Episode Details
Families come in many shapes and sizes. No matter how big or small, families matter for many reasons. This episode is dedicated to exploring the transformative power of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy for families. Join us as we delve into how EMDR can help families heal from trauma, improve communication, and strengthen relationships. EMDR Certified Therapist and Consultant Amy Wagner, LMFT, LMHC, discusses how EMDR therapy can heal.
Whether you’re a parent, caregiver, or simply interested in family dynamics, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable advice to support your family’s emotional healing and resilience journey. Tune in to discover how EMDR can help you and your loved ones build stronger, more connected relationships.
Episode Resources
- How EMDR Therapy Helps Families and Individuals with Disabilities, Family Therapy Magazine, March/April 2024, Volume 23, No. 2
- EMDR Group Therapy, Editors Reg Morrow Robinson and Safa Kemal Kaptan, Springer Publishing, November 2023
- What Is EMDR Therapy?
- Focal Point Blog
- EMDRIA Library
- EMDRIA Practice Resources
- EMDRIA’s Find an EMDR Therapist Directory lists more than 16,000 EMDR therapists.
- Follow @EMDRIA on X, @EMDR_IA on Instagram, Facebook or subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
- EMDRIA Foundation
Musical soundtrack, Acoustic Motivation 11290, supplied royalty-free by Pixabay.
Episode Transcript
Kim Howard 00:00
Welcome to the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast brought to you by the EMDR International Association, or EMDRIA. I am your host. Kim Howard. In this episode, we are talking with EMDR, certified therapist and consultant, Amy Wagner, about EMDR therapy for families. Let’s get started today. We are speaking with Amy Wagner, an EMDR certified therapist, consultant and trainer, to discuss EMDR therapy for families. Thank you, Amy, for being here today. We are so happy that you said yes.
Amy Wagner 00:33
Thank you for having me. Kim, glad to be here.
Kim Howard 00:35
Amy, can you tell us about your path to becoming an EMDR therapist?
Amy Wagner 00:39
Yeah, sure. So, you know, being a therapist is actually my third career, which is, you know, kind of kind of wild to me when I really think about it, you know, I kind of believe I was born to be a therapist, you know, kind of training my entire life through my lived experiences and my my Empath nature. You know, while I was in grad school, I was keenly aware that, you know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have decades to be a therapist, right? Like, you know, this is going to kind of have a, kind of a short burn, if you will. So I so I wanted to do all the things right away. And I got trained in EMDR while I was in my last year of grad school, which was a really, really cool experience. And I didn’t, although I didn’t get to really use EMDR. Much, EMDR much during my internship during graduate school, which was a little disappointing, but now, as I look back, it was really interesting to me to take in other therapists perspectives of me being EMDR trained so early, because they have such an impact on you. I actually had one, Thera friend, who tried to talk me out of it that she was worried that learning EMDR so early in my career would kind of stunt my growth, if you will, as a therapist, which is really absurd, and that she thought that maybe I wouldn’t know how to do anything else with clients in session, which is so funny to me, because, you know, EMDR, so versatile, right? So, right. So that might have, might have impacted my path a little bit during my first post grad school job, like when I was provisionally licensed or registered intern, I used artap a great deal. Recent, traumatic episode, protocol. It worked really well, because I was working with a mandated population, and they didn’t really want to be in therapy, but they wanted to get their kids back. So, you know, worked, well, helping them clear that recent event out a bit so they could focus on their, on their, their child welfare plan. And then I also was using standard protocol in my private practice that I also began simultaneously right out of grad school. But my confidence wasn’t there, right? I just, I just didn’t feel confident. It it felt funky. I felt like I couldn’t work my way around it, and then, but things really started to shift for me as an EMDR therapist when I began my certification journey, way back before covid. When, you know, we met in person, and I love my consultants. They were amazing. We had a small group. We met once a month for about 18 months, and it was just a wonderful experience. And that’s when things really started to shift. My trajectory took off. The confidence grew. I then had an opportunity to become a consultant and an advanced topics trainer, which I do for for ICM, and had an opportunity to write and teach two courses, which I’ve been doing now for about three years. So it’s a lot of fun.
