Appropriate affect/soma targeting

• somatisation by Michael Owen, 11/16/97
  • What part of the soma? by Don Nathanson, 11/16/97
    
    

It will be very interesting to see how, and to what extent, EMDR and affect theory complement each other through further clinical and research exploration.

In EMDR treatment, often the targeting of the pain itself leads the client to the earlier life conditions that set it in motion. Consequently, appropriate processing can release clients from psychogenic somatic symptoms.

Another way to arrive at the appropriate target is to ask clients what events were occurring at the time of the first somatic manifestation of the present complaint. Often dysfunctional experiences are revealed and targeted for reprocessing. If the somatic manifestation is simply the stored memory than the discomfort and somatic symptoms remit. Additionally, the dysfunctional affects and inherent negative self-beliefs are resolved. The coding of the affect/somatic continuum you have offered may be able to help to refine experiential work by assisting the clinician to predetermine the type of negative cognition associated with the physical symptoms. In the standard EMDR protocols, this constructed negative cognition can then lead to the appropriate target, and might be used to assist those clients that cannot easily recall those earlier experiences in need of processing.

For clinical applications, I have taught that the negative cognition is a verbalization of the stored dysfunctional affect and both are manifestations of the stored experience. Appropriate targeting and information processing causes a release of the physical and emotional suffering and allow learning to take place. I look forward to the ways in which affect theory may assist to refine EMDR practice. In turn, the rapid treatment effects revealed in the EMDR information processing sessions may help to refine and/or clinically examine some of the predictions of affect theory.

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