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.

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.