This site is for EMDR trained therapists who work with clients with complex trauma. This site assumes that you have a working understanding of EMDR Therapy and attempts to provide additional information and context that may be helpful in working with clients with complex presentations.
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Expert Interviews
- Dr. Jamie Marich Interview of Their Book, Dissociation Made Simple (2023)
- David Archer and Anti-Racist Psychotherapy and the RAP Technique (Feb. 12, 2024)
Before We Start
- The Clients Who Most Need to Heal May Be Those You Do the Least Reprocessing With
- Understanding Where the Magic Is (And Is Not) in EMDR Therapy
- Normalizing Therapist Anxiety
- Explaining Trauma Memories: What a Reprocessed Memory Looks Like
- Overview: Understanding and Normalizing Dissociation
- Intro To “Dip Your Toe In” Metaphor
- Understanding the AIP Model: The Whale Metaphor and the Mount Everest Metaphor
- Effective Time Management Inside the Standard Clinical Hour in EMDR Therapy with Complex Trauma (video)
- Parts Work is Central to EMDR Therapy (video)
- Intro: Flash-Like Approaches with Severely Complex Trauma (video)
- Are Your Trying to Put Your EMDR/Mindfulness Clients Through a Machine?
- Learn More about Flash-Like Approaches to Rapidly Reprocess Trauma While Preparing Clients for EMDR (FourBlinks.com)
Phase One
- Complex Trauma Modifications Overview: Phases One-Four
- Dip Your Toe In: Phase One
- Problems Finding Individual Memories when Trauma was Daily
- EMDR Phase One: Are You Putting Your Complex Trauma Clients Through a Machine Built for Others (video) NEW
Phase Two
- Clients “Not Ready” vs Clients “Needing Preparation” for Reprocessing
- Clients who Struggle to Visualize (video)
- Introducing Mindfulness/Deep Breathing Using the “Dip Your Toe In” Approach
- Dip Your Toe into Breath: Hand Breathing and Blue Smoke Breathing
- Assessing for Embodiment: A Dip Your Toe In Body Scan (video demonstration)
- A Dip Your Toe in Approach to Sensory Grounding with Complex Trauma (NEW, script included)
- Understanding “Deep Breathing Doesn’t Work For Me” and Other Problems Resourcing
- Understanding Some Reasons Why Clients Need Attachment Figure Resources
- Developing and Using Attachment Figures in Attachment Wounding
- A Simple EMDR Checklist for Moving from Phase Two to Three
- When Good Resources Go Bad
Phases Three and Four
- How to Know When a Client is Prepared Enough to Start Processing Memories in EMDR Therapy? (video) NEW
- Why I Rarely Start with Attachment Would Targets (video) NEW
- When “Letting Things Go Where They Go” Goes Straight Off a Cliff
- Where Clients with Complex Trauma Tend to Get Stuck in Reprocessing and How to Use Interweaves NEW
- Effectively Managing Flashbacks in Sessions and Between Sessions (EMDR and Flash) (video)
- Mastering the Videotape Approach
- Understanding Why the SUDs May Not Be Decreasing
- Blocking Beliefs
- Overheating on the Memory Channel in Complex Trauma
- Why Some Clients Don’t Want to Do EMDR Therapy After Doing EMDR Therapy NEW
- The Problems of Too Much Agenda (video)
- Potential Blocks to Reprocessing: Trying to Figure Out the Trauma
- EMDR and Grief: An Overview (video)