If you decide to do EMDR therapy this will help you understand some of what the process is. Things are not linear in EMDR therapy and yet they are in some ways. But people are not linear beings either, as much as everyone in most circumstances attempt to try to make us linear.
One of the things I often say to my clients is that nothing I do makes sense. The things I did that made sense did not work in freeing people from limitations. The things I do that don’t make sense tend to facilitate change. EMDR is one of those things.
It is important to know that once you have the experience of EMDR in the different phases, then the light bulb turns on and a whole new awareness opens up. This includes therapists. When they come to EMDR training they will try to fit EMDR therapy into what they already know. But it does not fit. Other modalities can fit into phase 2 of EMDR therapy but how we conceptualize what is going on the build plans for reprocessing memory networks is very different. Therapists are often surprised and even shocked at how fast things can change when they experience the practicum part of the training.
I often tell my clients, there is a method to my madness and once they have the experience of the different phases and parts of the plans for reprocessing, things will open up in a whole new way.
It is often hard for people to do EMDR therapy because they don’t “understand” it. Most often this comes from the fantasy that they just come to session and the therapist waves their hand in front of them and they get better. This perspective comes from way back at the start of EMDR therapy when it was new and just a technique. It has evolved into a full blown 8 phase protocol. And depending on the person and their extent of trauma, neglect, abandonment, etc., it can take a while to prepare them for being able to reprocess memories. Sometime extensive preparation and specialty protocols depending on the circumstances.
There are many therapists who have taken the EMDR training in the past, and especially in the beginning who have not kept up on the changes. So the information they pass on is no longer accurate. The EMDR International Association encourages EMDR practitioners to repeat the Basic training periodically to keep up on the changes.
The good news about the EMDR community is that we don’t say it doesn’t work we ask how it could work for people with more complicated circumstances. So much had been developed over the decades.
8 Phases
As I mentioned before, EMDR therapy is not a technique. It was when I first learned it (1991). Dr. Shapiro had only been teaching EMDR for a couple of years. Not much was known about it back then, only that it seemed to have promising results.
Dr Shapiro did a really smart thing; she created a newsletter and invited people she trained to send in the results they had with the clients they worked with. To give feedback on what seemed to work and not work with various mental health issues. She also really pushed for research.
Over time it was clear some people had difficulty reprocessing. Reprocessing was overwhelming for people with severe and complicated histories of abuse, neglect, addiction and so on. What I love about the EMDR community is that we don’t say it doesn’t work. We ask how could it work for that population? This is how EMDR as a technique evolved into its own form of psychotherapy. And, how other protocols were developed for more complicated circumstances.
We realized we had to do extensive work to create stability for someone with severe and complicated histories to be able to handle reprocessing. Protocols for building internal resources that can create internal stability.
I had been working in locked psychiatric programs, social service programs, and mental health programs with people who have a great deal of trauma, neglect, abandonment and worse from early in their lives and throughout their lives. They did not do well with reprocessing. It became my mission to find what could create the internal stability.
There are eight phases in EMDR therapy. They do not go in order. You will be moving in and out of phases as you progress in your therapy.
What do we do in EMDR therapy?
I will continue with describing the phases in the next post.