What guidance do we endlessly give in EMDR therapy? We don’t say, keep one eye on the memory and with the other notice what is happening in your right-now nervous system. No. We say, endlessly, to “notice that” or “go with that.” We are instructing the client to notice what they just reported to us was generated by the last glance of the memory.
Many clients with complex trauma think that they need to put their football helmet on and push-push into the memory. That’s not what we are doing in EMDR therapy. Shapiro describes the channels and process of activation like a fork or a comb. We notice our way through each tine or tooth at a time. This is perhaps a better representation. We activate the client in Phase Three and the client notices, notices, notices, that activation. When distress is largely digested, we send them back to target. It’s fine if clients can tolerate playing the memory forward while they are already activated, but can you see why activation, activation, activation might be a problem for people with limited windows of tolerance and limited amounts of right-now accessible adaptive information.
Activate, activate, activate, do a little noticing is the wrong pace. It’s probably one of the harder ways to do EMDR therapy. There are easier ways to slow this down. Have the client take a bite of the memory. Digest, digest, digest, digest, digest that activation. Take the next bite. If the client with complex trauma is struggling to do that, you can simply tell them “if you are tapping, I don’t want you thinking about the memory right then. I want you to notice deeply what is already activated somewhere in your system. When you run out of things to notice, I’ll send you back to the memory.”
What are our goals when first starting with clients with complex trauma? We want to work in ways that are productive and tolerable. And I want the client to resolve the memory in relatively efficient ways. These suggestions are constraints, but they can be helpful ones. My point is that clients have options in how they interact with the memory, and some of those options are much more compatible with their limited windows of tolerance. Again, when they get healthier, we remove the guardrails and we promote things going wherever they need to go. Based on everything we already know about complex trauma and everything that we know about EMDR therapy, we can assume that a lot of people with complex trauma in EMDR therapy struggle when memory content comes into awareness at a rate faster than or an intensity bigger than their ability to slow-down, be present, and notice it. Clients don’t have to activate the hell out of the memory. They may think that they do. Give them options, especially when they are struggling with the rate or volume of activation.
365 Questions About EMDR With Complex Trauma 