What is Attachment-Informed EMDR? A brief introduction for clients.
By Mark Brayne
If you’ve come to this page on our website, you very probably already have some interest, and maybe some personal experience, of EMDR therapy, and are perhaps curious how this way of working […]
Ainslee Gibbs reports back on Part 3 Couples and Addictions
Training with Mark Brayne and Annabel McGoldrick (UK)
The latest instalment of the “Unleash” online training series rolled out over 3 days from April 30 – May 2, with consideration given for Australia/NZ friendly time […]
Attachment-Informed EMDR
This is a rather long blog post, so if you’re squeamish, look away now.
Today, Friday April 16, 2021, is the 500th anniversary to the day of the great German reformer of religion Martin Luther appearing […]
Case conceptualisation and Target Identification
Fascinating musings from our colleague Alan Tidmarsh on Case Conceptualisation and Target Identification – prompted by Mark Brayne Focus webinar Feb 15 2021.
Wonderful post-workshop story from Claire on intergenerational EMDR
Quick self case-study anecdote that I hope will tickle you…
As some of you […]
Lucinda GL reports on giving evidence in court
Being in Court for a Client
I was recently in court for a client, as her therapist and a witness, whose parent she charged with multiple accounts of sexual abuse and other items similar (gross neglect […]
One Year On – 6-way discussion with Jamie Marich and friends on EMDR Online
Great fun today (Sunday Jan 10 2021) talk with Jamie, Suzi, Andre, Blaise and Curt about our learnings and experiences in working with EMDR online since the Covid pandemic struck nearly a year […]
Attachment-Informed EMDR Practice Group – learning together
By Marie Tierney
One of the challenges for therapists on any training is bringing the learning home and finding a way to integrate it into existing practice.
Following completion of Mark Brayne’s Attachment-Informed EMDR Workshop at […]
On Being Diagnosed as Aspergers, Part 2.
I probably don’t need to write this follow-up to my blog of March this year on being diagnosed, at 70, at last and rather late in life, with Aspergers/High-Functioning Autism.
Indeed, just thinking about starting […]
Unleash Oz unpacked – by Ainslee Gibbs
WE ACTIVATE, THEN SOOTHE
Report from Attachment-Informed EMDR (AI-EMDR) Online Workshop for Australia, August 2020, with Mark Brayne
Unleash inspires in Oz
By Liam Spicer
Unleash Your EMDR: Groups take up practice on their own.
With thanks to Judith, Mary, Marie, Lana, Lynne and Heather (and apologies for the cheesy illustration above of another form of triads), it’s good to see sub-groups of our Unleash workshop attendees arranging their own […]
Locked Down. Locked In.
Thoughts, from Mary Jo Radcliffe
EMDR client, now 80, former nun who left her convent aged 43.
Join Dr Jamie Marich & Mark Brayne for a Discussion of EMDR Therapy and Telehealth
The global COVID-19 crisis has thrust mental health therapists into a new reality of needing to provide services via telehealth and other remote platforms. While this can be challenging for any therapy, especially since training in this area of service has traditionally been scarce, there are special challenges for EMDR therapists. In this discussion-based webinar, Dr. Jamie Marich (author and founder of The Institute for Creative Mindfulness) speaks to her long-time friend and colleague Mark Brayne from the U.K. about his clinical experiences offering EMDR therapy virtually.
Some wonderful feedback on working Online
The past week has brought some powerful and rewarding feedback on how we're helping colleagues get online with EMDR - from my super green-screen studio in North Norfolk. In response to a piece I wrote earlier about working with a client on a smartphone in his car, one newly-baked enthusiast for online EMDR contributed the following thoughts:
On Being Diagnosed as Aspergers, Part 1
I’m not quite sure how this post will unfold, other than to know that a) like my despatches from Beijing or the Cold War’s diplomatic frontline it will probably be […]
Jamie Marich and Mark Brayne explore EMDR Online, with a live session for real.
