IFS-Informed EMDR: The Internal Family Systems Interweave

Students will have 90 days to complete this course.This online workshop presents a specific view of ego states in the context of EMDR therapy & proposes additional practical scales besides SUD & VOC for measuring their properties, as well as elaborating useful ways of obtaining target elements in the assessment phase, by superimposing IFS concepts upon the standard protocol.

If you are like many other EMDR practitioners, you have found yourself at times struggling with ego states, resistance, overwhelm, and difficulties establishing target states & maintaining effective dual attention. Francine Shapiro understood this early on when she supplemented the Standard Protocol with the Cognitive Interweave. Many others have since suggested various other interweaves and supplementary or alternative protocols, as well as Resource Development and Installation (RDI).

Internal Family Systems, a systemic ego state model, when superimposed on the EMDR process provides an illuminating map of the process and can serve as a guide in selecting appropriate interweaves or interventions at critical points throughout the EMDR standard protocol.

Participants will learn that functional Dual Attention requires Self-Presence and the co-presence or activation of a Target Part in relationship to the Self. This workshop promotes the understanding that many problems commonly encountered in EMDR can be averted by recognizing this principle, and applying simple practices taught here.

While adhering to the standard definition of EMDR, the workshop compares IFS concepts to those used in EMDR and provides additional perspective to the IFS-trained EMDR therapist with regard to the appearance of ego states, defenses, and relational phenomena, especially as they transpire in the course of phases 3 and 4.

These methods will be demonstrated via actual session clips and guided individual experiential exercises. Learn to integrate these two models in creative new ways, enhanced by some Coherence Therapy concepts derived from Memory Reconsolidation research.