Healing the Heart of Trauma and Dissociation with EMDR and Ego State Therapy

This book blends the insights and interventions of Ego State theory and therapy with standard EMDR protocol to model an integrated approach that can safely promise EMDR treatment to people who would not otherwise be candidates for it. The work features the introduction of a phased treatment trauma model that includes the following vital elements: Dissociation and Affect Management skills training, stabilizing interventions, and ego state therapy combined in the EMDR preparation phase that will enable many complex trauma clients to profit from EMDR trauma processing. The clinical findings presented here cover an impressive range of theory - including the neurobiology of dissociation and the introduction of hypnosis, family systems therapy, and cognitive schemas - and diagnostic categories (the spectrum of dissociative identity disorders) and client populations (terror survivors). The result is a tent big enough for readers from all practice models. Contributors hail from all over the psychotherapeutic map and their case studies ground theory in practical application, actually illustrating the phased treatment techniques involved in preparing clients with Ego State therapy and related modalities for EMDR. Of the nearly one thousand titles on the practice of EMDR, this book is the first to explain and explore its integration with Ego State therapy for the benefit of clinicians treating clients whose histories and disorders inhibit their capacity to resolve complex trauma and dissociative disorders. The diversity of contributors offers a rich range of perspectives on a global clinical phenomenon.