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Racial trauma is not just another target - and treating it like one means missing the clinical picture. In this continuing education episode, we break down how to use EMDR therapy at full power with clients carrying race-based traumatic stress: what to assess, how to prepare, and what the current research actually supports (and what it doesn't).

🎧 Episode Summary

Three sessions in, a client is doing everything right — and still bracing like the danger is in the building. In this episode, we make the case that the bracing is the clinical data, and we walk through how to use EMDR therapy at full power with clients carrying race-based traumatic stress. It's about practicing it with the precision racial trauma demands: assessing direct, vicarious, historical, and ongoing stressors; building culturally congruent resources; selecting targets that honor the whole network; and reading the difference between a danger that's over and one that's still active. We also cover what the current research does and does not support: honestly, with its limits in view.

Racial trauma is not just another target - and honoring the whole context is exactly what lets the protocol do its most powerful work.