Weekend Workshop Reading List
Pre-Weekend Reading (about 3.5 hours)
Farnsworth’s Case Study – (49 minutes) is not only a powerful tribute to the appropriate use of Ego State Therapy with EMDR therapy but it reviews some of what I will be covering on Saturday morning.
2013 JEMDR article by Onno van der Hart, et al – (41 minutes) The second [in a series of three] articles addresses the Structural Dissociation approach to Phase 1 of Trauma treatment – Stabilization. The article clearly explains the parallels and differences in approach to Phase 1 work as taught in EMDR. **For a more detailed explanation of Structural Dissociation, please reference the 2010 van der Hart et al article**
Fraser Article on the Dissociative Table Technique – (48 minutes) The weekend practicum, and the centerpiece of your learning for the weekend, is the Dissociative Table Technique, which I also refer to as the Meeting Place. George Fraser, a Canadian psychiatrist, developed it over many years. The 2003 revision of his earlier article explains the principles and the technique very well.
Meeting Place Practicum Script – (10 minutes) Please be sure to print this for the practicum on Saturday and Sunday. This is the scripted protocol we will be utilizing during the weekend practicums. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO REVIEW THIS SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE THE WEEKEND IN ORDER TO IMPROVE YOUR EXPERIENCE DURING PRACTICUMS.
Ana and Ava Transcripts – (51 minutes) These transcripts are moving examples of using parts work to resolve deeply held beliefs that have blocked living a full life.
Saturday Night Reading (about 1.5 hours)
Techniques and Skills: Please print the following and have them easily accessible for use in Sunday practicum. These are materials you will be trained in during the Weekend Webinar. Hence reading them in advance will facilitate your grasp of these concepts and techniques. While you may read them in advance, you will want to review them on Saturday night in preparation for the second practicum experience.
Loving Eyes Chapter by Jim Knipe – (8 minutes) If I could only use or teach one technique, this would be it! Being able to tolerate and then look with compassionate or loving eyes at cut off parts of ourselves is an essential part of healing.
Loving Eyes Script – A one-page summary script to use with clients.
CIPOS – (7 minutes) Jim Knipe’s Constantly Installation of Present Orientation and Safety is another essential tool of working with complexly traumatized clients.
Picture-in-Picture – (4 minutes) Developed by Joanne Twombly, it is a parallel technique that I describe here.
Tip of the Finger Strategy – (12 pages) A critically important technique from Gonzalez & Mosquera, Structural Dissociationtherapists. (Richard Kluft used a leaky faucet analogy back in the 1980s.) It has the powerful effect of quickly calming the client as a whole because an emotional part of the personality has chosen to let go of just a few drops of their overwhelming pain/fear/etc.
EMD – (4 minutes) Eye Movement Desensitization is the original treatment that Dr. Shapiro developed in the1988, before she appreciated the powerful Reevaluation process that consistently happened. The EMDR Institute started teaching it again with troops during the Iraq war, and then again in 2015 or 2016. It is now routinely taught for situations where an extremely narrow focus of attention is needed during processing.
EMD^ and EMDr – (4 minutes) Roy Kiessling’s (2013) comparison chart of differences between and when to use EMD^, EMDr, and EMDR.
Container Exercise – (4 minutes) A Container exercise can be very useful with many clients. With my experienced clients who now (just) have Complex PTSD, we use it at the beginning of every session to put away what doesn’t need to be addressed today (a work conflict, a traffic jam), and, of course, at the end of Meeting Place sessions. At the end, each part present and the adult put away any disturbance that remains so that the week will be quieter. Clients are reminded to use this and other stabilization techniques at home on a regular basis. Clients with complex trauma and dissociative processes often need multiple containers for different parts of the personality.
With severe dissociation, especially DID, clients often find little ability to do imaginal stabilization techniques. AND we have learned that the most powerful way to stabilize these clients is by increasing internal communication.
The Over-Energy Correction – (4 minutes) (May be referenced) This is a very powerful self-calming technique from EnergyPsychology. My clients utilize it at home and/or during sessions. Just using the tongue movements, without the hands, anytime the client is stressed and not talking or eating, can really make a difference.
After you have printed and read the above materials, please read these two transcripts for a demonstration of selected techniques:
“Olivia” Transcript – (22 minutes) A wonderful transcript with a client at the end of our work together. I have annotated here the specific techniques I’ve used that I will be teaching you in the weekend workshop.
“Tamar” Transcript – (10 minutes) Another transcript that I have annotated to explain a number of specific techniques I’ll be teaching.
Supplemental Materials: Transcripts & Additional Tools
These supplemental materials include additional scripts and examples of the work. You are not expected to read these in advance, but you will find these materials valuable to review as you integrate your learning after the training weekend.
Meeting Place Office Script – (9 minutes) This is the scripted protocol you can utilize when working with your clients.
Meeting Place Summary for Office Use – An abbreviated version of the script to use once you have gained familiarity with the Office Script, with reminders of when to use skills.