With warm thanks again to my friend Jamie Marich over in the US for our online seminar on Sunday on how one can do EMDR online, colleagues might wish now to know that the full […]
Naomi Fisher’s brilliant guidelines for working with EMDR online
Naomi Fisher is based in Paris, and has been working with EMDDR online for a good two years now - finding it, as I (Mark Brayne) and many of my colleagues do often at least as good as face-to-face (which of course it also is) and sometimes even better. Naomi is an EMDR consultant and facilitator, and an independent clinical psychologist. She offers clinical supervision and therapy exclusively online, and can be contacted here. And now, her guidelines, also downloadable here as a PDF: Using EMDR Online - Naomi Fisher. Ten Tips for Using EMDR Online Practice Based Article I never thought it was possible to do EMDR online. As a clinical psychologist and EMDR Consultant who has been using EMDR since 2005, I occasionally did other sorts of therapy online if I had to, but EMDR? No. It seemed safer to keep that for my clinic room. Then I moved to France. Suddenly I was not able to set up a practice or get a job, because here I had no core profession; my title did not automatically transfer. As I looked around for alternatives, working online – with people outside France – was an obvious choice. But I was still wary about using EMDR online. As I started to build up my online practice, I couldn’t help trying out some EMDR preparation techniques. EMDR is the basis of my therapeutic practice, it forms the majority of what I do. I use CBT and ACT as well, but without EMDR I felt like there was a huge hole in my approach. So I started with some resource installation, installing a safe space, and tried out preparation techniques such as Flash, CIPOS and Loving Eyes. In order to do this, of course I had to work out how to best use BLS online. As I did this, I become more confident and started offering full EMDR processing to people who I felt confident could manage this. It worked. Just like it does in the room. In fact, in some ways it felt even more attuned. I felt deeply in touch with my clients, thousands of miles away. We created a little therapeutic bubble, in virtual space. Now I’ve been using EMDR online for nearly two years, and this is what I’ve learnt.
Talking with children about Corona – and thoughts about AF-EMDR at this time…
First, a note from Miriam Chachamu about her excellent family-focused videos, including now on how to talk with children about Corona. I am a family therapist, a relatively new and a bit silent member of this forum... During the last year I have been developing a YouTube channel for parents, helping them understand their children and communicate better with them, to hopefully reduce attachment wounds for the future. If you have time, please have a look! My last two videos are about talking to children about the virus and dealing with school closures, and my video about couples in self-isolation is scheduled for tomorrow. https://youtu.be/IocaIXXaDKA https://youtu.be/AQdb_hmmhMo If you like what you hear please subscribe and press the bell so you will hear from YouTube about new videos- usually every week or two And to continue, my (Mark Brayne's) response!
Summary of key points just gone out to new Online EMDR Google Group in the UK
Hi - welcome to this Google group for exchanging ideas and questions on how best to use EMDR online - a rapidly growing field, especially now with the Corona virus. The group was set up a few years ago now but didn't really take off. Its time however may now have come, so interested colleagues are welcome to try again to join, with the usual request that all contributions are respectful, kind and tolerant. Note that this group is separate from and independent of the EMDR UK Association, and starts out with just the necessary moderation. Anyone trained in the use of EMDR is welcome. To complement Alexandra Dent's excellent summary note that can be shared with clients, we have a fair bit of background info on our EMDR Focus website. Some basic bullet points for colleagues wanting to get going in short order. Above all, don't be afraid. Online EMDR works brilliantly, so with a bit of courage and time to learn this, do jump in...
