When first starting an initial target in EMDR therapy and the client reports noticing “nothing” almost immediately and nothing continues to come after sending the client back to the target memory, several things may be going on.
The activation that we are expecting when the client engages with this particular piece of wounding doesn’t seem to be coming for some reason.
First, it is entirely possible that your client may not be embodied enough to notice. Much of the distress that clients notice and metabolize in EMDR therapy is of the somatic type. Somatic disconnection or dissociation is typically a survival strategy. If clients aren’t in their bodies enough to notice and our intention is to do EMDR therapy, we need to get them embodied enough to notice. That can take time. What did you see in Phase Two? Did you see them deeply and somatically connecting with resources? What is the evidence that this client is embodied enough to notice? You can do a dip-your-toe in body scan to check on embodiment.
Does your client know what you mean by noticing in EMDR therapy? Don’t assume your clients know what noticing is. You may have been the first person to ask them about pleasant or distressing somatic states. Teach them what you mean by noticing inside the various channels of awareness, including body sensations. Be concrete about what you are asking the client to do, particularly when these tasks are new for the client.
If “nothing” occurs very early in the session, this could also be an indicator of recent marijuana or benzo suppression of the client’s nervous system. It could be. Check.
It is also possible that one of the client’s parts does not think allowing access to that specific memory is a good idea today and isn’t letting the client go there. The client may not have awareness that a part is blocking and may initially be as confused as you are about what is happening. If the client was expecting activation but can’t seem to generate it, ask if it feels like something isn’t letting them. Shutdown responses can also come at any time if a client part has strong opinions about the work that is occurring, the somatic state that the client is currently experiencing, or has fears of where this work might go. Typically, parts know what they are doing and I’ll invite the client’s parts to explore other more tolerable memory territories for the client to work in. Consent from client parts in these cases is good clinical practice. You can sometimes negotiate with client parts to find more tolerable territories at the beginning of Phase Three. This is more elegant than discovering ten minutes into Phase Four that a client’s part (whose job and identity is to protect the client from the very activation you are leading them into) never consented for you to do this work.
When the client reports “nothing” after an initial wave of distress, then the noting is probably coming as a protective response following overactivation of the target memory. If distress comes into awareness at a rate or an intensity beyond the client’s capacity to digest it, the client’s system may shut down as a protective response as the client is pushed outside of their window of tolerance. Your ability to restart reprocessing after a hard shutdown response in the current session may vary. Even though the client may not report distress inside the “nothing,” this is not an okay state. Make sure that you do a comprehensive closure to the session. Difficult content is likely to occur after sessions like this. For resuming work in subsequent sessions, options that I like are to possibly select targets that feel more tolerable or use strategies to help promote the memory content coming into awareness in smaller and more digestible chunks using the videotape approach or similar approaches. I want to help clients work at the intersection of productive and tolerable. If the client’s response is a consistent and hard shutdown similar to how a circuit breaker tips when too much current appears, I don’t want to keep overstressing that circuit. I want to work differently and more tolerably. That shutdown response often comes as a gift, not a problem. A tripped breaker is a gift that protects you from a burned-down house, but it is also a warning indicator. It usually communicates the need to work differently either in subject or in procedure.
If a shutdown response happens while the client is attempting to process an attachment wound memory, then it is possible that the client has connected with a very difficult existentially lonely childhood state. This is usually best managed by using attachment figure resources, which should have been assessed for and developed well before this session. Attachment figure resources or parts interventions allow these sessions to end as tolerably as possible. It is not unusual, even when clients have done excellent work in non-attachment areas first and are prepared well to work on attachment wound memories, for a shutdown response to happen in the first few sessions when working on an initial attachment-related target. It just happens. Make sure that the client is resourced well enough to handle what happens after and those resources typically are for your child parts. The standard Shapiro resources probably aren’t going to put out those fires. Well-developed and well-practiced attachment figure resources or targeted parts work probably will.
“Nothing” may be reported if the client isn’t present-focused enough to notice. The client may be dissociated into the memory, into cognitive processes, or working in a channel that doesn’t currently have distress. If the client reports “nothing” across several rounds and doesn’t shift when the client is returned to the target memory, it’s important to inquire about what is happening so you can effectively direct them.
“Nothing,” can also occur if the client has largely already processed this memory organically through prior work or healing life experiences. For most clients with complex trauma, this is often the least likely of the possible scenarios. It does happen, though.
The things I have covered do not include every possibility. But more often than not, “nothing” communicates something. Depending on when it occurs in session, what came before it, and the context of the client’s internal processes, it is often possible to work with the client to determine the likely causes of the shutdown and to develop a plan to work effectively going forward. “Nothing” happens regularly with clients with complex trauma. Try to see it as information rather than failure. It does not always mean that the client needs to return to Phase Two to do more resourcing, but it often means something. It’s not a reason to panic, nor is it a thing to ignore without change.
The dip-your-toe-in and videotape resources mentioned are available on the EMDR Podcast and in the book EMDR With Complex Trauma.
365 Questions About EMDR With Complex Trauma 