Kim Howard 03:21
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, we have interviewed some people on the podcast before who were introduced to EMDR therapy pretty early in their career. Not everyone, but we have had some people who were in an internship position, or they were in grad school, and a professor, you know, introduced them to the concept. And so it’s too bad that your, your professional colleague, friend, said that to you, and kind of, you know, hampered what you believed was a good path for you, but we’re glad that you ignored that basically, and just kept pressing forward. Yeah, yeah.
Amy Wagner 03:53
I think, I think now too, and I look back on that, I think was actually a good thing, right? Because it allowed me to really, you know, take a look at things from a more objective lens, and I’m glad I did.
Kim Howard 04:04
Yeah, what’s your favorite part of working with EMDR therapy?
Amy Wagner 04:08
Well, I don’t know if I can pick just one, but, you know, I think, I think what I really enjoy seeing is, is the shift in the clients, like right in front of me. And I think most of us would feel that way. I really love the creativity and the blending with other modalities. I did a lot of stand try and expressive arts, work, emotion focused therapy, couples work, and a lot of somatic experiencing work, which I think EMDR works so well with those which is is a favorite, the population Kim that I primarily work with experiences a high level of developmental trauma. And in that work, I love working with folks who are willing to work on targets that their internal system of parts may have, and that helps to strengthen their entire system and really deepen the healing. So I think that’s another favorite part. But you know, overall, that is what we’re here to talk about today, right? I really do enjoy using EMDR with families, especially when there’s a recent event, a recent traumatic event. Way back when I was maybe my second year of being a therapist, I had an opportunity to work with a couple whose toddler had drowned the day before I met them in a neighborhood, yeah, it was so sad in a neighbor, in a neighbor’s pool. They didn’t know me, and I was chained in early intervention, so I met with them. When I met them, they were such shocked. They couldn’t talk. They could just basically shake their heads right to acknowledge who they were, and, you know, give a verbal consent. And we spent three hours together doing gtap, and by the time we were done, they could get up, they could drink water, they had something to eat, they could talk, they could begin, you know, really, really, the grief journey. And we ended up working together for four years using gpap, individually, EMDR, with both members of a couple, with their with their family, with their son and and that journey and watching them transform their family, bring two more kids into their family, was that’s just priceless. Yeah, yeah.
Kim Howard 06:14
I’m very glad that they they found you, and the more connected you. I’m so sorry that that happened to them. That’s horrible. And I feel like there’s a lot of injustices in the world, but I feel like, as a parent myself, of two adult children, I think the biggest injustice as a parent is having to bury your child. I think that’s just tragic. And so thank thankfully there are people out there like you and other therapists who can help people.
Amy Wagner 06:38
Yeah, it should never have happened. It changed their lives. But the other side of the tragedy are the wonderful things, right? You know, there’s just, there’s just so many good moments, like just yesterday, I was I checked my phone real quickly in between clients and a long time client that I’ve been working with for about seven years, I saw a text from her, and I looked down. That’s odd. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it but it just, you know, she doesn’t text me very often. I opened up a text to see a picture of her with her now fiance down on one knee, proposing to her, Oh, and that she’s done a lot of work, a lot of healing work, a lot of EMDR. And you know, so sometimes the great moments come week, days, months, year after the session has ended, right?
Kim Howard 07:24
Right? That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know everybody you know that’s where you are supposed to at least learn how to be a person, right? It’s in your family. And if you have a family who’s not that’s not stable, or something tragic happens in the family, and you can’t function because there’s been a lot of trauma, it upends everybody involved, the adults and the children. And so family therapy is, to me, probably a lot more important, because of the family unit just itself, right, trying to raise children and to adulthood and have them be happy and healthy and functioning. So, yeah, what are the specific complexities or challenges for families during EMDR therapy?
