Is Brainspotting as effective as EMDR?

The honest answer: EMDR has the larger research base, including decades of PTSD studies. Brainspotting's evidence is younger and smaller, though early comparative studies are encouraging and clinical adoption is growing fast. What the research agrees on: brain-body approaches outperform talk alone for trauma, and the therapeutic relationship predicts outcomes in both.

Can I switch from EMDR to Brainspotting?

Yes, and people do — most often when EMDR felt too structured, too activating, or stalled on complex trauma. Nothing from your EMDR work is wasted; the processing you did carries over. We'd start with resourcing, as always, and let your system set the pace.

Do both work over video?

Both can be done over telehealth. Brainspotting translates especially naturally — the method needs a gaze point and an attuned therapist, and a screen provides both. I work entirely over video with clients in California, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

What does it cost to work with you?

Sessions are $160, $200, or $250 on my equitable three-tier model — you choose what's sustainable. Superbills provided; I partner with Thrizer. The first 20-minute consultation is free.

Can You Keep Your Therapist When You Move to Another State?

Therapy licensure is state-by-state, and what matters legally is where you are sitting during the session — not where your therapist is.

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Is your therapist licensed in the state you're moving to?

When you want to keep your therapist after a move, it depends on one thing: whether your therapist is licensed in the state you're moving to.

Most therapists hold one license, which is why most therapy ends at the state line. I'm Logan Brantley, a licensed clinical social worker at Soul Works Healing, and I built my practice the other way: licensed in California, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., entirely over video. This page explains how the rules actually work — and what to ask any therapist before you pack.

Therapists are licensed by state boards, and each board regulates care delivered to people physically inside its state. The moment you attend a session from a new state, your therapist is practicing there — legally, not just technically — and needs a license that state recognizes. It's a consumer-protection system from an era before video calls, and it hasn't caught up. There's no federal teletherapy license, and for clinical social workers, no active multistate compact yet (one is coming — more below).

So when a therapist says "I can't see you after you move," it isn't a lack of care. It's the law they practice under.

Why does my therapist's license stop at the state line?

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What are your options when you move?

First: if your therapist is licensed in your new state, nothing changes. It's why multi-state therapists exist.

Second: your therapist may be able to get licensed in your new state — worth asking, though it can take months and many won't.

Third: a planned transfer — your current therapist helps you find and hand off to someone good in the new state.

Fourth: the one to avoid: quietly continuing sessions and hoping — it puts your therapist's license at risk and your care on unstable ground.

The question to ask before you sign a lease: "Are you licensed in the state I'm moving to?" It determines whether your move includes losing your therapist.

If a move is even on your horizon — college, residency, a career that relocates you, a military family, or just a life still in motion — you can factor portability into choosing a therapist in the first place. My six states cover roughly 29% of the US population, including three of the four largest states.

Clients of mine have started sessions in a Texas apartment and continued them from a California one, mid-move boxes visible in both.

That continuity matters more than it gets credit for. Deep work — trauma, identity, the slow rebuilding of self-trust — compounds inside one relationship. Starting over every move doesn't just cost time; it costs the depth you'd built.

The other way around: choose portability from the start

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What about traveling, not moving?

some states have temporary-practice allowances, many don't, and I'll always tell you plainly rather than improvise with your care.

Same rule, shorter window: what matters is the state you're physically in during the session. If you're traveling within my six states, we meet as usual. If you're briefly somewhere else, we handle it case by case.

Questions people ask

Yes, slowly. A Social Work Licensure Compact — one license recognized across member states, the way nursing already works — has been enacted in most states and is moving toward issuing multistate licenses. I track it closely, and when it activates, my clients will be among the first to benefit. Until then, multi-state licensure is the real version of portable therapy.
No — and a therapist who suggests it is telling you something about their judgment. The session legally happens where your body is. Honest therapists protect you by following that rule, not bending it.
Give it a few sessions of runway rather than one goodbye call. A good handoff includes a summary of your work (with your consent), warm referrals in the new state, and a real ending — endings done well are themselves therapeutic, especially if your history is full of abrupt ones.
California, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., entirely over secure video. Sessions are $160, $200, or $250 on my equitable three-tier model. Superbills provided; I partner with Thrizer. The first 20-minute consultation is free.

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