More proof that Long Covid can be a neurological (not psychological!) condition. And this is why my MCS EMDR protocol, available for free at www.emdrsolutions.com/media , works to alleviate it. Psychological Distress Raises Risk of ‘Long COVID’ Jolynn Tumolo 09/29/2022 Preexisting psychological distress is linked with a heightened risk of developing COVID-19-related symptoms that last 4 weeks or more, or so-called “long COVID,” suggest study findings published online in JAMA Psychiatry. “In this prospective study of individuals followed up for more [than] a year starting in April 2020, we ..read more

The University of Washington medical school does not believe in dissociation and will not teach its psychiatrists about it. Schools that teach only cognitive behavioral therapies do not mention dissociation.  It’s great to see this research that shows proof that it actually exists. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-neuroimaging-dissociative-symptoms-reveals-wounds.html Novel neuroimaging study on dissociative symptoms reveals wounds of childhood trauma by Laura Neves, McLean Hospital Researchers have found connections in the brain to dissociative symptoms. Credit: McLean Hospit ..read more

My husband and I attended a wedding yesterday and, as a gift, wrote a note about what we had learned in our 30-year relationship. We learned from each other, from individual and couple’s therapy, and from all the germane trainings and books I’ve digested over the years. Doug’s main point is about differentiation: being and showing who you are, and accepting who your partner is.  My favorite teachers of this Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson.  I gave the couple brochure from Ellyn and Pete called Stepping Stones to Intimacy, a positive outlook on the Challenges All Couples Face. I gi ..read more

I recently worked with 2 clients who contacted me to work with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Both were sane, intelligent, highly functional people. Both had highly sensitive bodies. One was male, and one female. The female client had been exposed to very toxic smog, years before, then a gas leak in her house, two years ago. The male had been born more than 2 months prematurely, and had been reactive to gasoline, paint, varnish, and many other substances all his life. With each of them, we used EMDR to target their first and worst exposures. With the male, we did Maureen Kitchur’s preverbal ..read more

I’ve been utilizing an old Sufi practice, taught to me by Jamal Ramah, as a basis for a daily exercise for myself and my clients. The original exercise starts like this: “Cross your hands over your heart, and say to your heart, ‘I Love You.’ Let the love and light fill your heart. Then use a loving word for yourself and say it again: ‘I Love You, Sweetheart.’ Or, ‘I Love You, little Robin.’” For my many clients with shame or attachment or abuse histories, I’ve modified this practice to speak directly to what happened: 1. Cross your hands over your heart and say “I love you, and you always dese ..read more

Everyone in Seattle is going through the formal stages of grief. All have some anxiety and some of them are panicking. What are the stages? Elizabeth Kubler-Ross lists them as  Shock and Disbelief: our vibrant city is dead. No traffic. No restaurants or bars or hair salons or schools or colleges are open. No music venues or museums open. Most businesses are closed, have people working from home, or have drastically reduced hours. And we’re the epicenter of the pandemic, in the United States.—People go from “I can’t believe it!” to Panic! Then to Anger: At the government, at themselves fo ..read more

I live in Seattle, ground zero for the Coronavirus in the United States. Today, I had my first request from a client who wanted to have online therapy to avoid the virus. I said, of course and will do her session on Secure Video, a HIPPA-compliant platform for video meetings. I had no hesitation because I use this platform nearly every working day to do group and individual consultation throughout the U.S., Canada, and some European countries. I’ve also used it with clients, mostly people who left Seattle in the midst of psychotherapy. My experience of “tele-healthcare” is that it’s a lot like ..read more

38 years ago, when I did my first meditation retreat with Stephen Levine, we would do long OMs at the start of many other kinds of practice.  Last night, 35 years after my last class, I started another meditation class, this time with Jamal Rahman, a Sufi teacher. With each of the nearly 40 OMs we did, I recognized that we were directly impacting our vagus nerves by our long outbreaths, creating grounded calm and realized how brilliant the original Buddhist teachers were, so many centuries ago, to create this practice. When we breathe out longer than than we inhale, it trips the vagus ner ..read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsXFcbPbvI4 Interesting, somewhat sensationalized, video from the Australian 60 Minutes show, about a woman who went to the cops and won in court. The story is brutal, as is often the case for people with massive dissociation. The outcome is lovely. Check it out! The post Interesting 45-minute documentary of DID woman who got her father put in jail. appeared first on Robin Shapiro ..read more

Hello, I'm going to be in Massachusetts on June 14 -15 teaching my ego state class. If you want to live-stream it (or show up for it) go to this website to sign up: http://www.markinickerson.com/registration/?action=evregister&event_id=127 Here's the program description: Participants in Easy Ego State Interventions learn how to see clients through the lens of ego state therapy and EMDR and to distinguish healthy, flexible states from dissociative ones. Through lecture, guided experience, case examples, demonstrations, role-plays, and practice they will be able to utilize their awareness of ..read more