The EMDR Podcast

By thomas zimmerman

What's The EMDR Podcast about?

Helping therapists work more effectively with complex trauma. Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC, offers EMDR Foundational Training in Cleveland, Ohio, and online throughout the United States. We can also train your whole agency. See: http://EMDRCleveland.com

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The EMDR Podcast episodes:

12.13.2023
When "Letting Things Go Where they Go" Goes Straight Off a Cliff in EMDR Therapy
The full text of this episode is available on the EMDR Podcast here: https://emdrpodcast.com/2023/12/13/lettingthingsgo/ The script for the videotape approach mentioned in the podcast is here: https://emdrthirdweekend.com/posts/videotape-approach-script-with-complex-trauma-phases-three-and-four
12.10.2023
Are You Trying to Put Your EMDR/Mindfulness Clients Through a Machine?
A child's toy metaphor for the need to adjust your interventions to the nervous system you are working with.
12.10.2023
When a Low SUDs May Not Be Ecological
When a SUDS of One, Two, or Three May Not be Ecological You are technically correct, quoting Dr. Shapiro in EMDR Therapy when you say that a SUDs of one can be ecological if it “sounds right.” Shapiro's example of an...
11.29.2023
You May Do the Least Reprocessing with the Clients Who Need it the Most
You May Do the Least Reprocessing with the Clients Who Need it the Most
11.29.2023
Parts Work is Central to EMDR Therapy
Full text of this episode is at: https://emdrpodcast.com/2023/11/29/parts-work-is-central-to-emdr-therapy/
09.03.2023
The Performance Anxiety of New EMDR Therapists
• The Impulse to Want to Avoid Causing Harm • Working with Trauma is Like Working with Lava • Confessions about Difficult Sessions • Most Basic Training Programs Can’t Train You to Work Effectively with Severely Complex Trauma in EMDR, You Will Need to Learn the Nuances...
06.20.2023
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...
06.18.2023
Understanding Where the Magic Is (And Isn’t) in EMDR Therapy
Many new EMDR therapists misunderstand where the magic is in EMDR Therapy. Trainings and training practicum experiences often send the impression that simply following the script is likely to result in memory resolution with the vast majority of clients. EMDR...
06.10.2023
EMDR and Grief: Overview
A shocking amount of talk online about EMDR and grief goes against everything we know about both. This episode highlights effective ways to use EMDR with grief-saturated targets.
05.21.2023
Understanding the AIP Model: The Boat Metaphor and the Mount Everest Metaphor
In EMDR Therapy, the pathway for healing is that stuck information has to connect to right now adaptive information. The process that facilitates that linkage is the Eight Phase Protocol. You can connect almost any old and stuck maladaptive information...
05.21.2023
When to Encourage Memories to Connect: Complex Trauma and the Problem of Too Much Memory Content
Understanding the Difference Between A Complexly Traumatized Nervous System and a Non-Pervasively Traumatized Nervous System Via the AIP Lens In the AIP model, the difficult stuff has to connect with right-now existing adaptive information. One of the key things that we...
05.21.2023
The Problems of Too Much Agenda in EMDR Therapy
Client and therapist agendas are frequent blocks in EMDR Therapy reprocessing.
05.21.2023
Trouble Finding an Individual Memory when Trauma was Daily: A Topographic Approach
Using age, space, and topography to find an individual representative memory related to a presenting issue, theme, current trigger or emotional state. • Identify a negative cognition. • What age do we need to work related to that theme and negative cognition? •...
05.21.2023
Preface to What's So Complex about Complex Trauma: Phase Two
Introduction to the next handful of episodes.
05.21.2023
"Mindfulness Doesn't Work for Me:" Teaching it Differently
Many clients with complex trauma will come to us convinced that they have already failed mindfulness and that they are about to fail EMDR. Some of the approaches that I have seen to teaching mindfulness to clients assume a non-pervasively...
05.21.2023
A "Dip Your Toe In" Approach to Sensory Grounding
Trauma has the potential to promote disconnection from the present, from experience, from the body, from the self, and from more full engagement with the broader world. These responses were in the service of survival. They may have been essential....
05.21.2023
A "Dip Your Toe In" Approach to Body Scan
Full script for this is at: https://emdrthirdweekend.com/posts/dip-your-toe-in-approaches-to-body-scan
05.21.2023
A "Dip Your Toe In" Approach to Calm Scene with Clients with Complex Trauma
In this podcast, I propose a very simple modification to your calm scene mindfulness exercise when clients have struggled with exercises like this: outsource the calm scene to a YouTube video. We may be able to use the video as...
05.21.2023
A "Dip Your Toe In" Approach to Breath: Blue Smoke and Hand Breathing
Scripts for these breaths are at: https://emdrthirdweekend.com/posts/dip-your-toe-in-approaches-to-breath-blue-smoke-and-hand-breathing
05.21.2023
A "Dip Your Toe In" Approach to Attachment Figure Resources
Assessing for attachment wounding: When you were young, who was really and consistently there for you? At the core of EMDR therapy and the AIP model, the difficult stuff has to connect to and metabolize into right now adaptive information. Shapiro...
05.21.2023
Clients who Struggle to Visualize
Strategies for working with problems visualizing.
05.21.2023
Mastering the Videotape Approach in EMDR
Detailed scripts for this approach are at: https://emdrthirdweekend.com/posts/videotape-approach-script-with-complex-trauma-phases-three-and-four
05.21.2023
"Noticing the Rest of the Way Up:" Gentler Closure Strategies for Incomplete Reprocessing Sessions
