Training
for EMDR Therapists

EMDR for Attachment Trauma

Special Considerations for Injuries to Self Worth and Belonging
PREREQUISITES:

EMDR Level 1 is a prerequisite, and this is designed for people who have completed EMDR Basic training, including Level 2.

Upcoming Live Training Sessions

No upcoming live training sessions at this time.

Subscribe to Catherine's newsletters at the bottom of this page to find out about future trainings.

Who is this Workshop for?

EMDR practitioners who work with complex trauma and attachment injuries who are seeking to make their treatments more effective.  The focus is on adult therapy clients.

Is there any Practicum?

Yes. There is a practicum role play at the end in which you practice a specific skill taught on this workshop.

What will I learn?

You will learn:

  1. Formulations of attachment trauma based on the work of Andrew Leeds, Jim Knipe, Dolores Mosquera and Anabelle Gonzalez as well as Catherine’s clinical experience reveal why attachment injuries don’t always heal smoothly with EMDR’s standard protocol
  2. The psychological structure of injuries to belonging
  3. Specific resourcing techniques that can be applied to foster the natural plateaus of adaptive information processing (Safety, Responsibility and Choices) to prepare clients with attachment injuries to tolerate standard protocol
  4. Specific progressive approach interventions, including Positive Affect Tolerance (Leeds), The Self Care Protocol (Gonzalez and Mosquera) and Dyadic Resourcing (Manfield)

Summary / Overview

In this workshop, Catherine discusses attachment injuries from a developmental and neurobiological perspective. Research evidence linking attachment injuries with dissociative disorders is reviewed, along with special treatment considerations for resolving trauma in the context of dissociation. Catherine provides practical, experiential exercises to establish the healing information that is required to heal these injuries, including how to establish this adaptive information in clients whose dissociative structures either block access to this information, or promote maladaptive information when attachment trauma is triggered.

Specific strategies are presented to resource clients in developing adaptive information from EMDR Therapy, and experiential strategies from Catherine’s own work, influenced by interpersonal neurobiology (Siegal, 2018; Hansen, 2018), polyvagal theory (Dana and Porges, 2018), and empirical research on trust (Brown, 2015). The content in this workshop is interwoven with clinical demonstrations and opportunities to practice skills throughout the workshop.

Detailed Content Summary

Part 1: Neurobiology of attachment

  • Why normal resourcing might not work with attachment injury
  • Recognising defenses against attachment
  • Strategies to address these defenses

Part 2: Safety: What has to be safe?

  • My body and its emotional responses
  • Other people
  • Love and Connection

Part 3: Responsibility: Who is responsible for making the children lovable?

  • Psychoeducation about Responsibility
  • Responsible for the self, one’s mistakes and somewhat one’s the environment: curating relationships and environments with values and assertiveness
  • Disentangling Blame and Responsibility

Part 4: Choices

  • Choosing to Heal, Choosing to Hope, Choosing to Matter
  • Choosing to exist, to feel, to set boundaries, to take on the metaphysical risk of existence, which means: people won’t like you sometimes
  • Choosing to connect in healthy ways
View all of Catherine's Trainings