Amy Wagner 08:08
There’s enough of those to go around for sure, right? You know, and like, like you, I’m the, I’m the parent of two adult kids and a third through marriage, right? So, you know, it’s an ongoing journey, right? Yeah, the family cycle. And, you know, I often say that if I could live in a dream world a bit, I would expand the way we work, especially with recent events and complex trauma, to that it’s the norm that we get together with the contemporary family, family of origin, or the chosen family, right to be part of the healing journey. Because I think, I think the journey, the healing can be so much deeper. So that is one of the challenges that sometimes people don’t it’s hard to get the whole system involved right, or they don’t want to be or, you know, that person’s problem. Some of the other challenges that that I noticed that come up right is when I’m meeting with a family and there’s, there’s some sort of activation or response that goes beyond the scope of what we’re focusing on in the moment that kind of, I don’t, I don’t want to say disrupts, but it makes it clear that we have to go in another direction. And you know, well, that person may be going over here, the rest of the family is over here, but, but, but, but, we’re supposed to work on this thing, and we can’t, right? That’s why I love using GTEP (Group Traumatic Episode Protocol) in the beginning of my work with families, because it helps bring down the intensity of what they may be experiencing, and it also helps me get up to speed quickly to assess where where they may be, with regards to the resourcing, adaptive information capacity, to imagine that Things can get better and things like that, right, right? And then from there, you know, it can be a bit of a challenge to do some of the deeper work, right? If some of the family members are in different places, which gives you the opportunity to change up therapy sessions, change up the way you work, right? You know. So, you know, we may have a family of. Four or five, but maybe we’re working with one or two of the members at a time, or, you know, however it works out, to meet the needs of what’s happening in the moment, or to help get the family to where they want to be. You know, family members and the unit as a whole, they want to feel better, right? They do. They want to feel better. They want to function better. They want to gain capacity. They want to gain strength. But so often it’s a lack of awareness that becomes a challenge, a lack of awareness of the intergenerational wounding, right, things that happen way before them that is imprinted in their DNA and comes forward all the way to now, right? Yeah, that’s where kind of pause, take some steps back. Lots of psycho Ed is necessary around generational trauma patterns, helping folks understand, you know, some misaligned family rules, right? That’s where it becomes necessary, in the early stages, right? So they come in, they’re like, We want to feel better now, but you’ve got to help, kind of set the stage and get things ready to get on that trajectory, right?
Kim Howard 11:07
Yeah, yeah, because your family history, I don’t think we think about that when we’re growing up, but it really does matter. It matters where your parents came from, and it matters what kind of family unit they had or didn’t have, you know, and what kind of trauma they did or didn’t experience. And and it does impact you as a child growing up, and then it impacts you as an adult pressing forward, you know, I mean, in my own family, you know. And I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, and this is not news if you’ve listened to podcasts, I was a child of an alcoholic, you know, my dad was an alcoholic, and his father was an alcoholic. And so at that age, when I was young, you know, young, preteen, 12-13, I made a conscious decision that I was not going to end up like my grandfather or my dad, you know, and that drinking to me was not so important, that I had to let it consume my life. And I just kind of chose to not really drink. I mean, I can, you know, on one hand the number of drinks I have, I can list, you know, every year. I just don’t do it because it was coded in that family DNA. And eventually my father did stop drinking and give gave it up completely, and he died 2019, and he was, at that point in his life, sober, and had been for, gosh, probably four decades or more, you know, but that really influenced me as as a child. And so when I had children, I had had that conversation with them when they were 12 and 13 about this is in your family history. This is what happened, you know, you don’t know him like that, because he’s not like that now, but here’s what happened, and here’s why you need to be aware of how this can influence you going forward. And you just don’t, you don’t know until you you find out how it’s going to impact you. So yeah, that really matters in the family unit. So you know,
Amy Wagner 12:55
Kim, we share that in common, I grew up also in an alcoholic home, but in my childhood, it was my mom, and there were, I like to say, had to buffet of other issues as well, yes, but, but certainly, being an ACOA has has impacted my entire life. Yeah, right, and the way that we look at the world, and my kids, and I think you and I have very similar conversations with our kids about it’s not like that. Now, my mom has also passed. It was like that then, and it also puts you at risk, too.
