I’ll start with what sucks.  People do astonishingly terrible things to other people–unbelievable, unspeakable, and completely messed up things.  This happens all the time and on every street.  Trauma happens in virtually every family.  A fair chunk of trauma is caused by people who claim to love the people that they hurt.  Many of the most severely traumatized people I have worked with had extensive contact with modern safety net services throughout their childhoods, with repeated foster care placements that resulted in round after round of additional childhood sexual ..read more

This is an ongoing list of things I have noticed (or things to remember) about doing EMDR with clients.  Much of this will not make much sense if you aren’t EMDR basic trained.  I’m only several hundred EMDR sessions in.  This list will be revised often.  These are tentative noticings that are a mix of my experience, reading, training, and consultation. Your use/experience may vary and I’m interested in conversations about any or all of these. Starting EMDR Common newbie EMDR therapist mistakes (many of which I made). Client is not properly resourced to hand ..read more

The idea that the mind and body already know about healing is incredibly liberating.  It frees me from the burdens of excessive doing and allows more intentional being.  Suddenly, I don’t have to prescribe, or conjure, or orchestrate.  There is nothing for me to create or own in the other–success or struggle.  Everything needed is already there.  I am more free to be an assistant in navigation, a witness, and a flat mirror to change.  As I do these things, I can be my own authentic self. The ability of the mind to quickly reconcile itself is incredibly affirming ..read more

Full text (video text is shorter): Why We are Where We Are I’m a new mental health counselor.  I saw my first clients three years ago.  Nothing in my training prepared me for what I saw.  Client after client told me stories of torture, humiliation, exploitation, witnessing death up close, and feeling trapped through all parts of life.  These stories would have been shocking for the 11th century.  As best I can tell, it’s like this in community mental health clinics everywhere–what many clients suffer from most is growing up in a secret warzone hidden in quiet neighbor ..read more

[Part of a series on surviving your mental health internship.] I got the call that my sister Amy was dead at about 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, about four months into my internship. I was on campus and at my desk in the graduate assistant office. The connection was bad and I only understood several words at first, but everything snapped into place instantly and clearly as soon as I heard “didn’t wake up.” It was the call I had been expecting for most of my life. Amy was that child in our family… the troubled child. When something that you have always been expecting comes to you so ..read more

Many of your clients with extensive trauma with have a history of panic attacks.  Those with extensive trauma that do not have panic attacks may have frequent rage episodes instead.  Some have both. In community mental health, you are unlikely to have any clients who go from being very calm to having a full panic attack within a few seconds.  Nearly all of your clients who have panic attacks are severely anxious most of the time and very anxious the remainder of the time.  Panic attacks in this population are like a circuit breaker that trips on a circuit that is already ne ..read more

It’s completely normal for life to break your heart.  It will happen.  We all got here when a bottom fell out and everything that we knew fell out with us into some vast space that we never anticipated inhabiting.  And, it keeps happening.  Let’s set aside the fact of monsters for a moment.  Live long enough and you’ll outlive nearly everyone and everything that your young heart loved.  Loss is trauma.  Someone will leave you or you’ll have to leave someone.  Heartache is trauma.  None of this is side show.  It’s the stuff at the rust red marro ..read more

In the reprocessing phases of EMDR Therapy, it’s often easier to know that reprocessing is happening than is to know that it is not.  As a general rule, you can expect that reprocessing is occurring if the client reports any type of change or movement between sets.  Reprocessing is occurring if the client is active on the body channel and reports that sensations are moving, shifting, or changing.  Changes can occur even in sensations that happen at the same body location.  Several sets where the client reports, “I’m noticing it in my chest” is ambiguous information related ..read more

The strange part about EMDR is the bilateral (left and right) stimulation.  Despite the claims of critics, the bilateral part of EMDR appears to be an essential part of traumatic memory reprocessing using this method.  Clients are usually able to grasp the other parts of EMDR fairly intuitively.  When I first heard about this treatment when I was in graduate school, the Eye Movements (EM) part of EMDR sounded too similar to 1950s hypnosis.  I was skeptical and wanted nothing to do with it.  I wanted therapy to be scientific, rational, and objective and this sounded too ..read more

Embracing the EMDR Therapy worldview may transform how you do therapy.  It may transform or adjust nearly everything that you thought you knew about how people change.  However, the structure of the EMDR protocol doesn’t cover your deficits as a therapist or as a person.  It won’t clear your blind spots.  It won’t help you grow empathy–nor does it decrease the therapeutic need for it.  If you’re already burned out, simply learning to do EMDR Therapy with your clients may not save you or your career.  If you are already an excellent and empathetic therapist, every ..read more