Can you do EMDR with a pregnant client? Clinical reasoning in the perinatal period with Dr. Mara Tesler Stein

EMDR and pregnancy: what’s the risk if we don’t do EMDR with pregnant clients? Hear Dr. Mara Tesler Stein on the Zero Disturbance podcast.

Podcast Description

“Every clinician, whether they think they work with reproductive issues or not, needs to hear this discussion! Why? First, even if your clinical work doesn’t focus on these topics, you’re still likely to find them showing up in your office. Next, how we think about incorporating EMDR therapy during the reproductive period, especially during a client’s pregnancy, can be applied conceptually to every client! By exploring the hopes, fears, and hesitations that arise when incorporating EMDR during the reproductive period, we illuminate what comes up across clinical practice areas.

There are a lot of alarming messages in the therapy world about EMDR and pregnancy. And for many EMDR clinicians, this messaging has instilled an aversion to doing EMDR with our pregnant clients.

We’re taught to fear the “dangers” of doing EMDR in the first and third trimesters, the threat EMDR has on high-risk pregnancies, and that we should, at all costs, avoid any reprocessing in Phase 4 with our pregnant clients.

And while this messaging has a good intention, it loses sight of one of the biggest questions associated with EMDR and pregnancy: what’s the risk if we don’t do EMDR with our pregnant clients?

I sat down with perinatal mental health advocate and expert Dr. Mara Tesler Stein to learn more about EMDR and pregnancy to unpack the past, present, and future behind this misunderstood question.

Listen as we talk about the fears we have as clinicians, our responsibilities to our clients, and the research that actually answers the often asked question “Can you do EMDR with a pregnant client?”

—Description from publisher

Podcast Access

Open Access

Evans, K. (Host). (2022, March 23). Episode 35: Can you do EMDR with a pregnant client? Clinical reasoning in the perinatal period with Dr. Mara Tesler Stein [Audio podcast episode]. In Zero Disturbance. https://www.zerodisturbance.com/podcasts/zero-disturbance/episodes/2147703777