Course Description

In this presentation, Jennifer Marchand will guide participants in flexibly transitioning into a post-COVID phase of telehealth, and to reflect on successes and challenges while responding to the needs of clients during COVID-19. Drawing on years of experience providing EMDR online in different cultural contexts and settings, she will present a visual model of telehealth that allows clinicians to conceptualize their work with clients and the factors that support safe and collaborative trauma resolution work online. She will use polyvagal theory to bring a deeper understanding to how we build therapeutic rapport and attunement with our clients, as well as to provide co-regulation and stabilization during reprocessing. She will present the latest research and developments in Online EMDR since COVID-19 and compare various forms of dual attention stimulus that have emerged in response to the abrupt shift to online practice, and how they may influence in-person practice moving forward.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be able to discuss the relevance of polyvagal theory in establishing therapeutic rapport and attunement over telehealth.
2. Participants will be able to cite current research and developments in Online EMDR since COVID-19.
3. Participants will be able to compare different forms of bilateral stimulation/dual attention stimulus along a spectrum of distraction (low distraction to high distraction) and describe how to use the spectrum to meet clients’ needs.

Presenter(s)

Jennifer Marchand

Jennifer Marchand, MA, CCC, RCAT, is an EMDRIA-approved consultant and trainer working with the Trauma Institute & Child Trauma Institute, and is a Registered Canadian Art Therapist. She currently lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As an advocate for online EMDR, she maintains her telehealth practice internationally providing therapy to clients living in primarily non-Western and low-resource settings. She has worked for Medica Mondiale, an international women’s rights organization as a trauma trainer specializing in sexual and gender-based violence in conflict-affected settings, including Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with Blue Dragon, an organization in Hanoi, Vietnam working with survivors of human trafficking.