Strategies for a gentler closure when things are heading in a good direction.
05.21.2023
Walking the Prisoner Out Metaphor in Flash Therapy and in EMDR Therapy
This episode focuses on different types of distress that may appear in trauma work and explores the types of distress that are most productive to metabolize. In many transformational trauma therapies, at least part of what we are doing is transforming...
05.19.2023
Understanding Containment with Clients with Complex Trauma
What Do Container Resources Do? Long story short, containers help you expedite the process of returning difficult content to the limbic brain. Library metaphor. Containers very often are a cognitive strategy or intention not to engage with something right now....
05.03.2023
Effectively Managing Flashbacks in Session and Between Sessions
Strategies for managing flashbacks in session and between sessions.
05.01.2023
Effective Time Management Strategies in EMDR Therapy
Effective time management strategies in EMDR Therapy.
05.29.2021
Understanding "Deep Breathing Doesn’t Work for Me" and Other Problems of Resourcing with Complex Trauma
“Deep Breathing Doesn’t Work for Me” Understanding that Pervasively Traumatized Nervous Systems are Different than Non-Traumatized Nervous Systems Don’t Tell Clients What they Will or Should Feel in Resourcing, Think of it as an Opportunity to Get Helpful Information ...
05.26.2021
When Good Resources Go Bad
Calm Place Why We Don’t Encourage Other People in Calm/Safe Place When Calm Place Without Someone Specific is Triggering The Problems...
05.08.2021
Understanding the AIP Model: The Whale Metaphor and the Mount Everest Metaphor
The AIP Model · The Difficult Stuff Connects to Right Now/Existing Adaptive Information · Enough Adaptive Information Must Be Present · You Can’t Easily Connect Maladaptive Information to Maladaptive Information · What’s Complex About Complex Trauma Related to the AIP Model? o A Different Way...
05.08.2021
Blocking Beliefs
The relationship between negative cognitions and blocking beliefs.
04.26.2021
Developing and Using Attachment Figures in Attachment Wounding
Problems Communicating Between/Connecting Parts Across the Lifespan The AIP Model and Attachment Wounding Judgements of the Child State in the “Adaptive Self” When the Right Now Selves Isn’t Healthy Enough The Whale Metaphor and Attachment Wounding ...
04.25.2021
Dip Your Toe In: Phase One
Dip Your Toe In: Phase One Be Careful What You Ask Safer Ways to Work with Lava Assess for Adaptive Information Helpful Assessments, Helpful Questions
04.25.2021
Intro to The "Dip Your Toe In" Metaphor
Dip Your Toe In Metaphor Understanding Traumatized Nervous Systems Bodies Can be Triggering Inside Can be Triggering Noticing Can be Triggering Calming or Slowing Down Can be Triggering Paying Attention to the Body Before an Audience Can be Triggering Performance Anxiety Related to All of This...
04.20.2021
Overheating on the Memory Channel in Complex Trauma
Goal is to Move a Memory Leveraging Generalization The Difference Between Feeder and Adjacent Memories Rethinking Abreactions as Events that Take Offline the Client’s Capacity to Notice A Bit about Dissociation When a Whole “Heard”...
04.20.2021
Understanding Why SUDs May Not Be Decreasing
Potential blocks and problems when working with complex trauma and EMDR.
04.20.2021
A Simple EMDR Checklist for Moving from Phase Two to Three
Does the Client have a Brake? Is the Client in His Body Enough to Notice? Does the Client use Benzos or Marijuana? Does the Client have the Capacity to Feel Worse Today?
04.20.2021
Understanding Some Reasons Why Clients Need Attachment Figure Resources
In EMDR Therapy, You Cannot Connect a Lie to a Lie Attachment Resources as a Powerful Set of Scissors that Let you Safely Disconnect from “Whales” of Memory Psychoeducation and Modeling Related to Healthy Attachment
04.20.2021
Potential Blocks to Reprocessing: Trying to Figure Out the Trauma
Reorienting Clients who Are Too Active on the Thought Channel Too Soon Notice What Stinks Using Perspective Changes or Channel Changes “When Healing Comes, It Will Come to You” What Reprocessing Looks Like
04.20.2021
Introducing Mindfulness/Deep Breathing Using the “Dip Your Toe In” Approach
The Dip Your Toe In Metaphor Strategies for Approaching a Traumatized Nervous System Carefully and Respectfully The Lens Metaphor The Inside and Noticing Can be Triggering in a Traumatized Nervous System Using Externalized Breathing as a...
04.20.2021
Clients “Not Ready” vs Clients “Needing Preparation” for Reprocessing
Identifying Specific Deficits and Working Every Session to Address those Deficits What a Resource Means Accessing and Strengthening Positive Information
04.20.2021
Phases 1-4 Overview: Complex Trauma Modifications
Additional Questions to Consider in Phase One, Including Assessing for Complex Trauma Conducting a Trauma Sensitive Phase One that Avoids a Detailed or Chronological Trauma Timeline Starting the Process of Developing Attachment Resources for Attachment Wounding Metaphor:...
04.20.2021
Understanding and Normalizing Dissociation in EMDR Therapy
Forms of dissociation relevant to EMDR Therapy.
04.20.2021
Explaining Trauma Memories: What a “Processed Memory” Looks Like in EMDR Therapy
Topics Covered: The Goal is to Move a Single Memory; Differences between Normal and Traumatic Memories
04.20.2021
Normalizing Therapist Anxiety in Working with Complex Trauma Using EMDR Therapy
Topics: The Impulse to Want to Avoid Causing Harm; Working with Trauma is Like Working with Lava; Normalizing Mistakes and Missteps; The Real Risks of Not Doing Trauma Work with Clients; We are the Only Professionals on the Planet that...
04.20.2021
Introduction to This Podcast and to Thomas Zimmerman, Ms.Ed., LPCC
Introduction and goals of this podcast focusing on working with complex trauma using EMDR Therapy.