Integrating EMDR into EA Practice

Integrating EMDR into EA Practice SCEAPA Chapter Meeting Libby Ross, LISW-CP, CACII G. Thomas Vaughn, LPC/S, NCC, ACS, CEAP NOTE: this handout contains fill-in-blank areas and may be better utilized by printing in larger PPT size slides!

Goals of Session • Discuss the history and basic theory behind EMDR • Explore the treatment strategies associated with EMDR • Identify correlates of EMDR and EA • Develop integrative strategies

EMDR Theory • Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) • Most pathologies derived from earlier life experiencesthat set in motion a continued pattern of affect, behavior, cognitions, and consequent identity structures. • The continued influence of these early experiencesis due in large part to the present-day stimuli eliciting the negative affect and beliefs embodied in these memoriesand causing the client to continue acting in a way consistent with the earlier events. • F. Shapiro. (2001). EMDR: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures, 2nd ed. (Emphasis added)

EMDR Theory • AIP • Clinical pathologies are therefore viewed as amenable to change if the clinician appropriately targets the information that has been stored dysfunctionally in the nervous system. Part of the clinical history-takingprocess is to identify the memories that have helped form the client’s negative self-concepts and behaviors. • The connections to appropriate associations are made and that the experience is used constructively by the individual and is integrated into a positiveemotionaland cognitive schema.

EMDR Theory • AIP • Inherent in the AIP model is the concept of psychological self-healing, a construct based on the body’s healing response to physical injury. • Natural tendency of the brain’s information-processing system is to move toward a state of mental health. • Begin EMDR treatment with a negative self-concept in regard to the event and consistently end with a positive sense of self-worth.

EMDR Theory • AIP • Repetitive reorienting of attention may produce regional brain activation and neuromodulation similar to those produced during REM sleep. • Past experiences lay the groundwork for present dysfunction. • Becomes a touchstone, a primary self-defining event in life. A node. • The assessment associated with such an event is not limited to a function-specific statement (I can’t get what I want in this instance), but is linked to the dysfunctional generalized statement“I can’t get what I want there is something wrong with me.”

EMDR Theory • AIP • One of the primary principles of the AIP model is the notion of a dynamic drive toward mental health. • A dream, a memory, and current behaviorare all useful foci inasmuch as they all stimulate the specific neuro-network containing the disturbing information. • Use of the AIP model and EMDR suggests that the clinician focus on the characteristics that generate the behaviors responsible for the diagnosis rather than attend primarily to a diagnostic label.

EMDR Theory • AIP • Characteristics are viewed as having been produced by earlier experiences, including parental modeling, and as being susceptible to change. Thus, a vast range of experiences in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood can be located on a spectrum of trauma and can become subject to EMDR-activated shifts toward self-healing and resolution

EMDR Strategies • The Image—Client thinks of the event that is the defining event. Often clients are asked to “float back” to an earlier life event in which the same emotions were elicited. • The Negative Cognition—Is defined as the negative self-assessment that victims make in the present. May have occurred many years ago. • SUD-Subjective Units of Disturbance (0-10)—Wolpe

EMDR Strategies • Positive Cognition—Desired way for person to see self, alternative to negative cognition (1-7) • Initiation of Eight Phase Process • One—Client History and Treatment Planning • Two—Preparation • Three—Assessment • Four—Desensitization • Five—Installation • Six—Body Scan • Seven—Closure • Eight—Reevaluation

How Do We Integrate?

Integrating EMDR into EA Practice