complete treatment in 3-4 sessions (total: $1,500-$2,500), it often costs less than 6 months of weekly therapy. Many Boston professionals with PPO plans get 50-80% reimbursed through out-of-network benefits (though it ultimately depends on your individual insurance plan). I am happy to provide Superbills for BCBS, Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts, and others.
-
Yes! In fact, many clients prefer it. No fighting Boston traffic, no anxiety about running into someone you know in a waiting room, no panic about finding parking. You can heal from your safe space at home. The eye movements we use work exactly the same through video as in person. I've successfully treated clients from Back Bay to Cambridge to the Cape, all online.
-
Intrusive thoughts, replaying events, and being unable to "move on" despite trying are textbook signs of trauma. Whether it's a car accident on Storrow Drive, medical trauma at Mass General, or something from years ago that won't stop haunting you, if your nervous system keeps bringing it up, it needs to be processed. Schedule directly if you're ready for relief.
-
Many of my clients tried EMDR first. The approach I use (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) is more structured and typically faster. While EMDR can take 8-20 sessions with less predictable results (and sometimes, more distress), most people see clear improvement with ART in 1-5 sessions.
The key difference is you get to consciously choose how memories are re-stored, giving you more control over the outcome.
-
Yes. I regularly work with clients processing traumatic diagnoses, brutal treatments, and medical emergencies from Dana-Farber, Mass General, and other Boston hospitals. Whether it’s the helplessness of treatment, fear of recurrence, or specific medical procedures that haunt you, trauma therapy can help you feel a restored sense of safety, and usually in just a few sessions.
-
I completely understand the skepticism; in fact, I asked this very same question!
But the research is compelling: 94% of people complete this treatment (versus 60% for traditional therapy), and studies with combat veterans show 61% major improvement. The effect sizes (meaning, how much a treatment helps) are 2-4 times stronger than traditional therapy. ART’s results are extraordinary.
heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions
—
heal the root cause in 1-5 sessions —