Integrating Somatic Psychotherapy with EMDR Therapy
Pacing the Work, Tracking Resiliency, Deepening Processing
CE Credit Hours - Learning Objectives
Participants will learn and experience how to:
Describe the Window of Tolerance
List 3 advantages of tracking clients activation somatically before and during EMDR processing
List 3 ways to assess resiliency somatically
Identify 2 somatic signs of subtle dissociation
Describe “bracing” and 2 examples of how it can look in a session
Demonstrate 2 interventions for working with moments when clients are hypo-aroused
and 2 interventions for hyper-aroused
List 2 ways to enhance integration of resources somatically
Describe “process resources” and 2 ways to increase integration
Overall Program Objectives
Review of the definition of EMDR and the AIP Model
Evidence of our natural drive for completion, and the role of awareness in this process
Using the Cycle of Experience as a guide to track flow and interruptions
Using the Window of Tolerance to track resiliency and pace the work
Psycho-physiological education for the client
The value of tracking somatically to guide the therapist’s assessment moment to moment, and to build resiliency in the client through sustained awareness of the somatically felt sense
Benefits and cautions of somatic interweaves in EMDR processing
Using bilateral stimulation to help clients build somatic self-awareness skills
The triune brain, the nervous system, and Polyvagal theory - with implications for assessment, pacing and interventions
Sustained awareness of somatic experiences creates a language into the activity of
the nervous system, which does not have verbal language.
Practical ideas for tracking activation, keeping the work within the window of tolerance, assessing resiliency for trauma processing, balancing between trauma processing and present dynamics that interrupt this work
Dynamics of moving from “sensation to awareness,” pacing the potential activation, with attention to transference
Using somatic interweaves in the face of looping or stuckness, to enable the client to stay in the process without having to return to target, thus clearing somatic blocks and resolving old over-coupled somatic responses in the service of resolution
Utilizing a focus on somatic sensation to enhance “bridging”
Interoception and the building of internal awareness skills
Top-down vs. Bottom-up processing - “Thinking vs. Noticing” questions
Tracking sequences and patterns, through the body, emotions, cognitions, images, movement, all the senses, in order to increase awareness and create new alternatives
Targeting patterned interruptions in the Cycle of Experience for explicit processing
Somatic tracking of client’s presence to expose subtle dissociative patterns, and ways to create collaborative agreements to target the minute moments of a dissociative process
Working the inherent dilemma between the drive for completion and drive for safety
Using “time” and “giving that room” as resources
Enhancing installation of resources somatically
Identifying evidence of increased somatic resiliency that arises in the process of the work, and ways to enhance integration
Noticing somatic bracing, and incomplete responses, and working for resolution
Working with inconsistencies between client’s verbal reports and bodily responses
Identifying pre-verbal survival strategies through somatic awareness
Deconstructing defensive orienting responses with detailed somatic tracking
Facilitating discernment between “discomfort and danger” somatically
Addressing embodied dynamics of helplessness
Addressing dynamics of shame and humiliation using the somatic manifestations
Assessing somatic expressions of attachment difficulties, and pacing intervention strategies
Therapist’s self awareness, embodiment of resiliency, and co-regulation
Helping clients to trust their own process