Kim Howard 13:27
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely does. And I think that I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the kind of family I grew up in. We talked about things like, I grew up in a in a family where, you know, my mom was Italian, my dad was German. So I get both sides of that. Sometimes the German side of me is like, yeah, I don’t talk about that. Just sweep it under the rug. And then the Italian side of me is like, Yeah, let’s talk about it, and raise our hands and use our hand gestures at the dinner table. And so I feel like it’s okay to talk about those things, because I feel like sweeping those kinds of things under the rug, or not bringing it up, or not discussing it, is so harmful to you as a child who might have experienced it. But also, if you’re trying to raise children, it can be very harmful to them, you know, like if you for example, you know women are getting tested now for the Brock gene. You know, if their family, if they’re have, if they have a family history of breast cancer. And so you talk about those things, because those are physical health things that you need to be aware of as you grow older and as your children grow up. So there’s, I mean, I know it’s a lot kind of the last stigma in society, but we’ve said this before in the podcast. We should not be afraid to talk about mental issues, mental health issues. We should not be afraid to talk about addictions, if we have that in our family. I mean, I’m not suggesting that you wear a, you know, a pin on your lapel that says, hey, I have addiction issues in my family, but I’m just, you know, you should be able to talk about them amongst your family and with your close friends about how that works and how it impacts you, and so that that you can be educated. You know, that’s right, and that’s, there’s nothing, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, those people didn’t set out when they were younger and say, Oh, I think it’s a great idea if I. Become a drug addict or an alcoholic, nobody picks that life, and so, you know, you have to deal with that when you find out somebody that you love is like that.
Amy Wagner 15:08
That kind of speaks to those long ago hurt and that intergenerational trauma, right? Yeah, because, you know, like I had a mother with an addiction issue, you had a dad with an addiction issue, but what was before them? Before them, right? You know, it’s inherited trauma. Yeah, it didn’t start with them, and it wasn’t just us that were affected. They may have been that kid who had those experiences too, right? And like you said, you know when we can bring it to the surface and give, you know, give truth to it. That’s when, that’s when the healing can start.
Kim Howard 15:44
Yeah, because not talking about it does not heal as for darn sure.
Amy Wagner 15:48
That’s right. You know, we’re talking about these intergenerational traumas and the hurt that come, that come forward. I think one of the other things that that becomes challenging is when there is developmental trauma within the family system and the families, maybe not. Maybe it’s not experienced by all the members, or maybe it’s brought from childhood the parent that is now the parent of the kid. It complicates the landscape a bit when, especially when we’re not recognizing the attachment wounds and the dissociation. And I think as therapists, especially EMDR therapists, we need to be on the lookout for those too, right? You know, to get our excavation kit out dig below the surface, because that is so often overlooked in the behaviors that may be exhibited in the in the family system. And people are are labeling it well, they’re borderline, or they’re bipolar, this, or whatever. And it’s, it’s protective capacities that that are now outdated but were learned so early when they were growing up in an alcoholic or an abusive home or something like that, and people are missing. And so I think it’s important to realize and identify quickly in family work that the person, oftentimes who’s experiencing the most pain or the most difficulty is often put in that family scapegoat role, but that could also be the person who holds hope for the most healing. I think that that’s important to remember absolutely.
Kim Howard 17:07
Thank you. Amy, what successes have you seen using EMDR therapy for this population?
