Preparation Prior to the Workshop
Before joining the workshop, we assume knowledge of Francine Shapiro’s essential texts on core EMDR.
You will also find useful A Therapist’s Guide to EMDR, and Attachment-Focused EMDR by Dr Laurel Parnell, as well as Jim Knipe’s EMDR Toolbox. This will help ensure that you get the very best out of our time together.
We ask you to give some thought in advance to your choice of Special/Calm Place for the Phase 2 preparation work you’ll be doing, and also to your choices of Nurturing, Protector (three of each) and Wise Figures (one is often enough) for the practicums.
The Unleash Your EMDR workshop booklet which you’ll get by email before we meet has more detailed instructions.
Technical Requirements and Workshop Etiquette
- It is a precondition for joining this workshop that you have sufficiently robust broadband and technical equipment to enable you to take part fully. While continuous connection cannot be guaranteed (thunderstorms, power outages, floods, pestilence, plagues of frogs…), we expect everyone taking part to ensure they will be able to join in full and on time.
- You will need to be in a safe and private space before we open the session, and to have your computer or mobile set up with a good internet connection.
- We use Zoom Meetings, with which you are almost certainly already familiar, and you’ll need to make sure in advance that you have the correct microphone and video turned on in the browser/operating system you are using. You can check these under your computer’s Sound Settings.
- We ask you very strongly to use (best) mic-enabled USB or (less reliable) Bluetooth headphones rather listening to the call on your laptop/computer speakers. Over-the-ear headphones with their own microphone can be bought from Amazon or similar retailers and it’s worth spending £30 upwards for sufficient quality. Logitech is a good brand.
- Your computer or mobile needs to be positioned at a sensible height with the camera at eye level so that we can clearly see your face. Note this is an essential dimension of working with clients, who may be bringing stories of sexual abuse in childhood involving much taller adults. A useful rule-of-thumb is that your client/others on the call should not be able to see either the ceiling or the floor of the room you are in. Think about that from the client’s perspective – you do not want them looking up at you from below.
- Ensure that there is adequate lighting in the room you are in. It is essential that you do not have your back to a window or strong light source. This can make it very hard for you to be seen clearly.
- On Zoom it is very easy to hear background noises, for example animals, children, washing machines, kettles etc. You must make sure you are in a quiet location.
- It is essential that you will not be disturbed for the duration of each workshop session, that there is no-one within easy earshot, and that the door to the room you are sitting in is closed.
- You agree to join the meeting at the appointed time, or if that proves to be difficult to advise as soon as possible by text or email. The workshop will not be delayed for late arrivals, and outages will need to be caught up with by watching the recording.
- We will be recording the workshop, and participants will be able to access a password-protected folder online for one month after the event. You must not let anyone else listen in to any part of the workshop (via phone or any other technical device or in person) without prior agreement.
- Participation in the workshop is understood by all taking part as agreement to the above terms.
Live Demonstrations and Triads.
EMDR Focus workshops involve live demonstrations of AI-EMDR in action. If you’d like to volunteer, please let us know in advance of the workshop.
Usually, it’s first come first served, and while we do not need a comprehensive trauma history in advance, we will liaise briefly beforehand by email to ensure there aren’t seriously significant issues that might come up in the work and surprise us.
These workshops can be a very powerful experience, both for the group and for the volunteer kindly offering themselves to work openly this way.
Participants are invited to work in their daily triads on similarly real issues, using the tools of attachment-informed EMDR, and please be advised that this too can go surprisingly deep.
You will of course have the opportunity to decline to bring personal issues to the practicum. But for your own sake and that of others on the workshop, please do allow space for a willingness to be vulnerable, as well as to be bold. That’s how we learn.
By registering for an EMDR Focus workshop, and recognising that participation can involve both observation and personal experience of sometimes profound trauma processing, participants agree to take appropriate responsibility for their own emotional wellbeing, and to ensure they have access to any necessary therapeutic and/or supervisory support following the workshop.
Once we move into triads especially, the smaller-group dynamic becomes very important, and it can be very disruptive if a colleague is late back to a session or drops out of the workshop without this being agreed in advance. Colleagues who find it difficult to commit to a full presence for the entirety of the workshop may be asked to leave.
By signing up to this workshop, other than in exceptional, agreed circumstances discussed with the organisational team you therefore agree to stay present for the entire training. We hope you agree that this is only fair to those who do stay the course.
We’ll emphasise this when we meet, but please note from the outset that the triad work is there primarily for the learning of the therapist, observed and experienced of course by others in the group.
It’s a condition therefore of taking part that participants remain open to (polite) interruption, coaching and feedback during the practicums, where you will rotate around the roles of therapist, client and observer.
Please note also that the three half days of this workshop can be very challenging emotionally – so give some thought beforehand please to how much other client work you may wish to reschedule for the other part of the day. A very few sessions can be useful to start practising the skills, but more than that, and you might find yourself pretty exhausted by the end of the day, and less than ideally capable of taking on new information.
Communication
We will be asking you to join a separate and dedicated WhatsApp group for the duration of the workshop, which our organisational support team will be using to liaise with you over technical and connection issues.
You will be sent a link to join this WhatsApp group just before the workshop, along with the link for the Zoom meeting, timetable and course materials.
Please note that any comments and discussion about the course itself should be shared not in WhatsApp but in the chat space in Zoom.
Attendance certificates will be available after the workshop, with the appropriate CPD points (most of our workshops are approved by the EMDR Association UK), coupled with request for feedback via an online form.
If you have any questions before the workshop, please contact Katie Smith.