Jane Laskey Presentation – (29 minutes) My colleague, Jane Laskey, presented her wonderfully rich and creative uses of the Conference Room/Meeting Place at a Western Mass EMDRIA Network Annual Meeting in 2013. It really “covers the bases” and I encourage you to read it now and study it later. She concludes with her work with a client rooted in the Conference Room Technique.
Ann Transcripts – (22 minutes) These are powerful examples of the first two Meeting Place (Conference Room) sessions with a female client I called “Ann.” Reading them may help you feel more comfortable using this technique.
“Alexandra’s” Journey – (32 minutes) The story of the first 3.5 years of treatment with me is an extraordinary description of her painful struggle to heal. She wrote it in 2017 and then added two annual updates. I will often reference her story as it captures the profound complexities of this work.
She experienced terrible abuse, beginning in infancy, and her story is both compelling and disturbing. I encourage you to read it with your therapist “lens” on, to lessen its impact. Or you may choose not to read it at all. Taking care of yourself always comes first. You may have heard client stories just as disturbing but may not have understood the powerful impact of perpetrator introjects in your clients’ lives. All of her struggles, and our work, have revolved around the power of her “Morbid Introjects.” While she has gained primary control over her perpetrator introjects as we completed seven years of therapy in the fall of 2021, we have finally been able to get them to “stand down” and relinquish any claim to dominance..
Sarah’s Morbid Parts Stand Down, 2021 (19 minutes)
As we enter our 8th year of work, Sarah is finally able to get her Perpetrator Introjects/ Imitator Parts to stand down and no longer attempt to control her behavior and world view. Sarah is “Alexandra’s” actual name.
Shannon Strader Transcript: Working with a Perpetrator Introject (12 minutes)
This is a session note of Shannon’s work with a client who was ritually abused and had DID at the time of the session. It is very helpfully annotated by Shannon. Please know that it may be traumatizing to read, although details have been omitted. I encourage you to put on your therapist persona before reading it. And you may know it just wouldn’t be a good idea to read it. Then please don’t!
Working with children: Meeting Place Setup with Children (6 minutes)
Cheryl Case, who has integrated EMDR therapy and Meeting Place into her work with children for many years, describes that process.
Emotion Circuits Explained (6 minutes)
Cheryl Case describes the science of the six hard-wired affect circuits in the limbic system and the impact on children when their development is stunted or magnified.
Supplemental Materials: Theory Articles
This list includes highly relevant and useful articles on the treatment of Complex Trauma and Dissociative Disorders. I hope you will find them useful this year and in the years to come. I do not expect participants to read any of them before we meet. But I’m sure they will be resources in your work. Enjoy!
Joanne Twombly Article –(34 pages) she provides a wealth of specific suggestions and techniques drawn from her decades of experience working with dissociative clients.
2010 JEMDR article by Onno van der Hart, et al –(55 minutes) Onno is a leading theoretician and practitioner of Structural Dissociation. He is the lead author of 3 articles in our Journal of EMDR Practice and Research which are included here. The 2010 article is a theoretical overview.
2014 JEMDR article by Onno van der Hart, et al – (51 minutes) The third article addresses Phase 2 Trauma Work – Resolution of Trauma, and Phase 3 Trauma Work, (Re) integration into Life. Gonzalez and Mosquera introduce several techniques, including Tip of the Finger Strategy, which I will be teaching and demonstrating.
Steele, Perpetrator Imitator Parts— This brilliant chapter presents how to understand perpetrator imitator (introject) parts’ protective intentions (despite their violence). Making them allies of the therapeutic process first is very challenging and absolutely essential. Steele explores the main ways to take this critical step.
Catherine Fine, Tactical Integration Approach – Fine’s Tactical Integration approach to working with dissociation is widely used and has often been integrated into other’s work, including Sandra Paulsen’s. Following the chapter, you will find my summary of the key point’s in her article.
Richard Loewenstein, Mental Status Exam – Richard was the Director of the Dissociative Disorders Program at Sheppard Pratt for many years and wrote this famous article in 1991 on the Mental Status Exam. He provides the essential questions he used to explore 31 different aspects of dissociation and psychoses during his intake exams.
My Summary of Loewenstein’s questions— (24 minutes) My Summary lists all of Loewenstein’s questions without explanations. It can be a shorthand way to apply his article with a client, once you have read and understand his article.
Richard Loewenstein, DID 101 – An introduction for his medical interns. Very clear and helpful. I have never thought about sharing it with a client. Perhaps it would be appropriate.
Joanne Twombly, Perpetrator Introjects – Another useful perspective on working with these critically important, self-harming parts.
Richard Chefetz, Transference and Countertransference in Dissociative Disorders – He brilliantly addresses this persistent issue.
Richard Chefetz, Fear and Depersonalization – A brilliant, analytic understanding of this profoundly confounding process or state of being.