Excellent support ideas from Alexandra Dent for EMDR Online
Our EMDR Consultant colleague Alexandra Dent has put together a particularly excellent draft client contract for using EMDR online, which we're happy to re-post here, with amendments, both as a downloadable PDF (11BW Online Sessions Explainer for Clients - minus MB details) and inline as follows. ONLINE CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY SESSIONS – v. March 2020 I would like to provide you with some practical information to help you understand what to expect with online sessions and also provide some tips to make sure the process runs smoothly. It might feel scary or uncertain to have some sessions online but they can be as effective as meeting face to face, so long as you follow the sensible tips below. My goal is to create a safe and contained space to work with you. If there are some material/documents that we need to use for the sessions (e.g. when I am going through psychoeducation and mindfulness), I will make sure that I have emailed this through to you before the session.
Unleash your EMDR goes online
I couldn’t resist posting a response from one dear EMDR colleague to the news, summarised below, that our next Unleash your EMDR workshop, all two days of it with demos and pairwork and […]
Simple Summary of AF-EMDR Bridging/Target Identification
Heather asked a really useful question the other day on the Attachment-Focused Google Group, and I thought it might be useful to post my response here for more general perusal. I would appreciate your thoughts. My question is....in working with a 30 year old woman whose cause of her low self esteem and overwhelm and anxiety is her mother. Life time of criticism, emeshment, invalidation etc. Woman is intelligent and has a successful career. Has a partner whose moved in and she's worried he's taking advantage and she's being treated badly. On the other hand she doubts herself and feels she always in the wrong. My gut feeling based on his negotiations and behaviour is that he is manipulative but can be kind etc. His mother is also dismissive of my client and treats her like her waitress.
A brief thought about online work
What with Coronavirus and all, a lot of us EMDR therapists, I suspect, are going to be finding ourselves working online with clients in the coming weeks, so here's copying in an email I sent just now (Sunday March 8) to a colleague contemplating doing this for the first time. I don't doubt that the ACTO training is very useful, but I have to admit to not having done it myself, and to be coping pretty well with the specific challenges of online work. Which aren't really very different - technology and some of the basics permitting which are outlined in the discussions you've read - from working face to face. So I'd just suggest giving it a go and seeing how you and your clients get on.
Parnell at last officially legit in the UK…
At last, some rather good and very-long-awaited news, from the EMDR UK-and-Ireland’s annual Consultants Day in London on November 16 2019. Laurel Parnell, her Modified Protocol, and Attachment-Focused EMDR are now, officially and publicly, accepted as legitimate, mainstream EMDR. No need for a long exposition here. Most of those in our network know the history. Suffice it to say that, when asked at the Consultants Day for thoughts on the position now of Laurel Parnell and Attachment-Focused EMDR and her Modified Protocol, Marian Tobin on behalf of the Association’s Accreditation Committee observed simply that Laurel does have official Association CPD points, (which I might note here that, briefly at the height of our difficulties, was not always the case...), so there's no issue.
EMDR in Romania – A Personal Story
As an enthusiast for Attachment-Focused EMDR, and after a spell on the very AF-EMDR-friendly Steering Group of the EMDR Association’s East-Anglia Regional Group, I was asked by EMDR Focus to summarise some EMDR-related findings in Romania, where I’ve just spent several months. For background, I was for a time married to a Romanian, and we have a son whose departure to University last October meant there was time for a sabbatical, and a retracing of my steps back to Romania.
Intergenerational Trauma: Healing the Past to Heal the Present
Half-way through a demonstration session at an Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) workshop in London last year, it was becoming clear that my volunteer client and I were getting worryingly stuck. We’d identified where George was being triggered in his present life – a row with his partner – and we’d bridged efficiently to him sitting alone and forlorn on the kitchen floor at the age of four or so, as his mother, her back turned, busied herself at the sink. As she had always done.
Intergenerational Trauma: Healing the Past to Heal the Present
Author: Mark Brayne, Parnell Institute Training Facilitator and Director of EMDR Focus.
