W. W. Norton & Company Attachment-Focused EMDR: Healing Relational Trauma

This is one of the best professional books I've read in years! Laurel Parnell describes her strategies and her thought processes so clearly that the reader feels "tutored" in her technique. I love her deep understanding of the inner processes of both client and therapist and her compassionate guide for healing. She shows us how to safely guide a client from the very beginning of therapy all the way through complete healing, carefully building and utilizing internal resources to replace the gaping deficits left by relationship trauma. Parnell gives her own suggestions for modifications to the standard EMDR protocols - validating the observations and experiences of all of us who have used EMDR with this population. This book will help any therapist who works with adults who have experienced emotional wounding in childhood (which is every therapist) and particularly those who are trained in EMDR. Sarah Chana Radcliffe, author "Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice," and "The Fear Fix."

Laurel Parnell brings heart and soul to EMDR and I eagerly awaited this her latest book which has at last arrived. It describes in wonderful detail how to work through the trauma of disrupted attachment so that we and clients can feel safe enough to heal the later traumas of our lives. She addresses so well the need to help clients feel safe enough to do the healing work which may involve just "tapping in" many resources or may progress to EMDR processing which can be safely adapted for the client with attachment wounds. An essential book for any therapist using EMDR given that 40% of us have experienced disrupted attachment.

Laurel Parnell, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and international EMDR trainer and consultant, just published Attachment Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) in late 2013. It brings together the culmination of her years of experience, evolved thinking and insights in doing, demonstrating and teaching EMDR and now AF-EMDR. Her book is an invaluable must for EMDR therapists who want to take their work to the next level. It is a clear, well organized, in depth, compassionate exposition of how to do AF-EMDR with clients who suffer early attachment wounds. She draws on Mary Main's, Ph.D. research on secure, ambivalent, avoidant and disorganized attachment styles. Dr. Parnell describes characteristic deficits in the sense of self and relationships of people who may fall into the latter three attachment styles and what they need in terms of AF-EMDR. She presents evidence that AF-EMDR changes the brain through laying down integrative and positive neural pathways. She inspires us with evidence that clients with traumatic childhoods can heal and develop what she calls "earned secure attachment" through the therapist's skillful empathic attunement to them and the neural network processing of AF-EMDR work. Dr. Parnell explains how to proceed doing AF-EMDR sessions utilizing the Modified EMDR Protocol. Each session begins with positive resource installation before identifying the client's disturbing image, emotions, body sensations and negative cognition. Then it proceeds to the desentization phase--processing (with bilateral stimulation) the activated trauma memory networks until reaching a SUDS of 0 or 1 (with body scanning to check that processing is complete). It follows to installation of the positive cognition that arises spontaneously with the evolved picture, and ends with closure and debriefing. She explains how the Modified (simplified) Protocol that she teaches allows the client to freely process memory networks and how the more complicated Standard Protocol disrupts processing. Dr. Parnell addresses the importance of assessing the client's capacity to process trauma and of installing positive protective resources before proceeding with processing. She explains how to identify the "target" and the technique of "bridging" that often takes the client from present to childhood trauma. She discusses how to bring attachment focus to the desensitazation phase of AF-EMDR and to navigate the client's processing of memory networks and when to return to "target". She elaborates on the use of "interweaves" to unblock processing and to faciliate integration of the adult with the child's perspective. She describes techniques to manage overwhelming abreactions, flooding and looping in the client's processing of traumatic memories and to maintain their sense of safety. She highlights the technique of guiding the client to develop a reparative "new mother or father" and filling in their developmental deficits with their imagined nurturing parent. Her book is filled with cases and examples of AF-EMDR sessions carried out by herself and EMDR therapists she has trained. The cases and sessions are poignantly illustrative of the specific techniques she teaches in each chapter. She advocates that doing AF-EMDR with clients who have early attachment wounds be done with consultation by a certified EMDR trainer.

Praticienne EMDR, j'ai trouvé ce livre très utile pour le traitement des cas complexes. La partie concernant les ressources m'a semblé tout particulièrement utile. Un très bon complément à la formation de base en EMDR. L'anglais utilisé est simple, le langage de l'auteur est clair, mais c'est tout de même en anglais... A quand la traduction?

Muy bueno. Lleno de ideas y variaciones sobre el protocolo estandar. Muy util para trabajar con personas con deficits de apego. Lectura fresca.