Amy Wagner 17:13
Lots of them. That’s that’s a fun part, right? I told you about the family with a toddler, right? That is just an amazing and amazing situation, and what made it so in the when they allowed me to come into their lives, it’s really their darkest moment. It was the EMDR, the gtap, was so important. But what is so Also important is how we show up with a sense of humanness and empathy. They were open to it because they were able to trust me, right? So we always have to remember to keep that relationship first, and when we can do that then, then the magic can happen. I think it’s also to remember that when we talk about successes, that sometimes the successes show up much, much later. I’m thinking about an individual I worked with right now who, oh, maybe about eight months ago, went to her younger sister’s wedding. And there’s four girls in the family who are adult, adult women in the family. And what the third, the last one is half sibling. They share a different father, so the same father raised them all, but biologically is her father. And what came up was this sense of at the wedding and through the wedding festivities, was a sense that I’m only a half sister, and my client was so taken aback by that. And we did a lot of work on that, a lot of EMDR work on it, until they were able to get to a place of seeing like, Oh, wow. Maybe, maybe those attachment wounds are really that deep, maybe what we think we see on the surface, and we’re always doing and seeing and helping to include really doesn’t cover up the pain that they’re feeling or feeling like they don’t belong to the system. And that felt like such a success to me, when they finally were able to see that through a different lens and feel their own pain about it, because it’s transformed their relationship. It’s so different now. So those kinds of things I think are so important.
Kim Howard 19:06
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Amy, are there any myths that you would like to bust about working with EMDR therapy and families?
Amy Wagner 19:14
Oh, myth that I’d like to bust? Well, I don’t know if this is a myth, but, you know, we were kind of talking about this already, about how versatile EMDR can be, right? Group work is becoming more and more well known, which is what family work really is, right? It’s a group of people, yeah. So, so I feel like I don’t feel it so much of a myth as it is much of a bit of, you know, just accessing your creativity and knowing that EMDR blends so well with the other modalities and populations, right? But another, but an actual myth, I think about EMDR families is to remember to include the children, right, you know, and children like actual, you know, small ones. And imagine most of us have had the experience of a family coming in for therapy for their first family. Session, and they left little Johnny at home because they say things like, you know, well, that doesn’t involve him. It does involve him. Remember the family, and it’s so critical to remember that if something’s happening to the family, it’s happening to all the family members, correct, regardless if it hit them or not. I think that’s so important. And I think another, another myth, I think I would probably debunk, is change can happen quickly. People think like, well, you know, trauma can be a long, drawn out process. It doesn’t have to be when there’s a recent event with a family, and I can speak a bit first hand to this, 11 or 12 years ago, we were traveling our family. For kids were little, and we had our dog with us, and our dog got thick on the road and died while we were traveling. It was tragic. It was awful for all of us. We’re dog people.
Kim Howard 20:51
Yeah, we are too, yeah, Golden Retrievers, yeah.
Amy Wagner 20:55
I don’t think there’s any better humans in the world than a golden retriever. Yeah, they’re wonderful. We didn’t work on it together, but we had individual EMDR work on it, and it did pass. The trauma piece passed quickly. And I think it’s important to know that given the right circumstances, the right stability, right intervention and the right relationship, things can move quickly.
Kim Howard 21:16
And I think that that’s a good time to remind people. We’ve talked about this too on the podcast that when you’re looking for a therapist, you have every right to shop around. If you you ask questions, you do your research, you you know, meet with them for a quick consultation to see if you think that you’re going to gel. And if it’s very much like dating, right if you don’t think it’s the right person, then don’t continue the relationship. Just and I know it’s harder to find, you know, mental health professionals because of there’s just more volume out there people, more people are accessing mental health and therapists. But you know, try somebody else. It matters to your wellness, how well you are trusting and bonding with that therapist. So please don’t just take the first person who comes along. If you’re not feeling right about the conversation you have, you have permission to, you know, say, hey, you know what? This isn’t working for me. I think I need to move on and find somebody else. Okay, it’s hard to say those things, but, you know, it’s for your mental health.
Amy Wagner 22:15
You gotta do it and do your homework about what works right? You know, be, be an educated therapy consumer, I guess, yes, you know, because it’s not all the thing.