Half-way through a demonstration session at an Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) workshop in London last year, it was becoming clear that my volunteer client and I were […]
Attachment-Focused EMDR for Addiction, a two-day practical workshop with Dr Laurel Parnell
London Mon-Tue Sept 16-17 2019 - Healing Relational Trauma and Rewiring the Addicted Brain with EMDR. £295 – CPD points applied for. Very last minute (see below…), we’re delighted to welcome Dr Parnell for her first workshop in Europe focusing on the ideas in her her new book for EMDR with addictions Rewiring the Addicted Brain. We’re not yet settled on a venue, but it will be in central London, and this will be of interest not just to colleagues already trained in Laurel’s Attachment-Focused approach to EMDR, but newbies too. Through lecture, slides, and videos of live client sessions, and LOTS of discussion and As, you’ll learn how to integrate an attachment-focused, brain-wise approach into treating clients with addictions and dysfunctional behaviours, as well as practical tools you will be able to use immediately with your clients.
Trauma, Psychotherapy, EMDR – and being a Mum
Forget books on parenting, I get the best mummying advice in the world from my patients. Because almost all of them are healing wounds from their mothers. I had my first child before I worked on myself and before I trained in this line of work. I suffered from post natal depression, felt like my world had imploded - I remember driving home from the hospital - terrified of going home with this little baby, and wanting to scream out of the window at people walking in the street “how can you be getting on with your lives like nothing has happened, can’t you see the world has changed???!” Such a difficult time. My husband at the time was working and hardly ever home, my family lived miles away, and I felt so ashamed of the fact that I found this new baby stuff so hard, I simply felt I couldn’t reach out to any friends. I felt isolated, alone, and very, very, low.
Tartan Patterns and Porcelain Ducks: Intuitive EMDR in action
Thanks to Rachael Ward for sharing the following touching client story, inspired by training in September with Laurel Parnell in London in the Attachment-Focused approach to EMDR. (Names and identifying details have been changed.) I loved the AF approach and one of the reasons is that it has validated some of the things I was instinctively doing, but feeling 'bad' for doing them as it was against standard protocol. One such case was a young woman I saw seven years ago as a client of a Mental Health Service. She had a diagnosis of NEAD (non epileptic attack disorder) and was suicidal due to the impact it was having in her life. The Neurologist had done all he could for her and she had received CBT, Psychodynamic therapy and a raft of other interventions that had been unsuccessful at helping reduce the 20+ seizures a day.
Parnell in London Sept 2018
t's been a bit of a journey getting here, but with three annual London (and York) events with Laurel Parnell behind us now, and the first successful outings this year of Mark Brayne's Unleash your EMDR: Release the Magic weekend courses, we now have in place a rich supporting array of trainings to get your advanced EMDR practice truly up and running. At the top of this post a cheerful picture of our EMDR Focus Facilitator team, with Laurel at the heart and positioned in front of the Mary Ward House Conference Centre where 45 plucky trainees enjoyed three autumn days being inspired by Laurel's approach to Attachment-Focused EMDR, with daily live demos and a lot of learning. And, the enthusiasm for this training is now particularly reassuring, with as many colleagues on the waiting list as were able to attend, highlighting how Laurel's approach is being increasingly accepted as mainstream EMDR, entirely in accordance with the Standard Protocol as we call it, and turbo-charging work especially with more complex clients.
Unleashing the Magic of EMDR – London, CCPE, April 7/8 2018
With a small but select cohort of Attachment-Focused EMDR enthusiasts, a rich and rewarding time was had by all as on the first post-Easter weekend we launched the first of EMDR Focus's new two-day workshops delivering intense and practical skills training in using EMDR with the most complex clients. As far as we know, practical and supervised coaching sessions, in the UK at least, are offered only during Parts 1 to 3 of EMDR basic training. So, drawing generously on the inspiration of Dr Laurel Parnell in the US, our workshop gave experienced EMDR therapists a unique (literally!) opportunity to try out new skills on themselves and each other - for real and with full-length sessions supervised and coached by our new EMDR Focus facilitator support team. The feedback has been most gratifying - and here are a few quotes to illustrate.
