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 …

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.

First Annual Conference of the Parnell Institute: Laurel inspires in the Californian Redwoods (2019)

Mark Brayne with Laurel Parnell in the glorious Redwoods of Scotts Valley.More than 100 delegates from across the US met for the recently established Parnell Institute’s first Annual Conference held at the 1440 Multiversity Conference Centre deep in the majestic redwoods of California’s Scotts Valley, just south of San Francisco. Mark Brayne, an EMDR Europe Consultant and Parnell Institute Facilitator, reports on the proceedings

The choice of venue could not have been more appropriate. Named for the 1440 precious minutes that make up each day, the 1440 Multiversity enabled us to use our time well, with plenaries and workshops facilitated by Dr Laurel Parnell, my now-fellow PI trainers and facilitators, and also Somatic Experiencing luminary Maggie Phillips.

Themes explored ranged from the body and spirituality in EMDR and the challenges of working with gender identity, and from how with EMDR we can rewire how dysfunctional early attachment experiences are stored in the brain to processing the primal wound of adoption and strategies for when an EMDR session “goes south” as the Americans say, or off the rails.

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.