About the practice
Experiential. Relational. Evidence-based.
I am Emily Riso, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Florida. I run a small virtual practice for adults, and I do one thing: the work that starts after the explanation runs out.
VirtualAcross all of Florida
LCSW · EMDR TrainedLicence SW26967
Adults · WeeklyExperiential & relational
LCSW·
EMDR Trained·Virtual across
Florida
Who I am
A therapist who is not going to flinch
I have spent more than a decade sitting with trauma, recovery and grief — in clinical settings, and in the study of how trauma travels through families, communities and history. What I have concluded is unglamorous: understanding is not the difficult part. Almost everyone who reaches me understands themselves in detail. What is difficult is being different inside a pattern while it is happening.
So I work experientially. I pay attention to what is going on between us and in your body, not only to the account of your week. I will be direct with you. I will tell you what I notice. I will disagree with you when I think you are wrong, and I will not need you to be easier than you are.
Training and credentials
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker, State of Florida — licence SW26967
- MSW, Barry University
- MA, University of Miami
- EMDR trained through the EMDR Institute, Francine Shapiro's founding organisation
- Attachment-focused psychotherapy; somatic and parts-informed approaches
- Ten-plus years with trauma, addiction recovery and grief
How I work
Structure, held by a relationship
Neither alone is enough. Protocol without relationship is technically correct and inert. Relationship without structure is warm and can drift for years.
Stabilisation first. Before we reprocess anything I want to know you can come back down — that there are resources, that we have a way to stop, that your body trusts the brakes as much as the accelerator. Sometimes that takes two sessions. Sometimes two months. Both are fine.
Then the roots. Where there is a specific memory underneath — and there usually is — EMDR reaches it directly, without requiring you to narrate it in detail.
And the pattern. The architecture you have built to keep everything manageable, which is very often the thing keeping it alive.
What I do not do
I do not see children or adolescents. I do not do couples or family therapy. I do not prescribe medication, provide crisis services, or write court reports, custody evaluations or disability documentation. If you need any of those, I will say so early and help you find the right person.
Practical details. Fifty-minute sessions, weekly, on a secure HIPAA-compliant video platform. Private pay; superbills available for out-of-network reimbursement. Monday to Friday, 9am–8pm Eastern. All of Florida.
The people I work with
You may recognise yourself here
- You can explain your patterns perfectly and still cannot interrupt them
- You are functioning — visibly, impressively — and privately exhausted
- Something happened, and you have been managing around it ever since
- You keep choosing people who need you more than they see you
- Rest feels dangerous, unearned, or simply impossible
- You have done therapy before and something core never moved
Where the work happens
Florida, in all its weather
Adults reach me from the Keys, the Gulf beaches, the springs, the Panhandle dunes and everywhere inland between them.
Come and find out.
Fifteen minutes, free, no paperwork. If I am not the right person I will tell you in that call and help you find someone who is.