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Thomas Zimmerman
เข้าร่วมเมื่อ 13 ก.ค. 2021
EMDR Therapy with Complex Trauma is Almost Always Hard
EMDR is not a magic wand.
Something happens in EMDR foundational training that confuses some people, including for people who know very clearly what complex trauma is because they have spent hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of hours with clients with complex trauma. Of all the people in the world, community mental health therapists know what complex trauma is. We learned more in the first week of our internships about this population than most people will ever learn.
Many of us have spent more face-to-face time with people with complex trauma than we have spent with our children, partners, or with any other single thing in the whole world.
And somehow, we leave EMDR trainings having fallen for a version of ease.
Nothing is easy with complex trauma. You already knew that.
Nothing makes complex trauma brief. You already knew that.
Working with clients with complex trauma is almost always hard. You already knew that.
EMDR therapy is an effective way to work once the needed things are in place, but in no universe are we using words like brief, easy, or magic with clients with complex trauma.
And I’m seeing the client one hour in a week. There are 168 hours in a week and I’m seeing the client at most for one of those.
Once we are working, what will we need to work on? We will need to work on everything. How old is your client? 46?
How many years, around the clock has their nervous system been in survival mode? I’m guessing for most of them.
You’re seeing the client one hour in 168 and I’m telling you it’s probably going to take several years of focused work for this client’s nervous system to mostly reset. That’s if the client is doing amazing reprocessing session after session. When I say that, I often see my consultees deflate a little bit.
But, here is the good news. In fact, understanding this is how we are going to rescue ourselves as a species and as it’s how you will have a career that you actually want to inhabit.
All of the learning in childhood from all the things that happened and all the things that didn’t is deeply and redundantly placed. It was reinforced in bad marriages and every other form of subsequent adversity a human can possibly experience. Redundantly placed and repeatedly reinforced. It’s not meant to be changed easily. It’s the learning that allowed them to survive. It’s salient. It’s in the marrow.
Clients have been in their trauma, 24 7 for decades. Reliving it, recreating it, killing off to try to avoid it (while also sleeping in the same head and bed with it).
And what do we DO with that client with a complexly traumatized across 46 years? Do you know what 24 x 7 x 52 x 46 years is? It’s over 400,000 hours of life, of learning.
What are we going to do?
We are going to see this client for about an hour a week.
If you see them for three years and you can get them started, get them processing, you can largely reset their nervous system. And when you do that, do you how much time you have actually spent with the client across those three years? Their whole recovery has taken less than the hours in one week in their whole life. The idea that clients can reset 400,000 hours of difficulty and wounding in a single human week is itself remarkable.
That’s what I mean when I say that EMDR therapy is an efficient and effective way to work. There is really good news here. In less than one week of actual time, many clients whose lives have been defined by wounding can redefine. With their unburdened nervous systems they can go out into the world and figure out who they are, what they are worth, and how they deserve to be treated. Spread over years, it doesn’t feel brief, or effective, or like magic.
Rewind to what you knew before you fell for the idea that EMDR is a magic wand. There is magic in it, it’s just not what you thought. I’m trying to help you find it so that you don’t give up, dying on the wrong hills. Everything that you already know about complex trauma will make you a better EMDR therapist. Let what you know about this population shape how you do EMDR therapy. EMDR is not a machine and we’re not in the business of cramming people into machines.
We need to stop selling ease, because people hear the wrong things. We need to stop selling EMDR therapy as a brief approach to psychotherapy in a world where most brokenness is of the complex type. It’s brief for healthy people, but any therapy that is any good at all is brief for healthy people. Most trauma is of the complex type. You can do EMDR therapy well with clients with complex trauma, once you can get them started. Getting started is a whole other bucket of stuff that this book is also about.
Something happens in EMDR foundational training that confuses some people, including for people who know very clearly what complex trauma is because they have spent hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of hours with clients with complex trauma. Of all the people in the world, community mental health therapists know what complex trauma is. We learned more in the first week of our internships about this population than most people will ever learn.
Many of us have spent more face-to-face time with people with complex trauma than we have spent with our children, partners, or with any other single thing in the whole world.
And somehow, we leave EMDR trainings having fallen for a version of ease.
Nothing is easy with complex trauma. You already knew that.
Nothing makes complex trauma brief. You already knew that.
Working with clients with complex trauma is almost always hard. You already knew that.
EMDR therapy is an effective way to work once the needed things are in place, but in no universe are we using words like brief, easy, or magic with clients with complex trauma.