Kim Howard 22:27
It’s not all the same. And you want to make sure that you that’s somebody who’s educated about about the modality that they’re using with you. You have to make sure that somebody specializes in what you need. You know, I tell people when I’m searching for an expert within our community to write for the magazine or be on the podcast. The first thing I do is I look at their profile in our find an EMDR therapist directory, and I go to their website. I mean, I look and I’m like, Okay, that’s good. I go to the website. If they don’t have that specific area listed on their website as the expertise that I need, I don’t necessarily seek that person out. And so consumers should do the same. If you need somebody who specializes in sexual trauma and they don’t list that as an area of expertise, they’re probably not the right therapist for you, just because they’re a quote, unquote therapist. If you need somebody who is LGBTQ plus A and they don’t list that they deal with that population and that they serve that population, then that’s probably not the right person for you. You need to do a little bit of homework before you entrust your mental health journey and healing with somebody. So, yeah, that’s good advice. Thank you. Amy, exactly what would you like people outside of the EMDR community to know about EMDR therapy with families?
Amy Wagner 23:36
Well, you know, I’m a system I’m a Systems therapist, right? AKA American Family Therapist, right, you know? And I think it’s important that we remember we all exist in community, right? We’re in multiple communities, right, all in our lives, right? Our entry as a community, right? Yeah, but we’re also a lonely society right now. We’ve been really feeling the multiple the effects of multiple collective traumas over the years, and as much as we have community in our lives, we’re also siloed. So I want people to know that healing from collective or familial trauma doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something pathological. It means that there’s wounds that need attention and not necessarily wrong or bad with the person or the system or the family system members, it just means that these wounds need, need some need some healing. And if we can work together to reduce the stigma, I think more people are going to feel comfortable reaching out for help, which I think is so, so important. Now we’re talking about family work. We were saying the wounds can be generational wounds that go way back before it’s time to unload that stuff to be able to move forward. And I think, I think it’s just important to remember that when family systems break down, communities break down, our society committed risk for breaking down. So, you know, we need stronger families, stronger communities, so we can support each other, because we’re all wired for relationships.
Kim Howard 25:00
Yeah, absolutely. I mean if, and if you don’t think we’re not wired for relationships, just go sit in a church or a synagogue or a mosque or on public transportation in an empty area, empty pew, empty car, whatever, and watch people sit near you when the whole train is empty, or the whole church is empty, or the synagogue, etc. Because you’re like, why are you sitting right next to me? Why are you on my pew when there’s the whole like empty pews by me is there’s a need for us, sociologically, to be with people. We need to be connected to each other. And it start at a family level, and it spreads out to you. Know how your family is influences you as an adult. It influences you in your future relationships. And if you don’t understand your family history, medical and physical and emotional and mentally, you don’t understand it. You can’t manage that. It’s the same thing with a business. You know that the whole What’s that saying about you can’t manage what you can’t measure, right? So if you don’t know those things, you have no idea how you’re functioning and why you’re doing things. And so it’s good to know that, if you can so well.
Amy Wagner 26:11
I think, I think to you know, to that, to that point, we have a sense of how important, you know, strong families are, whatever structure is, right? You know, birth family, adopted family, etc, but yet, sometimes we can’t find a language for it, or we don’t know it’s just, you know, feels like it and unknown to so many people that they think it can’t be changed, right? And doesn’t have to be that way, and even just one member of the family can be the change agent to get the ball rolling.
Kim Howard 26:38
Absolutely. How do you practice cultural humility as an EMDR therapist?
Amy Wagner 26:43
This is an important area, isn’t it, as a personal practice, it’s important for me to continually and often self engage in my own self reflection and my own pattern exploration, in my work with clients, and just in my walk as a person you know, in other areas of my life, you know, we talked a little bit about us growing up in a system that had some fragility around it. One of the one of the vulnerable things in my family was that I grew up in environment that really struggled with acceptance of other people, belief and their values, and that was that was passed down to me, so I had to do a lot of work to unwind that judgment, those beliefs, those experiences that I was, that I had as well, and put an ongoing, all the time process for me to be open and really find ways to continually compassionately explore others values or beliefs or perspectives or cultural practices, and be really curious about the inquiry without expecting to be educated by them. That’s my work to do.
