How To Prepare For EMDR Therapy & EMDR Intensives
EMDR in Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr & Pennsylvania
Tiffany Spilove, LMFT (she/her)
Owners | Clinical Director
AAMFT Approved Supervisor
EMDR & Trauma Specialist
Hay there, 🙂
I’ve been writing a lot about EMDR since I’ve just started offering EMDR and Trauma Resolution Intensives in my practice. In that writing I realized that you might be curious about the preparation that you can engage in to help make the most out of EMDR therapy and EMDR Intensives. In preparing to do EMDR Therapy, we have to set the stage, find our inner strength and warm up a bit just like we might do around physical activity. The following are four ways you can prepare for EMDR Therapy and EMDR Intensives. You can do these on your own or with a Clinical Specialist to help guide you.
EMDR in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Four Ways to Prepare for EMDR Therapy & EMDR Intensives
Know Your Needs: Before we embark into the landscape of traumatic material, we need to make sure that you have everything you need to traverse the journey. Some people dissociate, some have big feelings, some lean towards behaviors to help soothe or numb the uncomfortable feelings like excessive drinking, cutting, purging or other behaviors that can reduce the pain. Get familiar with what your particular system does when it is feeling flooded with emotion or to try to avoid it all together. Be sure to work with your therapist or coach on these particular behaviors and find other ways to cope so that you have options and can ensure your own safety.
Find Coping Mechanisms: Behaviors are always indicators of deeper difficulties and while I’m making a list here, I am also acknowledging that it’s never as simple as checking off items on a list when you have an urge to cut or purge or over drink. There are many modalities of therapy that can help you manage symptoms such as DBT and CBT. We run groups for DBT here if you’re interested. Here are some other techniques that can help you cope:
Counting backwards in sets of 5 from 100 - this triggers the brain out of fight or flight and into logic and reasoning.
Naming lists of things like baseball teams, countries, colors or pop musicians.
Holding an ice cube through a panic attack or a flash back
Setting a timer for 2 minutes and journaling before binging or purging
Doing a butterfly hug through a difficult moment
Going outside and breathing in ice cold air swiftly
Writing a song about your upsetting feelings
There are many more, but I think you get the idea here. We can post a more comprehensive list of coping strategies in a future blog.
3. Create an Inner Resource Team: Dr. Laurel Parnell created a concept for Attachment focused EMDR called the Inner Resource Team. I have found this approach as extraordinarily helpful in preparing my clients for their EMDR trauma reprocessing work. Click here to read about Dr. Parnell.
Here’s the Cliff Notes version: Before getting to the traumatic memories, it is best to prepare the system to get you through the trauma memories. We do this by creating the Inner Resource Team. An Inner Resource Team includes a Wise Figure, a Nurturing Figure, a Protective Figure and a Peaceful Place. It can also include other important figures like animals or ideal parents. Clients choose figures that you feel most connected to such as Dumbledoor from Harry Potter, Olivia from Law and Order, SVU, Lorelei or Luke from Gilmore Girls, deities, grandparents, teachers, guidance counselors or other book or movie characters. The characters can even be made up completely - original creations welcomed. Your imagination is the limit.
Identify a character for each category and write them down on a piece of paper.
Make a list of each member of your personalized Inner Resource Team.
Once you have them, take some time with each member:
Go inside and imagine yourself connecting with them in your Peaceful Place or wherever you’d like to meet them. See what comes up.
Notice your bodily sensations as you engage with that figure.
Do you feel warm? Tingly? Peaceful? Held? Safe? What do those sensations feel like in your body and where do you feel them?
Write down each of your answers.
Go back inside and notice when those sensations come back again and this time, do a Butterfly hug or simply tap one knee in a bilateral rhythm.
Practice these!
Get really good at getting your system to find each of these figures on que and continue to practice. This will help you when you are ready to face your traumatic material. If you get stuck or loop in the EMDR process, you can call in one of these figures to help you navigate your way through. You can also leave the traumatic moment and hop into your Peaceful Place with any of your Figures at any time. It’s a great tool to help you through difficult times, even when you’re not doing EMDR.
And guess what? These figures are actually various facets of YOU! I know that may not land yet, but it is actually true. We all have everything we need inside of us at any given moment to heal through difficulties.
4. Be Kind to Your Body: Yes, in life in general, it is really important to be kind to your body. It is extra important as you prepare for EMDR or an EMDR Intensive. Make sure you hydrate, eat high quality proteins, fats and starches, get plenty of rest and take a break from working. Refrain from altering drugs or alcohol the 24-48 hours before and after EMDR to get the most benefit from the process. Move your body and feel how strong it is. Check in with your body by putting your hand on your heart and the other on your sacral and ask what it needs from you.
Let me know if there are other things you find to be important before, during and after your EMDR sessions. What are your specific ways that you like to prepare?
If you’re new to the trauma resolution journey or an old hat here, we welcome you. We hope you found this blog useful.
If you’d like to learn more about EMDR therapy and EMDR Intensives in Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, click the button below for a free 15 minute phone intake.
Safe travels and looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Light and Love,
Tiffany