Shame: The adaptive information processing model and introduction of the "protocol interweave" in EMDR with victims of torture, rape and organised violence

Description

Shame is often a key component of post-traumatic stress and one that can inhibit processing because the person concerned feels no compassion for the self that was shamed. Shame may lead to despising or hating that self so that allowing the self to grow, to recovered, feels almost impossible. Shame is experienced cognitively, emotionally, and somatically: in “brain, heart, and body.”

Shame may lead to blocked processing that does not respond to cognitive interweaves or other approaches such as changes in speed, modality and direction of bilateral stimulation, or “TICES’ strategies, changing aspects of images, cognitions or emotional and sensory interventions. Typically, Subjective Units of Distress scale scored stick at 4.

This paper will draw on clinical work with people who have experienced rape, torture and organized violence and explore ways of unlocking the inhibiting factors of shame, enabling the victim of personal violence to have compassion for themselves, and forgiveness. With compassion, a person can allow themself to recover, and processing the memories of the traumatic incident or incidents can move to adaptive resolution.

The paper will present case material using the adaptive information processing model as a helpful way of enabling clinets to normalize their mental, emotional and somatic reactions, to structure what often seems like a chaotic inner world and to address issues including shame.

This paper will propose a protocol for EMDR psychotherapy with people who have been victims of rape, torture, and organized violence and will introduce a “protocol interweave” for working with people for whom shame is a factor that impedes effective processing.

The “protocol interweave” focuses on the ‘self who has been shamed” and adapts the desensitization phase to enable the individual to process material associated with their thoughts, feelings, and sensations with regards to the self of whom they are ashamed and whom they may despise. The paper will also examine recent thinking about shame, compassion and forgiveness and reflect on similarities across psychotherapeutic modalities such as gestalt and cognitive behaviour therapy and the way in which EMDR is an integrative model that accommodates these.

The presentation will include PowerPoint and video clips of clinical consultations.

Format

Conference

Language

English

Author(s)

Philip W. Dodgson

Original Work Citation

Dodgson, P. W. (2007, June). Shame: The adaptive information processing model and introduction of the "protocol interweave" in EMDR with victims of torture, rape and organised violence. Presentation at the 8th EMDR Europe Association Conference, Paris, France

Citation

“Shame: The adaptive information processing model and introduction of the "protocol interweave" in EMDR with victims of torture, rape and organised violence,” Francine Shapiro Library, accessed April 29, 2024, https://francineshapirolibrary.omeka.net/items/show/19341.

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