Strengthening affect tolerance and adult perspective through construction of imagined dissociative avoidance

Some clients, because of very difficult life experience, have low affect tolerance; that is, they are unable to endure, even briefly, their own intensely disturbing post-traumatic images and affect. For these clients, the therapeutic benefits of EMDR are blocked because of an automatic response of overwhelming terror or disorientation, often accompanied by a loss of objectivity or adult perspective. For these individuals, the experience is not so much one of remembering, but of emotionally reliving their trauma. Understandably, when this occurs, the client may being to “numb out,” dissociate, or consciously avoid thinking of the material.

Newsletter

English

Jim Knipe

Knipe, J. (1999, June). Strengthening affect tolerance and adult perspective through construction of imagined dissociative avoidance. EMDRIA Newsletter, 4(2), 10, 25