Integrating EMDR Into Your Practice

This book offers practical guidance and strategies to avoid the common pitfalls of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) practice through the 8-phase protocol. It proposes to guide those therapists into a safer way of working while encouraging them to access accredited training and supervision for their practice. The scope of the book is limited to EMDR practice with adults. Phase 1 of the standard EMDR protocol is history taking. It is important to determine whether the client is appropriate for EMDR selection. The therapist needs to help the client to identify and practice appropriate coping strategies that will support the client throughout the therapy. Therapists need to address any fears that the client (or therapist) may have about the later desensitization. Failing to do this can result in problems later. Many of the clients that come for EMDR will have a history of complex trauma or a chaotic childhood. The treatment plan needs to identify specific targets for reprocessing. This will be a three-pronged approach that includes the past memories that appeared to have set the pathology in process, the present situations that, and people who, exacerbate this dysfunction, and the desired future response, emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally. Clients and therapists need to understand the rationale for selecting a particular target utilizing prioritization and clustering techniques as illustrated with the case study. Choosing the correct target can involve some detective work, but this will be time well spent. The book guides practitioners on how to identify the components of a memory network for reprocessing. It then focuses on the assessment phase and the importance of negative cognitions (NCs) drawing heavily on illustrative case vignettes.