Trauma can leave invisible scars that affect every part of life. Traditional therapies help, but new approaches are emerging that make healing faster and more accessible. In this episode of A New Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar sits down with trauma psychologist and Multi-Channel Eye Movement Integration (MEMI) expert Dr. H (Dr. H) to explore innovative ways to treat trauma and PTSD.
Who is Dr. H?
Dr. H is a trauma psychologist with a rich background in research, consulting, and clinical care. Her journey includes:
- MBA from Columbia University with a focus on organizational leadership.
- PhD in Psychology, specializing in trauma and spirituality.
- VA PTSD Clinic experience, helping veterans recover from trauma.
- Developing Multi-Channel Eye Movement Integration (MEMI) therapy to transform trauma treatment.
You can connect with Dr. H and learn more about her work here:
Her work combines empathy, attunement, and mindfulness, helping clients regain control of their lives.
Traditional Trauma Therapies: Benefits & Limitations
Before discovering MEMI, Dr. H worked extensively with evidence-based trauma therapies like:
- Prolonged Exposure (PE): Revisiting traumatic memories to reduce emotional impact.
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Challenging harmful beliefs formed after trauma.
- Trauma-focused CBT & Play Therapy: Especially effective for children.
Challenges:
- High dropout rates due to intensity and emotional overwhelm.
- Limited accessibility due to cost or time commitment (12–15 sessions).
- Not suitable for everyone, particularly those less verbal or aware of their emotions.
Dr. H noticed that the most impactful healing often comes from the caregiver-client relationship, emphasizing mindfulness, attunement, and compassionate presence.
MEMI: A New Approach to Trauma Healing
Multi-Channel Eye Movement Integration (MEMI) is an evolution of eye movement therapies, including EMDR and brain spotting. Here’s what makes it different:
- Full visual field engagement: Unlike EMDR’s side-to-side motion, MEMI uses the entire visual field to disrupt trauma recall patterns.
- Sensory-first approach: Focuses on sight, sound, body sensations, and emotions without requiring clients to retell the trauma.
- Rapid results: Some clients experience healing in just one session.
How it works:
- Clients project visual, auditory, and visceral elements of the trauma onto a designated space.
- Eye movements help the brain recalibrate and calm the limbic system.
- Progress is tracked using intensity ratings (0–4) for each sensory component.
This method allows clients to process trauma safely, effectively, and efficiently, even when traditional therapy feels overwhelming.
Why MEMI Matters Today
- Fast-acting: Short-term therapy can be life-changing for those struggling with PTSD or trauma.
- Accessible: Less time-intensive and emotionally draining compared to traditional approaches.
- Empowering: Clients actively engage in their healing, building resilience and self-efficacy.
Dr. H’s innovative therapy is transforming how we approach trauma care, helping individuals heal without being trapped by their past.
Takeaway from the Podcast
Dr. H emphasizes that healing is more than therapy—it’s presence, attunement, and compassion. Whether you are a trauma survivor or a mental health professional, understanding MEMI can open new doors to fast, effective, and sustainable healing.
Ready to Learn More?
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🌐 Connect with Dr. H:
- https://multichanneleyemovementintegration.com/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/multichannel-eye-movement-integration/about/
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/multichannel-eye-movement-integration/about/
- https://www.facebook.com/multichanneleyemovementintegration/
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Here is the Transcript:
Dr Haugen Part ONE
[00:00:00]
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Hello everyone. I am so thrilled and honored to have esteemed trauma psychologist and multichannel eye movement integration expert with us today, Dr. Maria Gear Haugen otherwise known as Dr. H. With us today, Dr. H, hi.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: So happy to see you.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: So happy to see you too. I’m so excited to interview Dr. H. I met her at the, uh, uh, American Psychological Association Conference in my home state of Colorado, um, uh, earlier in August, and was so impressed by this new type of therapy called MEMI or Multichannel Eye Movement Integration therapy. And so I really wanted to have her come on board [00:01:00] so that we could learn more about her and about this really interesting therapy for trauma. So before we get into our questions, I’m gonna read just a little bit about Dr. H and then we will dive right in. Dr.
