Course Description

Drawing from the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), this presentation examines how insecure attachment‑related states of mind are associated with defensive responses that restrict narrative flow, while secure‑autonomous states support coherence even when memories are painful. Participants will explore reprocessing tendencies along a continuum from self‑protective, survival‑driven defensiveness to open, regulated, and relationally engaged processing. These patterns are understood in relation to developmental history, attachment strategies, autonomic regulation, and the client’s relationship with their life story.

A central focus of the session is recognizing defensive and rigid processing patterns—such as avoidance, minimization, hyper‑rumination, emotional flooding, and fixed sensorimotor responses—as barriers to integration in clients with complex trauma. Understanding these protective mechanisms provides a framework for conceptualizing blocked or constrained processing during EMDR reprocessing.
Rather than emphasizing formulaic techniques, the presentation supports contextual and developmentally informed clinical reasoning. Participants will examine how developmentally attuned interweaves from the EMDR Interweave Systems Model can be selected and integrated in ways that align with nervous system organization, attachment‑based states of mind, and individualized reprocessing tendencies when processing becomes blocked.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to describe defensive and flexible reprocessing tendencies along the information‑processing continuum and explain how these patterns relate to attachment states of mind and autonomic regulation.
2. Participants will be able to identify how early relational trauma, attachment strategies, autonomic patterns, and narrative organization shape common responses—such as avoidance, minimization, hyper‑rumination, emotional flooding, and fixed sensorimotor patterns—during EMDR reprocessing.
3. Participants will be able to identify and clinically integrate developmentally informed and attuned interweaves from the EMDR Interweave Systems Model to address blocked processing in clients with complex trauma presentations.

Session Level: Advanced

Presenter(s)

Ana Gomez, MC, LPC

Ana M. Gómez MC, LPC is an internationally recognized expert in complex trauma, dissociation, and intergenerational trauma. She is the founder and director of the AGATE Institute in Phoenix, AZ, a psychotherapist, author, and trainer who has prepared thousands of clinicians worldwide through workshops and keynote presentations. With 30 years of clinical experience, Ana is a leading authority in EMDR therapy and its application with individuals and families. She is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and the author of EMDR Therapy and Adjunct Approaches with Children and EMDR-Sandtray-Based Therapy: Healing Complex Trauma and Dissociation Across the Lifespan. Ana is also the co-editor of The Handbook of Complex Trauma and Dissociation in Children and has contributed chapters on trauma and EMDR. Her work has been honored with awards including EMDRIA’s Francine Shapiro Award, the Tucson Hope Award, and the Arizona Play Therapy Association Service Award.