Where Clients with Complex Trauma Tend to Get Stuck in EMDR Reprocessing and How to Use Interweaves

There is so much to say here. Broad overview. Each point could easily be a chapter. Very little of this is mine, the metaphors are mine, but this is a collection ways of seeing that are helpful for me in understanding where clients get stuck in reprocessing, why, and what might be helpful in getting them unstuck, and what we subsequently do with that information. When clients encounter difficulties in any phase of EMDR Therapy, that isn’t failure and it isn’t evidence that you have done something wrong. It’s important information about the client’s nervous system and means of survival. That information needs to come so that we can use the lessons in it in the service of the client’s recovery.

We train you to stay out of the way, but if a client is stuck, your obligation is to try to help them get unstuck. EMDR Therapy with a client with complex trauma is a complicated task. We’ll explore some of the reasons why and how you might intervene when someone is struggling.

How do you know when someone is stuck when they have really complex trauma? Sometimes it is ambiguous. Because they are often connecting something big with a small amount of adaptive information, the metabolization can be slow. Questions to ask. Clients can be stuck in high anxiety near panic that won’t shift, clients can be stuck in a shutdown response (100 amp breaker), they can be stuck in the big existential loneliness of childhood (particularly if working on an attachment wound), they can be stuck trying to figure something out that is existential, or they can be stuck noticing on channels that just aren’t productive right now (thoughts, memory, etc), where things aren’t moving and shifting and changing.

Defining looping.

When someone is stuck, they are probably stuck in a perspective. Office shortcut metaphor. Interweaves help clients change their perspective.

Ideally, when we intervene, our interventions should match where the client is stuck. We shouldn’t just randomly throw something out. Car metaphor.

They are not sure what their role in this dance is.

Blocking beliefs. Hopefully, you will pick up on these in your Phase Two. Phase Two is the canary in the coal mine for blocking beliefs. What is a blocking belief and why is it a problem?

Too big of a target too soon.

The target memory is an attachment wound. Why attachment wounds are about everything. What might you do. Long resonance after sessions is common when not working with attachment resources.

If the core of EMDR Therapy is activate a piece of difficult stuck information, notice what comes, while the brain gets a left-right stimulation, let’s evaluate potential stuck places.

Activate: Are they activating in ways that are tolerable? Is the activation from the memory or from an agenda? Are they allowing too much memory content to connect too soon. We need memory content to come, but we need it to come at digestible rates.

Notice. Noticing is the bright yellow line in the center of the EMDR road. Is the client noticing? Does the client know how to notice? We may need to be very clear about what noticing means. The difference between being aware and noticing clearly.

Left-Right Stimulation. Always a possibility that switching bilateral may be helpful.

Stuck in guilt, shame, blame, or responsibility. Appropriate and not developmentally appropriate types. Assessing for adaptive information, clues in Phase Three.

How is your relationship with your client? The relationship is a key component in what is effective in EMDR Therapy. How is your client’s parts relationship with you and your parts? Did you ask consent to work on this memory, attempt to address concerns, and listen to a concerned part when that part has an agenda different than yours? If you didn’t, their parts are likely already aware of this quality in you. Working with a system always easier than pretending that you are not working with a system.