Maria Gear Haugen known by many as Dr. H, is a trauma psychologist with a unique background in spanning mental health research, consulting, and clinical care. She has dedicated her career to helping trauma survivors find healing and resilience. After successful work in consulting and earning her MBA for from Columbia University, she shifted her focus to psychology earning her PhD with a specialization in trauma and spirituality. Dr. H has served veterans with PTSD at the VA, worked with children and adults facing trauma and developed innovative healing [00:02:00] approaches including multi-channel eye movement integration or MEMI. Today she trains providers and works directly with clients to help them recover from adversity with compassion and clarity.
Dr. H welcome.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Thank you. Wonderful to be here.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Well, it’s wonderful to have you and to have somebody with such a, a really unique and interesting history and that’s how I usually like to start off my podcast is really understanding people’s in inspiration to do what they do. So you have had quite a fascinating career. It started in research and consulting before it turned fully towards psychology.
Can you just share a little bit about that journey and what led you to focus on trauma?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: You know, it really has been a journey and in a way it’s been a circle because I did start with psychology as an undergrad. I was a double major in psychology and theology. [00:03:00] And so those threads are moving through my life. Uh, and after I did research for a while, I got really interested in data analytics. And focused on that for a while, which along with organizational change that I was interested in leadership styles, I decided to transition pretty early in my career and get that MBA at Columbia. It was a, a focus on internal systems and nonprofit and public management, which was in a way a consistent thread into mental health, I thought at the time. And so I did that consulting for many years, uh, in Washington DC and in the New York City area. And I remember to this day, a moment when I was walking down in DC somewhere I was about to start my own consulting firm, which entailed hiring employees and setting up a structure, and I thought, [00:04:00] gosh, is this what I want my legacy to be? And I thought that’s an important question. And I really then dedicated two years of my life to discerning the answer to that question. And it really led me back to, uh, my, my first loves, which was psychology. And, trauma, specifically. I
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: What about trauma exactly
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Good question.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: You toward it?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: So I had had a dear uncle who was a very spiritual man as a child growing up. He was my sister’s brother and he was a priest and he was, uh, very involved in people’s lives and by extension I was involved in, you know, people would come to him with tragedies and heartbreaks and all kinds of suffering and pain and [00:05:00] trauma, I often would be called on to help out, go to someone’s house or go with him to such and such a place. Um, and I think I really learned compassion and respect and attention to people who are suffering, people who are not at the best points in their life and yet deserve, uh, respect and compassion and care. And I really think that thread kind of pulled me, uh, to trauma.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: How beautiful. I love when our own family especially inspires us to do incredible work, and I do think that many psychologists are inspired either in a negative or a positive way by their families, um, to, to help others recover from similar things or from the things that we’re most interested in. So at what point did you realize that working [00:06:00] directly with people in clinical settings was the legacy?
Was it that moment or were there some successive experiences that really solidified your path?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Well, it’s an evolution. We all are an evolution, aren’t we?
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Mm-hmm.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: I was very interested in research and I really thought that would be my path. Um, all of my academic research was in trauma. Some of it was also in spirituality and how that’s affected by traumatic events, and I really thought that was what I would continue to do until, uh, I did my clinical internship at a VA at a PTSD clinic. And I thought, wow, this is a way to really apply all of that knowledge that I’ve gained from my research into really affecting people’s lives. And that I think is really what switched it for me.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Well, can you gimme a picture of [00:07:00] that? I mean, we have, I think, a good idea of what veterans have gone through, but were there any particular cases, uh, that really stood out for you, that made you want to continue in this work?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: This was back in the day, so we really didn’t have, certainly didn’t have cognitive processing therapy. Um, PE really was not used much. It was in the very early days, and so we didn’t have a lot of tools. Besides empathy, uh, listening with attention, uh, caring for people, and I think an earnest desire to help them in their difficulties of their life. But it was really that, perhaps it was, uh, the fact that, I found that people were able to be helped just through those simple tools, uh, and move on with their life. I, I worked with people with dual diagnoses, either [00:08:00] substance abuse or traumatic brain injury. so, you know, those are some real challenging times that people were trying to get through and coming to us for help. So it, it, it really was that sense of, you know, I can do something here, and I, I’ve seen people be helped by this.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: I think that’s so wonderful. And just for listeners who don’t know what PE is, it’s a prolonged exposure. Um, and so that’s, uh, a common, uh, and very effective trauma treatment, although there’s many more, and we’re gonna be talking about MEMI soon as well. Um, but it, you know, it really does, uh, testify to the fact that oftentimes healing is.
