THE PROBLEM. . . When taking a comprehensive, psycho-social history of our clients, we explore childhood experiences to learn about important elements such as attachment organization, dissociative coping mechanisms, and past traumas. Part this phase of treatment also involves uncovering any adverse experiences that had the potential to negatively impact the client’s symptoms and current level of functioning. As EMDR Therapists, we understand that these early experiences of childhood abuse and neglect often form the foundation of maladaptive memory networks and, consequently, become the startin ..read more

FINDING BALANCE The second phase in the Standard 8-Phase Protocol of EMDR Therapy is the preparation phase.  It is here that we prepare the client to begin to do the work of reprocessing past traumatic memories.  Preparation means that we complete such tasks as orient the client to trauma-informed EMDR Therapy; offer metaphors and models for reprocessing; present bilateral stimulation, in the form of eye movements or tapping; and teach  self-regulation tools, such as the container or calm place, that will be integral to the work.   For more stable clients, the preparation ..read more

SETTLING IN FOR THE RIDE One of my clients, a mother of four, opened our recent weekly session with the following assessment of, what may well be, our collective pandemic experience: This situation — the not knowing how long we will be held up in our homes — this ‘unknowing’ is exactly the thing that makes childbirth so difficult. It’s not so much the pain of labor that makes the experience so uncomfortable and scary, it’s the pain in the face of not knowing how long you’ll be stuck in it. If someone would have told me, “This will last 8 hours and be over”, I could have wrapped my mind around ..read more

POLLUTING THE PRESENT Perhaps you’ve had the experience whereby everything in the moment is seemingly going well — the sun is shining, the children are playing happily — and you should not, by all reasonable measures, have a care in the world. Except that you do. And despite the objectively positive surroundings, your subjective experience is routinely polluted by a looming sense of dread.  Maybe you notice a familiar thought as it infiltrates the scene, “Don’t get too comfortable; this won’t last forever.” Or perhaps the moment is shattered by a catastrophic fantasy, one in which you n ..read more

One of the metaphors that I like to use to help clients conceptualize and consider change is that of an open field of tall grass.  When we engage in a repeated, reactive behavior, it is as if we walk the same path through a field from start to finish. Over time, that path becomes well worn, effortlessly locatable, and seemingly ‘easy’ to travel. I say ‘easy’, but this path of automatic reactions may well lead us, quite predictably, to the same undesirable endpoint. A family member behaves badly, and we jump on the path toward anxiety and stress.  Our boss critiques our work, and we ..read more

Target lists, treatment plans, and the three-pronged protocol Part Three: the Three-Pronged Protocol One of the most challenging aspects facing newly trained EMDR clinicians is how to organize the information they learn in phase one of the EMDR 8-Phase protocol — history taking. To help, this three part series looks at how to coordinate target lists, treatment plans, and the three pronged protocol.  Part Three: the Three-Pronged Protocol The first part in this series looked at the nuts and bolts of how to create symptom informed target lists. In part two, we examined key points in design ..read more

Target lists, treatment plans, and the three pronged protocol A three part series One of the most challenging aspects facing newly trained EMDR clinicians is how to organize the information they learn in phase one of the EMDR 8-Phase protocol — history taking. To help, this three part series looks at how to coordinate target lists, treatment plans, and the three pronged protocol.  Part Two: Treatment Plans The first part in this series looked at the nuts and bolts of how to create symptom informed target lists. Now, in part two, we will examine some of the key points in designing a treat ..read more

One of the most challenging aspects facing newly trained EMDR clinicians is how to organize the information they learn in phase one of the EMDR 8-Phase protocol — history taking. To help, this three part series looks at how to coordinate target lists, treatment plans, and the three pronged protocol.  Part One: Target Lists This first installation in the series focuses on how to create symptom informed target lists. To begin, let’s look at the connection between a client’s presenting symptoms and their trauma history.  The ‘Symptom + History’ Connection When a client comes to my offi ..read more

The Adaptive Information Processing Model One of the many contributions made by the late Francine Shapiro was the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model. From her 1995 publication of “Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing basic principles. protocols, and procedures”, Shapiro describes information processing as an intrinsic system that evolved to allow human beings to reorganize their responses to disturbing life experiences from an initial dysfunctional state of disequilibrium to a state of adaptive resolution. The work of EMDR reprocessing, therefore, is to activate a trauma mem ..read more

Resourcing Client Gains with this quick & powerful practice   Our clients come to session with real and important concerns that require our focus and attention. This is the main task of clinical work and the reason people come to therapy — to focus on and fix the problems.   Add to this the fact that somehow, somewhere along our evolutionary path, human beings have become wired to direct the bulk of our time, attention, and energy toward what is wrong, broken, and damaged. While problem solving has helped ensure our survival as a species, it has come, for many of us, at the cost ..read more