Interventions for EMDR Therapists: Helping Dysregulated, Dissociative Clients Learn to Self-Soothe

Our dysregulated, dissociative clients are often triggered – overwhelmed by sudden surges of painful emotions that are difficult to manage. Many live life lurching from one triggering episode to the next. This kind of constant, unmanaged, emotional upheaval puts safe and effective EMDR out of reach. But clients can learn to manage these surges of painful emotions. This webinar teaches a series of supportive ego state therapy interventions – consistent with Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and Shapiro’s Adaptive Information Processing Model – that you can use to calm triggered clients in session, and clients can use on their own, when they’re triggered between sessions. When applied repeatedly over time, triggering episodes happen less often, have less peak intensity, and resolve more quickly. When clients are finally able to self-soothe, EMDR trauma processing becomes an option.

The 18-page webinar handout includes worksheets that can help you mobilize a team of vetted Resources, establish a Special Safe Place for wounded parts to rest and play, and calm triggered parts. A similar self-help worksheet equips clients to soothe themselves when they’re triggered between sessions. It also includes a page of interventions to apply if any complications arise.

This training can provide valuable help to ALL THERAPISTS with dysregulated, dissociative clients – whether trained in EMDR or not. While this is NOT an EMDR training per se, it does offer EMDR therapists a strategy for preparing dysregulated, dissociative clients for trauma desensitization.