The most about the relationship between the caregiver and the, and the client. And so that, I think is, is really apparent in your history in working at the VA before these, uh, more, you know, concentrated and, um, you know, [00:09:00] validated treatments. So I think that’s so wonderful. But what were some of the key lessons that you learned in early work with trauma survivors, like children, adults, veterans that shape how you practice today?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: You know, I think your questions are so insightful and profound.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Oh, thank you.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: They really helped me, you know, focus in on some, I think, key questions in my own development as a provider and someone who, you know, I view my work as being a witness, uh, for people, uh, helping them through difficult times in their life. I really think that the echoes of parts of my practice that I find to be enduring and important, really come from those early experiences. So, you know, that attunement to the person that’s in front of me is so important. It’s not just the words, it’s the posture, it’s the language, it’s the [00:10:00] voice, uh, the cadence, uh, what they’re not saying, that I think is very important.
Compassion, uh, non-judgment, acceptance and really, uh, respecting and yet empowering people because I know they’re resourceful. Events have have blocked those in many cases inside for people to really feel that they have resources to help them heal. But I really view my work as being a facilitator and, almost walking with them. In a, in a, in a way, rather than guiding them or directing them, I have some tools, but they do the work and I really respect that.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Oh, me too. I really resonate with what you just said. I think attunement probably is the most at, well, I’ll say attunement, compassionate, and empathy.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: I would add [00:11:00] mindfulness I think are the most important characteristics a, a therapist can embody because, it’s not effective if we necessarily, it’s not as effective if we guide, or obviously it’s not effective if we tell them what to do, but when we’re there and we’re walking, you know, through their experience with them.
Maybe adding some tools along the way, but just listening and just being there is so therapeutic, so helpful when somebody can actually finally feel seen. I think that that’s when true transformation begins to happen, and that is such a beautiful thing. So, yes, absolutely. Did you wanna add something?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: well, you know, even think about. Regular interactions that we have. How often are we truly aware that someone is being fully mindful with, with you [00:12:00] in any given moment? There’s such power in that, I do practice very much being present and, and being with the person. And in and of itself is, is very powerful.
It’s validating to people. I I’m important, I, I’m worth someone paying attention to me, which as we know from PTSD, uh, is, is not a a feeling that’s often there.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Yes, and I think it’s a rare quality, especially with the advent of smartphones and social media. I think people are often just distracted and not fully listening.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: So when we actually do that, it’s, it’s quite, uh, pleasantly alarming to have somebody mindfully attuning to you. And I just, that’s why I love podcasting too.
I just love having these kind, kind of conversations. I love looking in my guest’s eyes and seeing their emotion and really following along with their journey and their story. So to me it’s, it’s very similar to therapy, but on a, [00:13:00] you know, highly intellectual level, I think more than a therapeutic level.
Um, so before we dive into MEMI, I am so interested in this, and we’re actually gonna spend the majority of the second half of this podcast on MEMI. Um, I just wanna hear about your experience with traditional evidence-based therapies for trauma. What do you find helpful and what do you find limiting? We just mentioned, .
cognitive processing. We’ve also mentioned prolonged exposure, but if you could help listeners who don’t really understand, uh, the kind of, uh, different types of trauma therapies out there, give us just kind of an overview of your thoughts about them and their effectiveness.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Well, this is in my experience, as I say, I started with an exposure based, uh, therapy, which basically means that the person, uh, is coming to you about an [00:14:00] event. Normally what we call capital T traumatic. And, uh, it’s disrupting their life. It’s getting in the way of relationships, of work, uh, of things like sleep and even going out in public or attending family functions.
And so there’s always some level of dysfunction in people’s lives, and no one wants to operate with that. And so they come to someone to help them get through that. And so with an exposure therapy, and I’ve done prolonged exposure and narrative exposure and written exposure therapies, but the general principle is you talk through the details of the event or you write about the details of event.
