EMDR for heterogeneous groups for personal growth in day workshop format

A full day workshop is designed for heterogeneous group for personal growth based on EMDR. Telephone interview is done for pre-assessment of readiness and explaining the philosophy and format. During the workshop, the calm place/state is developed, and expressed in drawings, writings, and optionally shared with the group. Butterfly taps are used for BLS throughout the workshop. The standard EMDR protocol is implemented. Participants are invited to choose a disturbing incident, emotion, thought pattern or body sensation to start working with. They are guided to find the negative cognition and corresponding positive positive cognition. Using enquiry and float back, the past events and anticipated future events that fit the cognitive/emotional/physical theme are listed. The assessment, desensitization, installation and body scan phases follow for the chosen first/worst event, with participants noting what is emerging, in drawings, writings or verbal sharings. In the closure phase, in addition to the standard steps, the participants are invited to share their experiences. Depending on available time, other targets are reprocessed. Towards the end of the day, possibilities for future course, including individual/group work are discussed. The format was tried for heterogeneous groups of size around 10. There were challenges in implementation. It was noted that the disturbances were reducing and adaptive beliefs strengthening, as expressed in SUD, VoC and drawings/writings, in most. Many participants wanted to continue with EMDR based group work in the future and some chose to continue exploration with EMDR based individual therapy.

Conference

English

Adithy

Adithy (2014, January). EMDR for heterogeneous groups for personal growth in day workshop format. In EMDR for enhancement and integration (Ann Parichavan, Chair). Presentation at the 2nd EMDR Asia International Conference, Manila, The Philippines