And I’m seeing the client one hour in a week. There are 168 hours in a week and I’m seeing the client at most for one of those.
Once we are working, what will we need to work on? We will need to work on everything. How old is your client? 46?
How many years, around the clock has their nervous system been in survival mode? I’m guessing for most of them.
You’re seeing the client one hour in 168 and I’m telling you it’s probably going to take several years of focused work for this client’s nervous system to mostly reset. That’s if the client is doing amazing reprocessing session after session. When I say that, I often see my consultees deflate a little bit.
But, here is the good news. In fact, understanding this is how we are going to rescue ourselves as a species and as it’s how you will have a career that you actually want to inhabit.
All of the learning in childhood from all the things that happened and all the things that didn’t is deeply and redundantly placed. It was reinforced in bad marriages and every other form of subsequent adversity a human can possibly experience. Redundantly placed and repeatedly reinforced. It’s not meant to be changed easily. It’s the learning that allowed them to survive. It’s salient. It’s in the marrow.
Clients have been in their trauma, 24 7 for decades. Reliving it, recreating it, killing off to try to avoid it (while also sleeping in the same head and bed with it).
And what do we DO with that client with a complexly traumatized across 46 years? Do you know what 24 x 7 x 52 x 46 years is? It’s over 400,000 hours of life, of learning.
What are we going to do?
We are going to see this client for about an hour a week.
If you see them for three years and you can get them started, get them processing, you can largely reset their nervous system. And when you do that, do you how much time you have actually spent with the client across those three years? Their whole recovery has taken less than the hours in one week in their whole life. The idea that clients can reset 400,000 hours of difficulty and wounding in a single human week is itself remarkable.
That’s what I mean when I say that EMDR therapy is an efficient and effective way to work. There is really good news here. In less than one week of actual time, many clients whose lives have been defined by wounding can redefine. With their unburdened nervous systems they can go out into the world and figure out who they are, what they are worth, and how they deserve to be treated. Spread over years, it doesn’t feel brief, or effective, or like magic.
Rewind to what you knew before you fell for the idea that EMDR is a magic wand. There is magic in it, it’s just not what you thought. I’m trying to help you find it so that you don’t give up, dying on the wrong hills. Everything that you already know about complex trauma will make you a better EMDR therapist. Let what you know about this population shape how you do EMDR therapy. EMDR is not a machine and we’re not in the business of cramming people into machines.
We need to stop selling ease, because people hear the wrong things. We need to stop selling EMDR therapy as a brief approach to psychotherapy in a world where most brokenness is of the complex type. It’s brief for healthy people, but any therapy that is any good at all is brief for healthy people. Most trauma is of the complex type. You can do EMDR therapy well with clients with complex trauma, once you can get them started. Getting started is a whole other bucket of stuff that this book is also about.
มุมมอง: 838
วีดีโอ
David Archer and Thomas Zimmerman, Anti-Racist Psychotherapy and the Rhythm and Processing Technique
มุมมอง 2766 หลายเดือนก่อน
If you are a therapist or therapist trainee and would like to join a demonstration of aspects of the RAP Technique in a group context, you can request to join here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8UBGV6qcs0UHpR-ijR6DjEswlJr3o3wax9tFL4fwPhOr4yw/viewform?usp=sf_link The full video and transcript of this episode is also available on the EMDR Podcast here: emdrpodcast.com/2024/02/12/davidarcher/
Actual Healing: What Flash Approaches Can Teach Us About How Humans Heal
มุมมอง 9347 หลายเดือนก่อน
The full text of this with items referenced is available here: fourblinks.com/2024/01/04/actualhealing/
When “Letting Things Go Where They Go” Goes Straight Off a Cliff in EMDR Therapy
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The full text of this episode is available on the EMDR Podcast here: emdrpodcast.com/2023/12/13/lettingthingsgo/ The script for the videotape approach mentioned in the podcast is here: emdrthirdweekend.com/posts/videotape-approach-script-with-complex-trauma-phases-three-and-four Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Trainings in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train ...
