By Carsten Dernedde

Up to sixty delegates were present in the Zoom conference room and more than 140 in total had signed up to the mini conference and regional networking day.

Claire van den Bosch, EMDR Practioner and IFS Level 3 trained therapist, started the day with her presentation and personal manifesto “EMDR for all our Parts”.  She presented her passion with her colleague Bethany Parris, EMDR Europe accredited practitioner and certified IFS therapist

Before getting into the IFS framework she uses to guide her work with complex clients,  Claire took the delegates through an IFS-informed unblending meditation.

Accompanied by her own beautifully sketched graphics, Claire talked us through different stages of identifying our in-the-moment available parts and unblending them from the core self.

Creating first a ‘glow’ around the physical body and then breathing into an enlarging space around the body, there was eventually enough space for the parts to remain connected to the core self but move out from the felt body, so that calm regard and focus on the task at hand were possible. 

The meditation is useful in the preparation phase or as a clarifying moment in any session.

Claire then gave her introduction to Dick Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems. 

Continue reading “EMDREA Mini-Conference November 25, 2023, hears from Bosnia, about Parts work and more”

President EMDR All-Ireland

A summary of the day by Deborah Hamilton-Grey

EMDR East Anglia Regional Group online event – 29^th April 2023

This was a dynamic deep dive into EMDR With Every Client with Gus Murray EMDR Europe Trainer and Consultant, President of EMDR All-Ireland Association, Integrative Psychotherapist and Trainer. 

Answering questions such as: Can we make EMDR Therapy work with every client? and How do we make it work?

Gus offers us wisdom and insight into three distinguishable levels of EMDR Practice – helping the clinician to better understand some of the complexity around the uses of EMDR in different frameworks, e.g.:

Level 1: Using EMDR techniques – when a clinician uses EMDR techniques as a standalone intervention or as an adjunct to their existing approach. 

Level 2: Using the EMDR Standard Protocol to treat dysfunctionally stored episodic memories, arising primarily from shock (Big T) trauma.   

Level 3: EMDR Therapy with complex clinical presentations, e.g.: EMDR as a comprehensive model of psychotherapy.

Throughout, Gus used recorded case examples and demonstrations from his clinical caseload.

Paying attention to which level the clinician offers to their client, better enables the therapist to understand the difference between offering EMDR Techniques and EMDR Therapy.

“EMDR is not talk therapy with bilateral stimulation.” (Gus Murray 2020, 2023)

Gus expanded on Level 3 EMDR Therapy, particularly paying attention to what he describes as the competencies needed to work with the complexity of level 3 clients. “Expanded competencies are needed for clinicians to successfully work with complex clinical presentations.” (Gus Murray 2023)

Level 3 competency in this presentation focused on revisiting the EMDR Therapy AIP Model – paying attention to the key function of EMDR therapy as resolving dysfunctionally stored memories through the vehicle of the neurobiology of EMDR therapy, understanding survival adaptations and facilitating somatic processes.    

Gus explained key factors in enabling the work of EMDR Therapy.  “creating a balance of activation between the present and the past. Dual attention is a primary mediator with emphases placed on the importance of case conceptualisation and treatment planning and the application of an expanded use of the 8 phase protocol.” April 2023.

Other key concepts that Gus suggest that clinicians pay attention to in being able to offer EMDR therapy for all are: 

Resourcing e.g.: the positive desired future in addition to resourcing figures and other typical resourcing.

Offer container Exercises – as a way of managing difficult /overwhelming material until readiness to tolerate and a way of making positive resources available to the client accessible when dealing such material.

Identifying readiness to process – crucial in the early stages of the assessment phase.

Identifying targets from core beliefs, including early maladaptive schemas.

Identifying targets from anticipated future experience – helps with moving forward.

Future template versus flash forward protocol

Pendulation and Titration – useful to note how much or how little to offer in the process.

EMDR pendulation Interweaves – to help with being in touch with trauma and helping clients move through it.

Gus ended his presentation with his most important observation that the therapeutic relationship in EMDR therapy is key. EMDR is a Relational Psychotherapy which pays attention to: the working alliance, transference/countertransference and the reparative/developmentally needed relationship. All of that is framed within the person to person (I thou) relationship and the wider context of the transpersonal.  (Clarkson P. 1990. A Multiplicity of Psychotherapeutic Relationships, British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol.7 (2).)   

Deborah Hamilton-Grey, EMDR Accredited Practitioner, EMDR Steering Group.

Saturday January 14, 2023

A summary of the day by Ushma Patel

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On Saturday 14^th January 2023 over 100 delegates came together online for our latest EMDR East Anglia regional networking day to learn about the basics of integrative, attachment–informed EMDR.

We jumped straight in with the recognition that AI-EMDR is not going off-piste, and that it is compliant with standard mainstream EMDR and officially endorsed by the EMDR authorities.

The morning began with Christine Ramsey-Wade, Senior Lecturer in Counselling Psychology at the University of the West of England in Bristol and EMDR therapist, highlighting the need for further research as EMDR, now more than 30 years old, evolves beyond the Standard Protocol especially now to embrace attachment.

With our presenter Mark Brayne’s first paper on AF-EMDR now published, using Laurel Parnell’s original term Attachment-Focused, (Kaptan and Brayne, 2022) Christine focused particularly on a current feasibility trial for EMDR and AI-EMDR funded by our own East Anglia EMDR Regional Group through the national EMDR Association UK.

The plan is to create a team of co-researchers – EMDR therapists and Consultants working with either the Standard or the Attachment-Informed Protocol – with at least 40 client participants presenting with what the project is terming attachment-informed complexity, rather than the full and formal diagnosis of Complex PTSD.

Those clients will then be randomised to receive either 10 sessions of Standard EMDR or 10 sessions of AI-EMDR – an exciting project that is now actively being recruited to.

Mark then walked us through the goals of EMDR and the survival response that underpins any effective use of this powerful therapy, building on the notion that every dysfunctional ego state, every part, every presentation began life with a survival response and is therefore welcome in the work.

Continue reading “Attachment-Informed EMDR: A Detailed Introduction, with Mark Brayne.”