At Innovative Group Psychotherapy (IGP), we provide comprehensive treatment for children, adolescents, and adults experiencing depression. Our therapists use an integrative, evidence-based approach that combines relational therapy with neuroscience-informed interventions.

A central lens through which many of our clinicians work is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). While EMDR is widely known as a trauma treatment, at IGP we frequently use EMDR-informed resourcing and memory network work to help clients strengthen coping skills, regulate emotions, and build new, healthier neural pathways that support recovery from depression.

Depression is often not only about current stress—it can also reflect deeply held beliefs about the self, patterns formed in relationships, and earlier emotional experiences. EMDR allows therapy to address these patterns at both the emotional and neurobiological level.

EMDR Resourcing: Building Emotional Strength

Before trauma processing begins, EMDR emphasizes resourcing, which involves helping clients build internal coping strategies and emotional stability.

At Innovative Group Psychotherapy, EMDR resourcing may include:

• strengthening calming and grounding skills

• developing nurturing internal imagery

• identifying supportive experiences and relationships

• reinforcing moments of confidence and mastery

• building internal representations of safety and connection

Through bilateral stimulation and guided imagery, these experiences can be strengthened neurologically, helping clients develop new positive neural networks that support emotional regulation.

From an attachment perspective, this process can help individuals reconnect with experiences of safety, care, and competence that may have been underdeveloped or overshadowed by later stress or adversity.

EMDR and Attachment-Based Healing

Many people struggling with depression carry internalized beliefs shaped by earlier relational experiences. For example:

• feeling unseen or unsupported as a child

• experiencing chronic criticism

• inconsistent caregiving

• emotional neglect

• relational trauma or loss

Attachment-based therapy helps clients understand how early relational experiences influence self-worth, emotional regulation, and expectations of relationships.

When combined with EMDR, therapy can help clients:

• access earlier experiences of connection or safety

• strengthen adaptive attachment networks

• process painful relational memories

• develop new internal experiences of support and security

This integration can be especially powerful for individuals whose depression is connected to long-standing patterns of shame, self-doubt, or relational disconnection.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is one of the most well-established treatments for depression and helps individuals recognize patterns of thinking and behavior that maintain depressive symptoms.

Depression often involves automatic thoughts such as:

• “I’m not good enough.”

• “Nothing I do matters.”

• “Things will never improve.”

CBT helps clients:

• identify negative thinking patterns

• develop more balanced perspectives

• improve problem-solving skills

• reduce rumination and self-criticism

• strengthen coping strategies

At IGP, CBT is often integrated with EMDR and relational therapy so that cognitive insights are supported by deeper emotional processing.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy is an important part of the treatment approach at Innovative Group Psychotherapy (IGP). In addition to helping reduce symptoms, psychodynamic therapy helps clinicians understand the underlying emotional and relational patterns that contribute to depression.

Psychodynamic therapy helps clients explore how past experiences and relationships shape current thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. By increasing awareness of these patterns, individuals can begin to develop new ways of understanding themselves and relating to others.

At IGP, psychodynamic understanding is also central to case conceptualization, helping therapists identify the emotional meaning behind symptoms such as withdrawal, perfectionism, hopelessness, or self-criticism. This deeper understanding guides treatment and allows therapy to address both current distress and the underlying emotional dynamics that maintain it.

Psychodynamic therapy often has benefits that continue to grow after therapy ends as clients integrate new insights and relational experiences.

Expressive Arts Therapy

For many individuals—especially children and adolescents—emotions can be difficult to express with words alone. Expressive arts therapy provides alternative pathways for emotional exploration and healing through creative expression.

Creative interventions may include:

• drawing or painting

• storytelling and narrative work

• imagery, metaphor and visualization

• music or rhythm

• movement and body awareness

Research in neuroscience shows that art and music activate brain networks involved in emotion, memory, and reward, including areas that regulate mood and motivation. Creative expression can stimulate dopamine and serotonin pathways, which are important in reducing depressive symptoms and increasing feelings of engagement and pleasure.

Music and art also engage brain systems connected to emotional processing and autobiographical memory, allowing individuals to access and express experiences that may be difficult to articulate verbally.

In therapy, expressive arts can help individuals:

• increase emotional awareness and self-expression

• reduce stress and improve mood

• process difficult experiences

• strengthen identity and creativity