The EMDRIA Conference is just around the corner and we couldn’t be more excited. This year’s event will be virtual with sessions on November 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14. We are offering a Spanish track and any session can be attended live or viewed as a recording until February 15, 2022. This means attendees can take their time absorbing the content from all 38 sessions if desired plus earn up to 78 CEs anytime between November 6, 2021, and February 15, 2022. Visit our conference website with additional questions and register!
Go With That magazine’s Summer 2021 issue interviewed a few of our conference presenters. View these sneak peeks below.
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Contemporary JEDI’s in EMDR Treatment | Wendy Ashley, Psy.D., LCSW
Session 101, November 6
A Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) lens is critical to effectively engaging with clients, facilitating culturally relevant interventions, and effectively addressing trauma. A JEDI approach to clinical practice includes critical consciousness, cultural humility, and courage by practitioners to name, unpack and deconstruct racialized memories, narratives, and traumas that may be linked to other traumatic experiences. Clients of color may disclose experiences of trauma coupled with individual, interpersonal, systemic, and vicarious encounters of racial trauma, creating a complex, nuanced trauma presentation. Effective adaptations for clients of color necessitate consideration and acknowledgment of historical trauma, intersectional identities, stigma, power, privilege, and shame in clinical spaces. This presentation will provide a framework for clinicians to enhance their EMDR practices, highlight the significance of anti-racist positionality, and provide strategic recommendations for implementation of a JEDI lens and approach in EMDR treatment.
Click Here for One-on-One with Wendy Ashley
Session 101 Preview
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EMDR & Dissociation: Past, Present and Future | Jennifer Madere, LPC-S & D. Michael Coy, LICSW
Session 201, November 7
Early in the development of EMDR therapy, some clinicians observed that reprocessing more often moved clients presenting with dissociative disorders into dysregulated states rather than toward an expected, adaptive resolution. In recent years, EMDR therapists and trainers have become more broadly aware of the incidence and significance of complex trauma and dissociation. With this shift, many have delved deeper into the dissociative disorders literature, strived to utilize screening and assessment tools more effectively, and grown increasingly interested to integrate their learnings to reinforce foundational learning and improve treatment outcomes. Current research will inform this discussion, exploring the different frameworks for understanding dissociation, the importance of diagnostic evaluation in Phase I: History Taking, and conceptualization and treatment of dissociative presentations within an EMDR therapy frame. The future of EMDR therapy and dissociation depends on clinicians and trainers integrating a comprehensive standard of care with nuanced conceptual, theoretical, and practical treatment considerations.
Click Here for One-on-One with Jennifer and Michael
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EMDR Treatment of Complex PTSD: Lessons Learned Over Three Decades | Deborah Korn, Psy.D.
Session 301, November 13
Complex PTSD is associated with chronic or prolonged victimization, deprivation, and neglect. Many experts consider it to be a disorder of dysregulation—one that involves difficulties in regulating emotions, behaviors, relationships, attention and consciousness, self-perception, and somatic experience. This dysregulation leads to the development of affect phobias, insecure attachment styles, rigid defenses and avoidance patterns, high levels of dissociation, and the inability to access important internal resources. EMDR therapy adapted to meet the needs of Complex PTSD patients offers the promise of profound transformation and post-traumatic growth. In this plenary address, Dr. Korn offers relevant concepts and guiding principles from the field of traumatic stress studies to facilitate EMDR case conceptualization and effective intervention. She also reflects on the lessons she has learned over the past 30 years in treating Complex PTSD patients across inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings.
Click Here for One-on-One with Deborah Korn
Session 301 Preview
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A Multimodal & Systemic Approach to EMDR Therapy with Children During Times | Ana Gomez, LPC
Session 401, November 14
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought trauma, adversity, and distress to most parents and children. In addition, it has exacerbated previous and generational trauma as they had to endure losses, seclusion, financial hardships, and a lack of social support. The distressed caregiving system and children have been forced to move out of homeostasis, connection, and co-regulation into self- preservation, defense, and survival. Children are malleable and resilient and at the same time incredibly vulnerable. How have the biology and nervous systems of our children been impacted by the stresses of such uncertain times? This seminar will offer an overview of the individual and the systemic work needed to help children and their families heal during such unprecedented times. In addition, this plenary will show how to utilize a multimodal approach within the overarching structure of EMDR therapy that includes: Polyvagal focused strategies, parent-child interventions, play, Sandtray, and expressive arts, among others.
Click Here for One-on-One with Ana Gomez
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Additional Resources
If you are a therapist interested in the EMDR training, visit our EMDR Training & Education tab:
If you are EMDR trained:
- Learn more about EMDRIA membership
- Search for Continuing Education opportunities
- Check out the EMDRIA blog, Focal Point
If you are an EMDRIA Member: