It’s probably fair to say that most of us EMDR therapists spend much of our time doing Phase 4 desensitisation work in our therapy sessions. We are always taught that we should not move on to Phase 5 installation of the positive cognition until the SUDs are at a 0. Find out more about why this is the case here. So it feels great for us and our clients when we can move into Phase Read more…
Historically EMDR has been a treatment that is used to treat trauma. Especially when a client has specific trauma symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts. However case conceptualisation in EMDR can help us widen how we can use EMDR. As EMDR has developed, the evidence base has grown. There is now a lot of evidence how EMDR can be helpful with a number of presenting problems. Including using EMDR for anxiety. So please do read Read more…
In my supervision groups we talk a lot about our clients fears and their hopes for the future. In doing this future focused work we often need to clarify the difference between a flashforward and a future template. Read on if you too would like more clarification on this. What is a flashforward? The flashforward protocol was developed by Robin Logie and Ad de Jongh Click here to read their paper. It was originally developed Read more…
I trained in EMDR back in 2005. I really can’t remember there being much covered about case conceptualisation in EMDR. It’s something that I now have constantly in the back of my head when I am working with my clients. Like my approach to a lot of things, I really do try to keep things simple. So if you want to find out more about how develop helpful case conceptualisations, please do read on. I Read more…
Do you see clients who want to do really well at something. It could be a job interview. How they perform in a meeting. Achieving a sporting goal. Being able to publish things on social media? But somehow it feels unachievable, undoable, not possible? As EMDR therapists, we can help our clients using EMDR informed coaching to help enhance their performance. I can remember being a newly qualified Psychologist and being fearful of talking in Read more…
Now this is a question that comes up a lot in my supervision sessions. Often early on and often when we are just starting to develop an understanding of the client and their difficulties. My supervisees will often ask me “what’s the best EMDR prototcol to use for …. (insert main diagnosis). So if this question also comes into your mind find out more, and please do read on. Most of the time my answer Read more…
Confession time… For many years I misunderstood the whole point of completing a Phase 3 Assessment with my clients. I saw it as a tick box exercise. I thought that I had to get it perfectly right before I could proceed to the really important work of processing the trauma memory. Sometimes in my early work, I would take a full session doing this assessment!! You might want to hear more about the realisation I Read more…
If you want to think how you can get the most out of your EMDR supervision sessions, please read ahead. When I think about me receiving supervision there are 2 main things that I want from it. I want to feel contained, supported, that it is safe to be vulnerable and talk through difficulties. After supervision I want to have some ideas of what I can do to help and serve people better. I would Read more…
In this blog post I will look at what an abreaction is. I will explore how it fits into our work as therapists and how we can work with that abreaction. If that sounds like it may be interesting to you, please do read on. What is an abreaction? Abreaction is a term that has it’s origination in Psychoanalysis. The Collins dictionary defines in as “the release and expression of emotional tension associated with repressed Read more…
This question gets discussed time and time again in my supervision sessions. It’s something that causes a lot of confusion. Many therapists believe that we have to go back to the clients earliest difficult memory. If you are interested in thinking more about this then please do read on. It gets confusing because in the EMDR community we use so many different words to describe the memories. We use the term feeder memories. We talk Read more…