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.

The Boat and the Whale Metaphor

The boat is the amount of the needed adaptive information that is have accessible right now.  The fish that you want to hook and land is the trauma.  You cannot land a fish bigger than your boat.  However, you can get a bigger boat by catching smaller fish.  You can also build a bigger boat through developing relationships—including the therapeutic relationship, through parts work, through resourcing, by expanding the window of tolerance, through psychoeducation [particularly psychoeducation about what it means to be born human], and through a wide assortment of other means.

Implications of this metaphor:

The Mount Everest Metaphor

Shapiro says that if we tackle the mountains of memory first, everything after that will feel like a small hill.  And, she is right if you have adaptive information the size of mountains.  Again, clients with complex trauma have very little adaptive information.  You cannot metabolize a trauma the size of Mount Everest into adaptive information the size of a walnut.  You simply can’t do it.

Also, if you’re not an Olympian, Mount Everest is a terrible place to start.  The are over 200 dead bodies on Mount Everest right now because it’s too dangerous to remove them.  And, if you need to tackle Mount Everest, you had better tackle some smaller hills then some smaller mountains first.

To be fair, Shapiro acknowledges that with complex trauma we do want to work with smaller and more recent memories first, but many people graduating from EMDR foundational trainings misunderstand the nature of the magic that is EMDR.