EMDR & Somatic Therapy Integration

EMDR: A Rapid, Safe, and Proven Treatment for Trauma

featuring Karee Powers, LCSW

Begin with over 11 hours of training in the EMDR model — including, how it works, why it works, and how to harness its empirically validated power in your practice. You'll learn specific strategies for challenges like overcoming avoidance and hone your skills in working with attachment wounds. Explore the outline below:

How the EMDR Approach Works

The neuroscience of exposure therapy and cognitive therapy
The neuroscience of relaxation exercises
EMDR and other "transformative therapies"
Why EMDR works so well from a brain perspective

Trauma Symptoms and Assessment Tools

Traumatic memories and intrusive thoughts
Phobias and anxiety: Insula hyperactivation
Emotional hijackings and implicit memory
Avoidance cluster of symptoms
Why treating avoidance in trauma is critical
DSM-5® symptoms in a nutshell
Connecting to a diagnosis
Simple vs. complex trauma
Intergenerational trauma
Symptom clusters and physical manifestations
CAPS-5 and PCL-5
Primary Care PTSD Screen
Dual diagnosis

Overcome Avoidance with EMDR

Dual awareness
What you are thinking about is the network you're in
Activate networks for change
Neurons that fire together, wire together (Hebb's Rule)
EMDR as neuroentrainment

When to Use EMDR in Treatment

Demonstrations and experiential exercises
Single event trauma
Anxiety disorders involving imaginal exposure

EMDR Trauma Treatment

The Original 8-Phase Model
Client history and treatment planning
How to resource: Create a safe space
Assessment: Choose a target, SUDS, and connect with the image/emotions/thought
Desensitization: Tactile vs. auditory vs. eye movement
How to use touchpoints, Theratapper, CDs
Positive Cognition Installation: Likert scale 1-7
Body Scan: Locate tension and distress in the body
Closure: Close the neural network and the 6-hour window
Re-evaluation

Demonstration of Original 8-Phase Model

Presenter demonstration
Attendee dyad practice of the 8-phase model

EMDR Techniques to Resolve Traumatic Memories

Modifications for Complex/Developmental Trauma
Do not use standard protocol - Rationale for modifications
Resourcing strategies
Techniques to reinforce and activate positive neural networks
Relevance of Polyvagal Theory, early trauma, and EMDR
Sensory motor modifications and somatic approaches
How to build Dual Awareness
EMDR techniques to bring traumatic memories from the limbic system into the prefrontal cortex

Somatic Therapy Training

9 Key Somatic techniques for trauma treatment

featuring Abi Blakeslee, PhD

In part two you'll learn somatic therapy techniques you can immediately apply with your clients. Beginning with the psychology and neuroscience behind somatic therapy and finishing with concrete, applicable skills to elevate your practice!

Somatic Psychology: Bringing the Body into Therapy

Introduction to Somatic Psychology
The new science of interoception
How therapeutic change happens in the NOW
Let your client be their own expert
What is a "bottom-up" approach?
Create kinesthetic awareness
Identify choice points for working with the nervous system
What to do when your clients can't "think their way out"
Create harmony between parts of self
How to use metaphor to help clients regulate

Interoception & The Insula: Mapping the Body & Nervous System in Therapy

Mapping the internal body and the story of the nervous system
What is the Insular Cortex and how can you engage it for healing trauma
How does information reach conscious awareness?
Countering the negativity bias in the brain
Breaking the loop of chronic stress
Explore the seat where the complex emotion and self-insight arises

What Helps Clients Regulate

9 Strategies for Nervous System Regulation
1. Grounding
2. Multiple Examples of Orienting
3. Centering
4. Posture
5. Containment and the Body as a Container for affect and life experiences
6. Expansion
7. Self Contact and the use of Character Structures and Developmental Repair Messages
8. Mirroring
9. Gentle Movement

Educate your Clients about the Autonomic Nervous System and how it Influences their Experiences

Introduction to the Window of Tolerance and Range of Resiliency Model
Create clear goals for somatic work using the Window of Tolerance Model
Observe exercises that teach clear biological markers and interoceptive experiences of the Sympathetic, transitional states and parasympathetic nervous system
Learn how to support and observe down-regulation in your client's body
Introduction to Implicit and Explicit Memory Research
Work with implicit and explicit timelines
Re-integrate clients to a sense of present time

EMDR Integration with Somatic Therapy

featuring Sandra Paulsen, PhD

In part three, you'll put it all together! Here you'll learn exactly what to do in each phase of EMDR so that you can integrate somatic techniques and parts work strategies to make trauma processing easier, faster, and safe for all your clients.

How & Why to Modify EMDR?

Basics of the initial interview
Tune into the client's unspoken story
The guiding decision process for integration
When to use standard vs modified EMDR

EMDR for Early Trauma & Neglect

Apply main EMDR Strategies
Determine the level of "aggressor loyalty"
Spot missed milestones
Birth, attachment & narcissistic parenting trauma
Repair the client's imagination
Specific strategies:
- Containment
- Resource State
- Reset affective circuits

Somatic Empathy & The Body

Is the client embodied?
Test somatic sensation tolerance
Identify implicit memories
Listen to your client's non-verbal "bio-story"
New evidence-based strategies
- Tracking, spontaneous oscillation, somatic micro movements

Parts Work Therapy for High Dissociation

Speak directly to clients' parts
Dissolve the client's loyalty to the aggressor
Visually access the client's "dissociative table/conference room"
Disempower internalized "head honchos"
Be an "ACT-AS-IF" Architect
- Containment strategies, Trauma Accessing, Desensitization & more

Bringing it All Together: NEST™ Principles, A Framework for Integration

Assessment and screening
Neuroaffective strategies
Embodiment through Somatic Therapy
Self-System through Ego State Therapy
Integrated Therapy for trauma resolution
Create a NEST™ treatment plan
Know when and how to incorporate each principle
Case Studies:
- Greta — PTSD, anxiety, hears voices, disordered eating
- Frank — Failed relationships, numb, intellectualizes, substance abuse

Frequently Asked Questions

EMDR and somatic therapy complement one another well. Somatic therapy techniques and exercises work directly with the body and nervous system to release stored emotions, trauma, and pain. Simultaneously, EMDR helps to reprocess traumatic memories freeing the mind from repetitive thoughts, overwhelming emotions, and more. Incorporating somatic techniques into EMDR gives you tools to help your clients stay grounded, even during the most intense parts of trauma processing. Additionally, it helps to support clients being more introspective, improving their awareness and insight during treatment.

EMDR is a treatment protocol that follows an 8 phase model and is highly scientifically validated in the treatment of PTSD and trauma. EMDR focuses on reprocessing trauma memories so that clients can develop new narratives regarding their experiences. Somatic therapy is a body-based approach that targets both explicit and implicit memories by working to improve nervous system regulation, emotional expression, and more. Somatic therapists incorporate movement, breathwork, sometimes yoga, and other exercises that help clients to release anything stored in the body.

Immediately once you register, you'll have unlimited access to all on-demand training content, slides, PDFs, and all other materials!