Kim Howard 27:47
Yeah, right? Absolutely, yeah. And I think that, I mean, it’s been talked about before. This is not a new concept, but babies don’t come out of the womb, hating people. Children learn from their families. You know, whatever that family unit happens to be, that’s where they learn right and wrong, that’s where they learn love and hate. And if you’re growing up in a family where certain things are certain ways, and they’re good, positive things, and that’s great, but if you grew up in a family where they’re not, you know, that’s where it’s learned, and that’s why, oh my gosh. I mean, I’ve said this before on this podcast, being a parent is the most important job you have ever I don’t I don’t care how much money you make or what kind of status you have or how many followers you have on social media, your job as a parent, that that’s the most important job you’ve ever been given, is to raise that child so that they’re healthy and happy and emotionally healthy, and so they’re going out and they’re living the life they want to live, in a good way, and contributing to society however that is contributing that’s a lot to burden. And I don’t think people sometimes, I don’t think people will realize that, you know, I think they I don’t know what they think happens when you raise kids.
Amy Wagner 28:56
I think they don’t realize and I also think that they don’t understand that. You know, kindness is it’s just, it can be a really simple concept, but so hard to teach people to do. Just start with that.
Kim Howard 29:08
I really I also see my children are 27 Our son will be 27 and our daughter will be 24 and I see this, and I also think there’s generational changing that happens because the society is more inclusive and more of a melting pot, for lack of a better term than every generation, it gets more so like that, exactly. Yeah, the kids that grew up with my kids, it’s almost like they, they were very open, I guess is the right term to use. They you never knew who was going to come in the door at the house, right? And so I grew up in military abroad. And so I’ve said this before. You know, you grew up in a military family, and you live on a military base, and you learn very quickly. Not everybody looks like you, not everybody grew up like you, not everybody sounds like you. And so if you want to be exclusive. Of you’re going to be a lonely kid, right? You’re going to end up not playing with anybody. You’re not going to have any friends. And so you’ve we learn at a very young age on military bases to embrace the diversity and inclusion that is the world. And so you know, this generation of young people than their 20s, I think, is better than the people who were in their 40s. And so we just seem to get better, I think, as a society, despite what the news tells you and what your social media feeds may say or what’s trending, but I think that they they just get better and more open about each other. And I think that’s I think that’s awesome. I think that it’s beautiful.
Amy Wagner 30:36
So, it is. It is. And you know, we’re talking about our kids. Mine are 29 and 27 they’re 18 months apart, and even just in that small span, I think both of my kids are very, very accepting. But just in that small span, I see a world of perspective difference from the older to the younger, with the younger one being even more accepting and intolerant of any sort of bias, yes, those kinds of things, yes, right? Yeah. And then take that a step further. I have a 15 year old niece who is all the way over to none of it is tolerable at all. And the the conversations with her around the things that are important in her generation are profound and they’re deep. Yes, hopeful.
Kim Howard 31:22
Yes, it is. It really is. And I think that’s good. I think that’s good for the world. Do you have a favorite free EMDR related resource that you suggest, either for the public or other EMDR therapists?
Amy Wagner 31:34
Well, I’ve got a couple that I wanted to share. Right? There’s a wonderful article in the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, on how EMDR therapy helps families and individuals with disabilities. You know, we don’t talk enough about that, about how medical trauma disabilities, again, affects the whole family unit, and that work is can be really, really helpful for everybody. Lots of great Facebook groups that I can send to you. You know, the list, and this was not necessarily a free resource, but I think, you know, we’re talking about family EMDR, which is also group EMDR. So it’s important to note the new book out called group EMDR was edited by regmaril Robinson and Safa Kaptan. I’m sure you’ve talked about that already, but it’s worth continuing to talk about it, because there’s just so many great things in there about doing EMDR groups.
