Psychoeducation in EMDR

Psychoeducation is the set of interventions intended to help the patient to be an actor of his psychic health, by being informed of his disorders and possible therapeutic actions, by developing self-care skills, and by knowing how to use resources in his relational and social environment. It is always present inEMDR in phase 2: even if it is brief, it allows to obtain the patient's consent and cooperation, and to give him a feeling of control and security. I will present some images that give quickly tothe patient the most useful explanations. It is especially for patients who have experienced complex traumas, with attachment traumas and dissociative disorders, that psychoeducation interventions have a high therapeutic value: they support their stabilization as well as their empowerment. We will first present the "why" of these interventions,from the understanding of the disorganized attachment and dissociative disorders: to help the mentalization, the validation and the normalization of the defenses, andt o support the co-conscience and the empathic acceptance between the different parts of the personality, allows to strengthen the emotional regulation capacities and provide the first steps towards integration; It frames the therapeutic relationship within the motivational system of cooperation, and avoids a strong activation of the attachment system that can trigger regressive movements and conflicts between parts of the personality (those who seek attachment,and those for whom attachment is dangerous).We will then specify the "how", presenting the tools that we have developed and improved thanks to the feedback from our colleagues who appreciate to use them: the "psychoeducation booklet", and how to use its images for different interventions to develop the therapeutic alliance with the entire system and increase the stability of patients; and the "resources notebook", customizable by patients, which supports their practice to strengthen their internal and external resourcesand develop their autonomy. Finally, beyond the desensitization and reprocessing of post-traumatic disorders, we will discuss the different issues of resilience and how to support them, and open up a systemic perspective: personal resilience requires a relational, social and environmental ecosystem that is itself resilient, and its different issues have a great coherence between the different levels.

Conference

English

Emmanuel Contamin

Contamin, E. (2018, June). Psychoeducation in EMDR. Poster presented at the 19th EMDR Europe Conference, Strasbourg, France