In the case of written exposure therapy, and you do it repeatedly. The idea behind this kind of therapy is that the exposure itself, the exposure in your mind to this event on a [00:15:00] repeated basis, kind of habituates us to the effects of that event. And so our symptoms go down. Uh, that’s the idea with an exposure therapy.
There’s also a, a more cognitively based therapy called cognitive processing therapy, which I’ve used uh, very many times. That’s based on the idea that thoughts are that we have about a events. So I’m, you know, have some kind of trauma in my life, and because of that, I believe I’m weak, or I am no good, or I’m not worthy of good things, or I should have done this, that, or the other. The belief there is, the theory behind that is that those beliefs really get embedded in our minds. And of course, what we think affects how we feel. What we think affects what we do. And so they really see, uh, uh, in that triangle of thoughts, beliefs, and action or, or [00:16:00] emotions and actions. That thoughts are central.
And so the focus is on changing those thoughts to be more reality based and more balanced. And I have had people who, uh. And with children, I, I really did play therapy, uh, which continues to this day. Um, but my practice has pretty much gone in the, in the direction of adults. And so, my experience is that for some people though, they’re really effective if they’re able to be pretty verbal. Everyone’s not. To be able to talk about the details in, in great detail about your trauma. Everyone’s not able to do that. The dropout rates for those are very high. Exposure rates are very high. There continues to be research indicating this as well as, as for CPT, because the time commitment, if you’re paying for it, the cost, uh, it’s anywhere from, you know, 12 to 15 sessions. [00:17:00] And so that can be prohibitive for people as well. And so, although I saw many benefits for some people, I also saw people who dropped out. I saw people who would start and then get frightened, you know, this is too much for me. They just couldn’t manage the reactions that they were having. And so, um, I certainly continue to offer those options to people, but I’ve found over time that the number of people that we can help with those approaches is really limiting. There are just too many people who aren’t able to either tolerate it, afford it, or even avail themselves of those kind of therapies.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Wow. Yeah, they, they certainly are limiting, and I, I’ll throw into the mix, it’s more of a narrative therapy, but it can be whatever it wants to be. Uh, trauma-focused CBT’s something that you do often with children.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Yep.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Um, they [00:18:00] either like pick a, a narrative that they wanna write or they can, create art or, um, you know, a poem.
Uh, and, and it’s, it’s based off of exposure. So it, they are more lengthy and they are, I think, more limiting in terms of, uh, being cost effective for certain people. Um, and I think for those who aren’t as verbal or aren’t as aware even of their emotions, it’s very difficult. So. Then tell me a little bit about MEMI, and I know it seems like it’s, has a connection with EMDR.
Can, do you, is there a, a connection with that? Is it an offshoot of EMDR? Uh, give, gimme a picture of how it might be different and, and if you could illuminate for our listeners exactly what EMDR is, that would be really helpful for people. ’cause I know that’s something that they’re very interested [00:19:00] in.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: So, uh, MEMI is an eye movement therapy. There are a number of them have developed really since, the seventies and eighties, so they’ve been around for a while. The most widely known is EMDR. I really view MEMI as an evolution in eye movement therapies. Um, it is much more straightforward. know EMDR practitioners sometimes, you know, don’t actually use all of the steps because it’s a bit cumbersome. Um. And it can take some time again. And so with uh, MEMI, we’re using more of the visual field. So all of the, uh, other eye movement therapies deal with this kind of movement. Actually, with EMDR, it’s right at your eye level.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Right to left.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: with brain spotting. You’re going back and forth like this. Well, there’s research that indicates that the brain [00:20:00] functions
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: according
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: to different parts of the visual field, and this, this research goes back close to 50 years, that indicates things like when, when I think of something in the future, visually, eyes tend to go up into the right. When I tend to recall something from my past, a visual, it tends to go up to the left. Uh, in fact, I, you probably hear the FBI watches people’s eyes to understand if they’re lying or not. And so this is not new research, but the application of it as it deals with trauma with MEMI is new. So we use the entire visual field, which helps the brain. It disrupts the, the pattern of the brain because we’re disrupting the normal eye pattern that would, we would use as you’re recalling an event. And by doing that, it really changes some structures in the brain and calms the limbic system, which is what [00:21:00] causes a lot of the symptoms of PTSD.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Wow. That is, I think, probably the most simple and understandable explanation that I’ve had, uh, for these eye movement therapies and, and explain exactly how MEMI is different. I mean EMDR, you’re saying the movement is usually right to left. MEMI’s using all of the visual field. What about brain spotting?