Kim Howard 32:28
Reg has written for the magazine, and I think Safa has, too. I think they were co-authors. I can’t recall. I have to go back and look, that was a couple of years ago. Reg has definitely been on the podcast. So yeah, she and speaking of EMDR therapy with persons for disabilities, by the time that your podcast episode comes out, this podcast that we did will have been published, but it’s August 15, we’re going to have a podcast with one of our board members, actually, who is legally blind, and so she does like EMDR therapy with persons for disabilities. So if that is your jam and you want to learn more, we’ve got a podcast episode you can go back and listen to for the people who are listening to this issue so wonderful. If you weren’t an EMDR therapist, what would you be?
Amy Wagner 33:11
I’d love this question. Well, when I was pre teen and a teenager, I’ve always dreamed about being an attorney. My life took me a little bit of a different direction away from that dream, but yet I can clearly see where I would have been an attorney working in the child advocacy field and working diligently with lawmakers to strengthen and enforce child rights and the laws that protect them in our society.
Kim Howard 33:33
That’s great. I used to work with lawyers. I worked with them for 12 years, really. Yeah, they were corporate lawyers. I worked in an association for corporate lawyers, and then four years after that, I worked with the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and I’ve worked with them for a long time. I mean, I know people have jokes and comments and feelings about lawyers, but I had a great time working with them. I found the members that I work with and knew were they had senses of humor, and they were self deprecating about their profession, and they, if you heard the joke, they heard it like 10 times. And so, you know, they they were just really smart people. And I love how that profession, unlike a lot of professions, but that profession, they have to do pro bono work, right? It’s sort of this cultural requirement of whether it’s a law firm or a business unit in a company, and I think that’s amazing, because I feel like there’s not, and maybe there are other professions out there that I don’t I just don’t know about it because I didn’t work with them, but I’ve never worked with any other association where it was part of the culture, where you had to donate 80 hours a year, or whatever the numbers are, you know, to pro bono work. And I think that’s a really cool thing that they do to get back to the community however they volunteer. So anyway, yes, yeah, that’s a great answer. And that I like all the questions that we ask our podcast guests, but I think that’s most favorite, because I like to hear what people would do. If they weren’t, you know, therapy chair. So that’s interesting. Thanks for sharing. Is there anything else you’d like to add, Amy?
Amy Wagner 35:06
Yeah, I just think it’s just important to remember, you know, as therapists, that you know when we’re working with a client, especially when working with them, individually, the family members are always in session. They’re always there. In some way, the energy is present, the lived experiences are present, the family members who have passed on or present in some way, even family members of clients never met. We all come from this place of history, like we were talking about earlier, even if we know little about our history, our nervous systems have the imprint. So I think it’s important to remember that we can do this family work even when they’re not there. That’s the beauty of EMDR and the way that we can use it with our clients and fashion to help heal those wounds, even when the people aren’t there with us.
Kim Howard 35:48
That’s a great way to end the podcast. Thank you, Amy.
Amy Wagner 35:51
You’re very welcome.
Kim Howard 35:52
The has been Let’s Talk EMDR Podcast with our guest Amy Wagner. Visit www.EMDRIA.org for more information about EMDR therapy, or to use our find an EMDR therapist directory with more than 16,000 therapists available. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to this free podcast wherever you listen. Thanks for being here today.
Date
October 15, 2024
Guest(s)
Amy Wagner
Producer/Host
Kim Howard
Series
3
Episode
20
Client Population
Families/Parents
Extent
36 minutes
Publisher
EMDR International Association
Rights
Copyright © 2024 EMDR International Association
APA Citation
Howard, K. (Host). (2024, October 15). Healing Families: How EMDR Therapy Can Help with Amy Wagner, LMFT, LMHC (Season 3, No. 20) [Audio podcast episode]. In Let’s Talk EMDR podcast. EMDR International Association. https://www.emdria.org/letstalkemdrpodcast/
Audience
EMDR Therapists, General/Public, Other Mental Health Professionals
Language
English
Content Type
Podcast
Original Source
Let's Talk EMDR podcast
Access Type
Open Access