EMDR News & Events
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Dissociation is a process of emotional distancing often experienced by people undergoing a traumatic experience. It is also commonly experienced by clients during an abreaction to the trauma. This is distinct from Dissociative disorders, a much more serious condition characterised by splitting of the personality into parts - Structural Dissociation.
A new clinical trial provides more evidence that a change of mindset, not prescription drugs, is key to eliminating nagging (chronic) back pain. A paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association, as reported in the London Times, showed long-standing back pain as a ‘modifiable problem of the nervous system rather than a disc, bone or muscle problem’.
Marilyn and Richard discuss the apparent confusion in the EMDR world about the EMDR, EMD, EMDR AND R-TEP protocols.
Before Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a French natural historian, proposed that characteristics acquired by experience during an organism’s lifetime could become heritable. This is contrary to ’natural selection’, the currently accepted explanation first formulated by Darwin and supported by modern genetics.
This is an important question for EMDR therapists because so many people who have experienced trauma develop chronic pain symptoms. Then, many therapists, EMDR or others, don’t feel confident in dealing with pain. When clients believe that their therapist is confident, pain relief is more marked.
We enter 2022 having 40 videos for subscribers to access, showing how use EMDR to address a wide range of important therapeutic needs and making learning easy and fast.
By early December all three of the videos on Complex Grief will be online, showing how to address the trauma, present triggers and consequential losses associated with the loss of a loved one, and future fears and concerns.
Dr Marilyn Tew, one of EMDR Gateway’s founder members, explains the difference between these two diagnoses and clears away much of the confusion around it. And does it make a difference in terms of treatment, and should we be worried if we come across CPTSD in our clients?
Systemic therapy seeks to address people not only on the individual level, as had been the focus of earlier forms of therapy, but also as people in relationships, such as in couples, families, workgroups, etc. to effect change and development.
For years there has been a debate about whether the standard EMDR protocol and the application of its eight-phases should be followed rigidly, even to the marginalisation, if not exclusion, of the Attachment-Focused or Attached-Informed EMDR protocol (AI-EMDR) from mainstream thinking and training.
In the course of a therapeutic hour an EMDR therapist may make dozens of decisions from what to target to the appropriateness of the cognitions, the kind of BLS to use, the possibility of needing to take action to avoid client overwhelm and dissociation, and many others. The quality of the therapist’s decision making is crucial in two respects: first and foremost, the well-being of the client depends on it; as far as the therapist is concerned poor decision making may cause serious reputational and financial damage. Which brings me to the real issue that I’ve never seen mentioned in EMDR circles – the reality of decision fatigue as recently highlighted by some unusual research published in the Royal Society Open Finance.
After a lifetime of ups and downs he was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. He is Horatio Clare, the bestselling author of numerous books. His essays and reviews appear on BBC radio and in the Financial Times, the Observer and the Spectator. His latest book, Heavy Light – A Journey through Madness, Mania & Healing – is now available; it’s a truly extraordinary account by one of the most brilliant travel writers of our day, of a different sort of travel - one through complete breakdown and severe mental illness.
Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams made remote working possible as COVID-19 spread. All sort of work including therapy, supervision and training/education that took place in person moved online. This move to online working has had several consequences, which we explore in the following piece.
As reported in the Economist[i], a century of research has shown that unemployment is bad for mental health. Anxiety, depression and lower self-esteem are common afflictions connected with being out of work. But how much work is necessary for good mental health? Not very much according to new research carried out at Cambridge University[ii].
In 2019 (see July post) we reported on research suggesting the absence of certain non-pathogenic bacteria in our bodies may explain the cause of Autism-Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and may lead to its effective treatment.
This article is about four trends that have and will continue to shape our lives, our economy and our environment in which we learn and practice EMDR, and organise our EMDR communities.
We want to increase our capacity to serve the EMDR community by producing more videos to enhance clinical practice.
Well not quite yet, so breathe a sigh of relief. Your job is safe for a while!
What about five years from now? Not so sure, as it’s quite likely, based on current developments, that there will be AI generated EMDR therapists at work in five years’ time.
As I, (Richard Worthing-Davies), wrote in the EMDR Therapy quarterly (Winter 2021), the rapid development of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is likely to be highly disruptive in health care diagnosis and delivery over the coming years.