Attachment-Focused EMDR – Research presented at London conference
It's been some time in the making, but it was a great pleasure to present to last weekend’s (March 24, 2018) EMDR UK & Ireland annual national conference on Laurel Parnell’s approach to Attachment-Focused EMDR. Here’s a link to the full presentation, in PDF form and slightly amended for wider public consumption, recognising that some of the slides, especially the pictures, won’t make overly much sense without the attendant explanation in person. After some controversy over recent years within the EMDR community about the standing of Dr Parnell’s approach to our work, it was particularly rewarding to be able to bring these very positive research results to the conference in the same week that Laurel heard from the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) in the US that her EMDR training, with its Part III focus on working creatively with attachment, has been unanimously approved by the relevant accreditation committee.
Seriously useful online discussion about using EMDR online
Engaging the technology: therapist and client A number of EMDR enthusiasts held a comprehensive online discussion early in 2018 on the benefits and challenges of delivering EMDR online, and with thanks to Paul Gebka-Scuffins, we're posting here a summary of what we explored. Note that various names crop up - their owners will know who they are, but we decided not to include surnames in this public-facing account. We discussed the benefits of the group developing a crib sheet, a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ to help therapist and clients engage with the technical aspects of preparing and participating in an online EMDR session. It was highlighted by Gary that it was important not to reinvent the wheel and create guidelines that might conflict with ones developed by online governing bodies, e.g. The Association for Counselling and Therapy Online (ACTO). He said we should be cautious.
James Thomas reports from a Parnell Training in New York
James Thomas is an EMDR Focus facilitator in Attachment-Focused EMDR, and recently returned from a five-day training with Laurel Parnell in New York - continuing an annual tradition begun in 2015 when Mark Brayne was the first of our team to join the January training, followed in subsequent years by Shawn Katz and Annabel McGoldrick. This is his report. It’s January 2018, and after nearly 30 years of working in the mental health field, first as a CBT therapist and latterly with EMDR, I’m in New York with 43 other therapists from the US and Canada joining Laurel Parnell for an advanced workshop on ‘Transforming Trauma with EMDR’. Already, I’m fascinated, amazed and awed by the power of EMDR in working with, as Bessel van der Kolk puts it, Bodies that Keep the Score. Our training is held at the Open Center in central Manhattan, more used to hosting courses in meditation teaching and with a serenity to match. For the next five days, I will listen, observe and especially also practise Laurel’s orientation to EMDR that I have come to admire from my initial introduction to her work in 2014.
Survey Monkey Audit of Attachment-Focused EMDR in Action
-NB - this survey is now closed, but we've left it posted here for background info. Welcome if you've landed here as a UK- or Ireland-based EMDR therapist responding to an invitation on JISCmail to take part in a new research project/reflective practice audit of Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) as developed and trained by Dr Laurel Parnell (USA). To take part in the survey as an EMDR therapist, whether or not you are personally trained in the use of AF-EMDR, please click this link. Contributions are anonymous and cannot be traced back to any individual respondent or computer. Results will be collated by Mark Brayne as lead researcher, for preliminary presentation at the forthcoming London Conference of the EMDR Association UK and Ireland (Friday March 24, 1330-1445). A summary will be posted here after the conference. For background, please find included below the original proposal for a presentation at the conference, adjusted in Feb 2018 to allow for new developments on the research design.
So, what are Laurel Parnell’s advanced EMDR courses like?
As bookings come in for Laurel Parnell's three-day advanced EMDR training in London in September, I thought it might be useful to copy in here, as a post on EMDR Focus, a reply I've just sent to a colleague wondering what actually happens on the workshop. Laurel’s three days is essentially her Part 3, and I’ve now watched and supported her doing this a surprisingly, and rewardingly, large number of times. She assumes, obviously, a solid basic training and experience in Standard Protocol work, and an interest in working at greater depth with more complex clients, bringing in a very explicit attachment focus. Each day is structured basically the same.