Course Description

Our clients often struggle to speak about the abuse that they endured. Many don’t appreciate the impact of the deprivation and unbearable aloneness that they also experienced. When taking a complex trauma history, it is critical that we think developmentally and contemplate both what happened to AND what didn’t happen for our clients. During processing, we work to target clear-cut abuses (commission) but also the experiences of neglect, attachment injury, and unmet needs (omission). With their limited affect tolerance, profound shame, rigid defenses, and phobias about therapy, complex trauma clients need significant relational support, assistance with emotional and somatic regulation, and active interweaves. In this workshop, videotape excerpts will be used to show how a developmentally-oriented case conceptualization can guide moment-to-moment decision-making during processing and how different types of interweaves can be used to facilitate corrective emotional experiences and accelerate developmental repair.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to discuss at least 2 clinical “maps” (e.g. window of tolerance; triangle of experience) that can be used for moment-to-moment tracking and decision-making in support of safe, effective EMDR treatment with survivors of childhood abuse and neglect.
2. Participants will be able to identify 3 signs of dysregulation (related to both hypo- and hyper-arousal) commonly observed in survivors of childhood abuse and neglect during reprocessing (Phase 4) and 3 interweave strategies that can be used to help them return to their “window of tolerance”.
3. Participants will be able to describe 2 ways that interweaves can actively be used to facilitate developmental repair and to re-engage healthy fight/flight responses and attachment strivings.

Presenter(s)

Deborah Korn, Psy.D.

Deborah L. Korn, Psy.D., maintains a private practice in Cambridge, MA, and is on the training faculty of the Trauma Research Foundation and the EMDR Institute. Dr. Korn has authored numerous articles and chapters focused on EMDR therapy, including comprehensive reviews of EMDR applications with Complex PTSD. She is an EMDR International Association-approved consultant and is also on the Editorial Board of the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research. She presents and consults internationally on the treatment of adult survivors of childhood abuse and neglect and recently released Every Memory Deserves Respect—a book about EMDR therapy, written for the layperson.