The Power of Bridging for Target Identification in AI-EMDR
This is a wonderful story of the power of Attachment-Informed EMDR from our Australia-based colleague Annabel McGoldrick. I was blown away this week by the power of bridging. I’m working with a medical complaints officer for a hospital, a former paediatrician who’s worked in the military and benefited before from EMDR. This time he presents with dissociation and overwhelm in dealing with medical complaints. We’re early in treatment and have worked on some targets around his time in the military with regular NCs I’ve done it, or it’s happening to me, when that’s clearly not [...]
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 slots (less friendly for the UK facilitators though). The course built upon the Attachment Informed style of EMDR (AI-EMDR), as taught in previous Part 1 & 2 training. Couple work: “The relationship is the client, not the individuals themselves” The first half of the training focused on couples, with Mark at the helm. The key points to working with a couple in the room [...]
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 before the Holy Roman Emperor in 1521 in the town of Worms on the Rhine to defend his new Protestant approach to Christianity Noting the day, I thought it might be useful to post here for wider view some thoughts about what one might call Attachment-Informed EMDR, which I’ve been sharing with AI-EMDR therapist colleagues on our eponymous Google Group in the UK. Let [...]
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. Case conceptualisation is the point where the information from meeting the client and taking history distil themselves into working hypotheses about the existence of ‘landmarks’ in the client’s autobiographical memory – experiences that serve as “reference points for the organization of other personal experiences and thus become important components of the life story and personal identity” (Berntsen, Willert, & Rubin, * 2003, 689). The working hypothesis needs to be held lightly but is a necessary discipline.Your reference [...]
Wonderful post-workshop story from Claire on intergenerational EMDR
Quick self case-study anecdote that I hope will tickle you… As some of you already know from the Intergenerational Trauma Training featuring me snotting all over Mark, one of my most significantly traumatising experiences happened when I was 7. My poor Dad, a serving police officer at the time, battling with his own trauma, was drunkenly fighting with my Mum in the middle of the night after a family party. I was scared, I intervened, the situation escalated, and he went for and loaded one of the many guns he was permitted to keep in the house. Mum struggled with [...]
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 ago now. Enjoy! And for those who didn't see Jamie's and my introductory webinar way back in March last year setting out how to do remote EMDR (and demonstrating this this thing works and is safe!), spool on down below the latest recording for a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti2TKuVvdwU&authuser=0 Join Dr Jamie Marich & Mark Brayne for a Discussion of EMDR Therapy and Telehealth - EMDR Focus
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 this piece reminds me just how difficult I’ve always found writing to be, whether agonising over a poem or short story for English at school, or composing an essay about the Russian writer Gogol at Uni, or doing the grain harvest nightlead for Reuters from Moscow in the mid-70s, or a BBC FOOC (From Our Own Correspondent) from Beijing. Ironic, isn’t it, that I then [...]
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 Ainslee Gibbs The central tenet from this three-day online workshop was that the first thousand days from conception are most important: how we experience self and the world, and the meaning and relationship created between the two is crucial to understand. Mark stressed that there was still only one basic EMDR protocol, built upon stimulating and processing a disturbing memory bilaterally using dual attention. But he also noted that attachment-informed target selection is at the heart of this type of work. John [...]
Unleash inspires in Oz
By Liam Spicer Liam Spicer Unleash your EMDR, Release the Magic, and that is exactly what occurred. Three days of integrative attachment-informed EMDR that opened up a new realm of opportunities with clients for healing and growth. A powerful experience involving new knowledge, demonstrations, practice, new insights, new skills, and a sprinkle of laughter to round it all off! Just over 60 Australian colleagues met with Mark, Annabel and the wonderful EMDR Focus team over a weekend which enriched current practice with EMDR, and provided significant emphasis on the role of attachment within the healing process. […]
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 practice triads online on Zoom, and here’s Judith’s (Turner) summary July 2020 of the story so far. There are six of us in this group, and we have had two meetings with breakout rooms so far; they each lasted for one and a half hours.In our second meeting we used 15 minutes for a check-in, an hour for triad work and 15 minutes for a [...]
Annabel McGoldrick on EMDR with Addictions
Sharing my mistakes Lessons learned using EMDR tools for addiction recovery By Annabel McGoldrick, PhD My first therapy job, after beginning basic EMDR training in 2007, was in an addiction treatment centre in Australia called South Pacific Private, which used a trauma-based approach to support clients in their recovery. I found EMDR a great extension to my tool kit and a really good fit for my private work. I began experimenting at an early stage with some of the well-known protocols including DeTUR, the urge reduction protocol (Popky, 2005); Jim Knipe’s tools for treating addictive disorders with Adaption Information Processing [...]
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.
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 two-hour recording, including our EXTREMELY interesting live session with me badgering Jamie, over a real live issue, to find a good and juicy target as a three-year-old, is now available for perusal on YouTube here. For ease of access (and prepare to hunker down with a cup of cocoa and slippers – this stuff beats Netflix for drama at points) once again the link: JAMIE MARICH AND MARK BRAYNE [...]
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!
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.
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.
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 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. As an EMDR therapist reading this, [...]
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.
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.
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EMDR Focus is a private, UK-based company led by Mark and Jutta Brayne, bringing advanced EMDR training, supervision, support and passion to empower colleagues around the world to Release the Magic, as we put it, of this…
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