Overcoming addictive behaviours during the pandemic

Early research suggests that the pandemic has caused a surge in addictive behaviours. This workshop explores what addiction is, from substance use to everyday behaviours. Annabel will then show how EMDR can alleviate such compulsive behaviours by treating the urges, the highs, the buzz and the trauma underneath. She will draw on the pioneering work of EMDR luminaries such as Robert Miller and his Feeling State Protocol; Jim Knipe’s understanding of ego states, defences, urges and positive affect in addiction; Arnold Popkey’s DeTUR Protocol; Michael Hase’s CravEx protocol and the soon-to-be-published work of Jamie Marich (Marich, J., & Dansiger, S. (2021). Healing Addiction with EMDR Therapy: A trauma-focused guide.) Rather than simply going through each one in turn, Annabel will tease out the essence of these varied EMDR addiction protocols. Each protocol offers a different tool for therapists intervening in addiction. She will demonstrate that they can be used as an EMDR palette, each offering a different EMDR device, for each of the eight phases of EMDR (e.g DeTUR has helpful phase one preparation with the goal image) to help clients to overcome dangerous coping strategies during the pandemic. This could involve everything from escalating alcohol use; over-eating; compulsive pornography; online gaming; rage and destructive anger to compulsive use of mobile phones. Then there’s what people have been avoiding during the pandemic from avoiding family members to stepping out the door and resuming life after the lockdown lifts. If you get a moment before my talk do read this article I wrote about the lessons I've learnt using EMDR to treat addiction https://emdrfocus.com/2020/06/30/annabel-mcgoldrick-on-emdr-with-addictions/.

Conference

English

Anne McGoldrick

McGoldrick, A. (2021, October). Overcoming addictive behaviours during the pandemic. Presentation at the EMDRAA Conference, Virtual