The Clients Who Most Need to Heal May Be The Clients You Do the Least EMDR Reprocessing With
มุมมอง 1.3K8 หลายเดือนก่อน
The clients who most motivated you to get your EMDR training may be the clients that you do the least EMDR reprocessing with (at least for a while). Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Trainings in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train your whole agency. See: EMDRCleveland.com
Parts Work is Central to EMDR Therapy, Not Just an Intervention or Interweave
มุมมอง 2.1K8 หลายเดือนก่อน
This video has captions. Also, the full text of this podcast is available on the EMDR Podcast at: emdrpodcast.com/2023/11/29/parts-work-is-central-to-emdr-therapy/ Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Training in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train your whole agency. See: EMDRCleveland.com
When a SUDS of One, Two, or Three May Not be Ecological
มุมมอง 3739 หลายเดือนก่อน
Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Training in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train your whole agency. See: EMDRCleveland.com You are technically correct, quoting Dr. Shapiro in EMDR Therapy when you say that a SUDs of one can be ecological if it “sounds right.” Shapiro's example of an Uncle who died. Shapiro worked with really healthy people and what’s in a one ...
Are You Trying to Put Your EMDR/Mindfulness Clients Through a Machine?
มุมมอง 54911 หลายเดือนก่อน
Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Training in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train your whole agency. See: EMDRCleveland.com A child toy metaphor for understanding how to approach both EMDR and mindfulness more sensibly. "Clients are having trouble because they don't match what you have in your head for what mindfulness needs to be." "What is it that this diffic...
The Performance Anxiety of New EMDR Therapists
มุมมอง 97711 หลายเดือนก่อน
Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Training in Cleveland, Ohio, and online. We can also train your whole agency. See: EMDRCleveland.com • The Impulse to Want to Avoid Causing Harm • Working with Trauma is Like Working with Lava • Confessions about Difficult Sessions • Most Basic Training Programs Can’t Train You to Work Effectively with Severely Complex Trauma in EMDR, You...
What’s Different about the Four Blinks Version of Flash: A Deeper Dive
มุมมอง 77111 หลายเดือนก่อน
For more see: FourBlinks.com This version of Flash has an easy, simple, working mechanism… that just works. The Four Blinks Version of Flash has a clearly articulated working mechanism that shapes everything that is in there and it also explains why other things aren’t in there. It emerges from very simple concept from Bruce Ecker that humans heal when we activate difficult content and then sit...
More About Grief: Interview with Kathy Couch, LCSW
มุมมอง 369ปีที่แล้ว
Thomas Zimmerman and Kathy Couch explore grief inside EMDR Therapy from a broader perspective. Kathy's Training and Consultation: Rewired360.com Other Resources Mentioned whatsyourgrief.com/ www.taps.org/ nacg.org/ grief.com griefyoga.com/
Where Clients with Complex Trauma Tend to Get Stuck in Reprocessing and How to Use Interweaves
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How Precise Does the Mismatch Information Need to Be in Different Memory Reconsolidation Approaches
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How Precise Does the Mismatch Information Need to Be in Different Memory Reconsolidation Approaches
Understanding Where the Magic Is (And Isn’t) in EMDR Therapy
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Understanding Where the Magic Is (And Isn’t) in EMDR Therapy
Flash Approaches for Therapist Self-Care
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Flash Approaches for Therapist Self-Care
A Quick Question for the Flash Skeptical
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A Quick Question for the Flash Skeptical
Managing Activation in the Four Blinks Version of Flash: Using Bean Bags
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Managing Activation in the Four Blinks Version of Flash: Using Bean Bags
Flash Training Step Seven (Optional): Flash Future Template
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Flash Training Step Seven (Optional): Flash Future Template
Flash Training Step Six: Walk Through the Video of the Memory and Clear Out any Residue
มุมมอง 608ปีที่แล้ว
Flash Training Step Six: Walk Through the Video of the Memory and Clear Out any Residue
Flash Training Step Five: Quickly Glance at the Memory and Contain the Microslice of Distress
มุมมอง 700ปีที่แล้ว
Flash Training Step Five: Quickly Glance at the Memory and Contain the Microslice of Distress
Flash Training Step Four: Load Up the Calm Scene and Blink Every Five Seconds
มุมมอง 759ปีที่แล้ว
Flash Training Step Four: Load Up the Calm Scene and Blink Every Five Seconds
Flash Training Step Three: Select the Memory (But Do Not Activate It)
มุมมอง 860ปีที่แล้ว
Flash Training Step Three: Select the Memory (But Do Not Activate It)
Flash Training Step Two: Develop and Test the Calm Scene
มุมมอง 893ปีที่แล้ว
Flash Training Step Two: Develop and Test the Calm Scene
Flash Training Step Two: Teach Sensory Grounding to Manage Intrusions/Dissociative Responses
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Flash Training Step One: The Shop-Vac Resource for Body Distress
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Flash Training Step One: Developing, Testing, and Using the Container
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