Re:Standard EMDR vs

Hi,

I apologize for the previous post/glitch.

I'm not sure whether you are referring to RDI and other safe place development or Schmidt's "needs meeting" protocol. The two are vastly different. The latest buzz I heard was that some aren't even calling dnms emdr anymore, but I'm not in field, so I don't know.

No one, I think, should do EMDR without a basic safe place. Shapiro teaches this in her text and, presumably, it is taught at EMDR I and II trainings. More involved safe places, I've read, can be beneficial and necessary to about 50% of all clients... which is a large enough number to have made RDI a standard part of EMDR training.

But RDI is done with the standard protocol... in fact, one could conceivably use Schmidt's "resources" as a "safe place" with standard protocol processing. My point was that connecting to resources (three very delineated, defined "safe places") should not be used as a litmus test for whether or not a client is able to do trauma processing. I connected easily to a "safe place", but had constant problems connecting to "resources". As I said, I think some attachment issues interfered. But I needed trauma desenstized more than I need/needed to address attachment issues. And that's what I am doing now, with standard protocol: addressing discrete trauma and beliefs, which are generalizing and desenstizing beautifully.

I think that you and I might be trying to make a similar point. Each client's experience will be different... and it helps if the clinician is flexible. I was too wrapped up in my issues that brought me into treatment to, until now, approach the larger debate over needs/RDI/trauma/etc.

I saw, and see, a client's response and healing as the final and best arbiter of whether something works. If a client isn't able to "do" the protocol, then something else should be considered, no matter what one (Schmidt, in this case) teaches or prefers to believe.

I do tend to think dnms may have really good qualities, if it is not adhered to as "law" and if it used by seasoned clinicians who incorporate other experiences and education into their use of it. As you say, follow the client's experience... can't go wrong that way. It's when the clinician begins to define the client's experience or impose an experience onto the client, that problems occur.

Being told the "resources" are the "best container" and "absolutely safe and trustworthy and consistent" doesn't mean anything if the client doesn't develop a felt sense of it. I never developed that sense. And, as I said before, standard protocol EMDR has been so much simpler and more healing for me. Bells and whistles are great if they ADD positively to something... but I would still rec'd clinicians trying standard protocol BEFORE a deviation, of any sort.

I am interested, of course, in whether you were referring to RDI, DNMS, or some variation/integration of the two.

Regards...

Replies:

Re:Standard EMDR vs , by Bill Peifer, 08/27/03 Re:needs meeting/RDI, by lia/wondering, 08/27/03

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