SHAPIRO SERIES PART 13

SHAPIRO SERIES #13

SLIDE #17
4. FOUR ASPECTS OF MEMORY
PRIMARY MANIFESTATIONS
- IMAGES
- COGNITIONS
- EMOTION
- SENSATION
IF NO IMAGE, ?THINK OF IT?
- AS WE ACCESS IT, ALL SENSE EXPERIENCES ARE RELEVANT AND INCORPORATED
POSITIVE OUTCOMES = ADAPTIVE ALIGNMENT
In following our protocol, how do I set it up? How do I get to the actual EMDR Standard Protocol? The primary manifestations of the Standard Protocol are the image, the cognition (the belief the person has), the emotion and it?s associated body sensation. Emotions are like the colors of the rainbow, not only the primary colors such as red, green, blue but also that whole spectrum of light. We don't have names for all of those colors just as we don?t have words for all of our feelings, - that's why we ask for body sensations. When we say, "I'm sad" it's my cognitive description of what I think I'm feeling but there's a lot going more going on under the cognitive description. When we ask, "Just go with that" we access all the sense experiences, sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings, emotions, body sensations and cognitions. If our client says, "I smell something" you don't say, "well ignore that and go back to the image? ? we allow our client to process in whatever modality comes up ? that?s allowing the channels of association to process uninhibited."

Positive outcomes are relevant to positive alignment: images, thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. Why do we use the positive cognition? We're lighting up the positive networks. Giving them a place, guidance ? directions in which to head, and lighting up the network so it makes it easier to link the positive network in with the traumatic memory network system.

Manifestations of memory: "just think of it." Let?s talk for a moment about ways of getting the negative and positive cognitions. In your manuals you've got the list of negative and positive cognitions. If your client is struggling for the appropriate cognitions, you can hand it to the client. It doesn't mean that one client is going to have them all. Looking through the list, however, helps your client become sensitized to the possibilities and hearing it solidifies the cognition.

SLIDE #18
5. FINGERS
- METAPHOR OF 5 FINGERS AND HAND ? CHANNELS AND NODE
- HAVE I ALLOWED THE ASSOCIATIVE PROCESS TO PROGRESS UNIMPEDED?
- HAVE I ALLOWED CHANNELS TO BE ACCESSED AND PROCESSED (W/O DISTORTION?)
- HAVE I CHECKED MY WORK? OUTSIDE REACH? PEOPLE TOUCHED
o WITHIN SESSION
o BETWEEN SESSIONS (IN VIVO, SOCIAL SYSTEMS)
o FOLLOWING SESSION
o TERMINATION
This is major. Remember the back of the hand and five fingers illustration depicting the node and channels of associated events. Important questions you need to ask yourself as you evaluate your client?s treatment progress. Have I allowed the processing to progress through their associated channels? Have I let the channels to be accessed and processed without distortion? Have I checked my work? Remember, our goal is to allow the client to process through their channels of associated events. If I have made interventions (cognitive interweaves) have I gone back and reprocessed them in an undistorted way (allowing the client to process through the channels without additional cognitive interweaves)? And the outside reach, meaning, "Am I getting feedback from my client as to how they are reacting when they go back into their world?" It?s not only appropriate to assess what is happening during session, but more importantly, how the client is reacting in between sessions. In other words, prior to termination, have you gone through all the major traumatic memories, have you evaluated how the client remembers them (SUD=0), have you evaluated how they are responding to present triggers, and how do they anticipate responding to similar to situations in the future. Once you have cleared out all the traumatic past memories and addressed the present triggers, you need to also be dealing with situations and relationships that are related and significant in the client?s life. What comes up for them? You don't want to let the client end treatment just because their past targets have been reprocessed. You want to do comprehensive therapy. Since they are committed to treatment and coming to your office, since they're there, give it your best shot! Remember, our goal in EMDR is to have our clients to come out of treatment as fully self-actualized as possible.


SLIDE #19
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND REALITY
We have certain things that we bring to the party that are going to cause us to see certain things. Are our perceptions and realities helpful or interfering to our client?s processing their material in an uninhibited manner.

An issue to recognize is how our own issues/anxieties may impact our perception of how our client is doing and the treatment choices we make. At times, if we are not careful, our interventions may be driven by our own perceptions of treatment and our own comfort levels. Are you comfortable with a client experiencing an abreaction or does it trigger an anxiety of your own. You start them processing a target and then, as they're going through it, you become anxious or afraid of their affect. Instead of letting them process through their abreaction, you introduce a resource, a coping skill or safe place (not requested by the client) and you direct them to focus on a sense of "yes, life is good and I'm feeling great.? You take them out of their processing, alter their ?State?, but inhibit their achieving ?Trait? change because of your own discomfort. If you look a little closer, do you see what's going on here?" While there is real intimacy involved here, you haven?t let them go where they needed to go. If they needed to go was to go through a fear of death, you didn't let them get there. You were being nice. You wanted them to feel better. You thought you had the answer and you put a band-aid across some channels that they never got to. Some would call this counter-transference. Let them go where they need to go. Allow the clients their own associations to progress unimpeded. Remember, you have told them about the stop signal. If they choose not to use it, aren?t you obligated to support then through their issues regardless of how discomforting it is for you?

END OF SHAPIRO SERIES #13

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