Course Description

Many EMDR therapists struggle to prepare emotionally dysregulated, dissociative clients for trauma processing. This presentation introduces ego state therapy concepts and interventions from the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS) for stabilizing these clients in EMDR Phase 2. It explains how child parts split off in early childhood to cope with painful attachment failures. It describes interventions for mobilizing a team of loving, attuned, vetted resources, and for establishing a special safe place where child parts can hang out. It covers DNMS interventions focused on meeting the emotional needs of wounded child parts—helping them form an attachment bond with the resources that’s so healing, they become less dissociative and more grounded in present time. As more and more child parts heal this way, dissociative clients become more stable and better able to regulate emotions. This prepares them well for safe and effective Phase 4 trauma processing.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to describe how childhood trauma and attachment wounds lead to dissociation and emotion dysregulation.
2. Participants will be able to describe how to guide clients to mobilize a team of vetted Resources and establish a Special Safe Place.
3. Participants will be able to describe 2 DNMS interventions for stabilizing wounded child parts.

Presenter(s)

Shirley Jean Schmidt, MA, LPC

Shirley Jean Schmidt, MA, LPC, is a Licensed Professional Counselor near Portland, Oregon. She was trained in EMDR in 1995. She’s a former EMDRIA-Approved Consultant. She began integrating EMDR with ego state therapy in the late 90s–inspiring her to develop a complimentary model, the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy (DNMS). The DNMS is primarily focused on treating attachment-wounded adults. Shirley Jean trained hundreds of therapists in the DNMS over the last 20 years. She’s published books, articles, and webinars about integrating EMDR with ego state therapy. Her latest book is Ego State Therapy Interventions to Prepare Attachment-Wounded Adults for EMDR.