If you could explain for people who don’t know what brain spotting is, how is that different from brain spotting?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Brain spotting, again, you’re, the idea is that you’re, and I’m not, I’m not a provider in brain spotting, but I certainly know about it. Um, you’re looking for, as, as a provider, one of the things that you’re doing with MEMI is you’re watching people’s reaction as you’re, they’re following your finger. I actually use a green pen because I think green is [00:22:00] positive and so I might use this green pen. And remember with MEMI, and this is different also. It’s sensory based, and so we’re not asking them for the details of the event. They don’t need to say a word about what it is. Often, I don’t have any idea what it is that we’re working on that doesn’t really disrupt, uh, the effectiveness of it at all. But I do ask them for sensory elements of it. So when you think of it visually, is it in color or black and white? Is it fuzzy or clear? Is it a still photo or is it a movie? And so we get set elements of that and then I’ll ask them, are there sounds connected to this event? Is it loud or soft? Is it words or sounds? Is it close or far away? And then I also ask for visceral elements. So physically, what do you feel in your body when [00:23:00] this, when you think about this event and what you know, where is it located? What’s the intensity of it? Does it throb? Does it, you know, is it sharp? So we’re trying to get a sense of the visceral feelings.
And then of course we ask for their visceral emotional feelings. So what emotions are connected to it? So those are all sensory, and a little bit of somatic elements that we’re asking them. And then in the session, I’m asking them to cast it on the wall behind me.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Hmm.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: They’re casting this vision, the sounds, the way they feel in their body, the emotions connected to it over here, which is a way to help people themselves from the trauma itself,
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Wow.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: dissociating through space.
It’s over there. And so while they’re looking at that, I’m doing an eye movement, and so they’re kind of splitting their attention. Uh, that [00:24:00] in their mind at the same time that they’re doing whatever the eye movements are. And through the course of the process, we measure change by first assessing at your baseline.
So when you think about when you see that vision. event,
.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: how intense is it from? Zero, no. Intensity, 1, 2, 3, 4 is the very highest intensity. How disturbing is it for you? We assess the same for the sounds, for the physical sensations, for the emotions, and so that’s our baseline. That’s where we start. And then as we do each eye movement set, which each has different parts of the visual field that we’re accessing. I’ll, I’ll say after we go through a set, has anything changed? How has it changed and is it for the better or worse? And then I also ask them, okay, when you think about the, when you see the visual now up there, how intense is it from zero to four? [00:25:00] People move their numbers in terms of how distressing, how upsetting each of those sensory elements are. That’s what determines how you’re progressing in MEMI and that’s actually what determines when they’re com when they’re finished.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Fascinating. And you had mentioned that you know, CPT and and prolonged exposure take a significant amount of time. I remember you mentioning during your session that many can be a short-term ther therapy. How short can it be?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: It can be one session,
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Oh, this is so amazing guys. You can resolve your trauma in one session.
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to believe until you experience it and you see people, um, actually doing it. I’m, I’m in consultation now with, uh, someone new to MEMI and she’s just, know, she emailed me right after her first [00:26:00] session and said, wow, I can’t believe this. And this is someone who’s been doing EMDR from the very beginning.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Wow. This is so fascinating. Well, listen, I have more questions. We didn’t get to one of these and I’m gonna start off the next, uh, section with that question. Uh, but you guys, this is really amazing, uh, information, uh, for trauma treatment and I’m really hoping that you come back for the second half of this amazing interview with trauma psychologists and multichannel eye movement integration or MEMI
expert Dr. H. Dr. H, will you come back in just a second with me?
dr–maria-gear-haugen_1_10-01-2025_135915: Happy to do so.
dr–supatra-tovar_1_10-01-2025_105915: Okay. We’ll see you again, you guys.
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