A Conversation with Lt Ken Gardner: Listening for Line of Duty Trauma & Obstacles to Processing in Provision of EMDR Therapy for Law Enforcement Officers

This online course is a wide-ranging conversation between 34-year police officer and 19-year Detroit homicide detective Lieutenant Kenneth Gardner and Dr Sandra Paulsen. Their focus is reducing the impact of law-enforcement line of-duty traumas with EMDR therapy. Lieutenant Gardner is also a Michigan psychologist, police instructor, EMDR trained clinician, and star of prior seasons of the popular A&E program, First 48. Dr. Paulsen has a long-standing interest in police burnout and line of duty stressors. The conversation, unfolding over three occasions, will help prepare EMDR clinicians to offer informed services to officers seeking EMDR therapy for line of duty trauma. In addition to helping the officers, clinicians also serve their communities when they help officers reduce traumatic stress loads related to line of duty exposure to danger, tragedy, horror, job burn-out, and more. These traumatic stress loads can negatively impact officers and families. Every effort was made to avoid details that would be unnecessarily triggering, while alerting workshop attendees to the reality of the job and what to listen for in various phases of EMDR therapy with law enforcement personnel and other first responders.