[quote]The Importance Of Dual Focus
Another key principle to keep in mind while practicing self-administered EMDR is the need to maintain a dual focus of attention.
This means simultaneously directing your attention towards both the bilateral stimulation and an internal state of discomfort.
There must be a combined focus on both the external bilateral stimulation and an internal state of physiological activation for EMDR to be successful.
Focusing on one without the other will not be therapeutic.
Just paying attention to bilateral stimulation without holding a disturbing memory in mind will not impact the trauma.
More importantly, simply concentrating on a distressing memory or state without attempting to remedy the situation can retraumatize the individual, making the situation worse. Instead, it is crucial to maintain a dual state of focus in order to effectively process and remove the trauma.
The dual state of focus distracts the mind which allows the brain to let go of the trauma.
The negatively charged emotion attached to the memory diminishes and is neutralized.
The once powerful memory becomes an event that happened in the past.
It is also important to point out that simply watching an EMDR video will not be helpful unless the person activates a disturbing memory on the physiological level during the treatment.
The individual must be experiencing anxiety or a fight/flight response in the current moment while working with bilateral stimulation.
https://emdrhealing.com/how-to-self-administer-emdr-therapy
How To Self Administer EMDR Therapy From Home
by Mary-Beth Zolik, M.Ed LMHC | Jul 18, 2022 | EMDR, Letting Go, Trauma
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wB6yWuUq7zbdzajTRawj3mnSWknIMdYG/view?usp=sharing
https://www.transformationstreatment.center
https://youtu.be/xUufXf_cTec?si=6fQ6xijP-4S2Q2S1
https://www.ptsd.va.gov/
https://youtu.be/tLrmZXheY5c?si=zk3gFJapRr-rsceO
Nature's EMDR OCEAN WAVES:
https://youtu.be/szaatxUHFuw?si=03wXcDH6ZVyyg7PV
https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy
https://youtu.be/Pkfln-ZtWeY?si=VzgnGIhFvI-wpvJT
Francine Shapiro Ph.D. EMDR Webinar "The Past is Present":
https://youtu.be/lsQbzfW9txc?si=hMSE8u0zcZVCJV_n
EMDR explained Part 1:
https://youtu.be/cMtrwFIRaTA?si=EPSL0u1bgngXldto
EMDR explained Part 2:
https://youtu.be/F2BaiQZtM4M?si=i-bZfULcLY4fKPI8
Nature's EMDR:
https://youtu.be/FkuqlRkMk_s?si=v3NgoXAxh5RTo4FU
EMDR: Self Administered Clinical Version:
https://youtu.be/u5D03LP7SKA?si=kMECma1IE61itWjQ
EMDR: Self Administered Clinical Version (Blue Point):
https://youtu.be/xfHCTG2l01Y?si=vvN3QWn5CkadXw-D
Self-Administered EMDR (Is it A Good Idea For You?):
https://youtu.be/eEVXhPKGLf0?si=xzH5Uhsc4vOiI-di
[quote]Can you do EMDR on yourself or do you need a therapist? Barbara Heffernan discusses this issue in a comprehensive way, outlining some pros and cons, and three critical things to assess prior to moving forward with EMDR with or without a therapist. This video does not treat the issue in a simplistic, cut and dry manner, but instead provides guidance on when it can be helpful, and what things a therapist can do that probably can't be replicated. Barbara also discusses the website Virtual EMDR, which provides guidance to those who are doing EMDR on their own. Self-administered EMDR can be helpful and many people find self EMDR to be a wonderful compliment to therapy or a wonderful tool on its own.[/quote]
One hour and 12 minutes to One hour and 43 minutes:
https://youtu.be/Ode6KlsjWtE?si=16wMq1nRpxfZZO8w
EMDR is detailed as a means to induce ADC...
'...so I have a quick question for you
1:12:04
at the beginning you talked about um when you're doing grief counseling
1:12:09
facilitating after death communication with people who are grieving
1:12:14
um and so I'm very interested in that and just what exactly does that involve yeah I completely forgot to talk about
1:12:21
that and it's a big deal um so um let me put my hearing aids back in my
1:12:26
phone was ringing and it rings in my my hearing aids so I just had to take them out
1:12:32
um so shortly before I retired about three
1:12:39
years before I retired I did a study of induced after death communication so
1:12:46
um I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a little bit kind of long um discussion about this
1:12:53
um this phenomenon was discovered by a psychologist named Al botkin who was working in Chicago at the VA with uh
1:13:03
combat veterans who had PTSD and he was using EMDR which is uh stands
1:13:11
for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and this is a counseling technique that was discovered by
1:13:18
um a gal named Shapiro uh that involves especially for processing traumatic
1:13:26
memories yeah there's uh the therapist moves their fingers in front of the
1:13:31
client's eyes and the client watches and then closes their eyes as they're thinking about the traumatic memory and
1:13:39
in the process of doing this visiting the memory um with this thing going on uh the
1:13:46
person processes the memory differently and it loses its traumatic impact
1:13:54
and since then uh she and others have discovered that this with eyes is just
1:14:01
one form of what's called bilateral stimulation so it can be uh two sounds
1:14:08
uh you know right left right left right left it could be tapping on two sides of
1:14:13
the body but bilateral both sides and the stimulation is this rhythmic back
1:14:21
and forth thing and what it seems to do in in a way I mean this is all this is
1:14:26
speculation about why it works is that it seems to kind of Center a person and
1:14:33
um whereas we tend to be left brain dominant in our culture this seems to
1:14:40
kind of Center the person and like bring both sides of the brain into equal play
1:14:45
that enables them to process the memory in a different way that actually then
1:14:51
changes and they no longer get the terrifying dreams at night and
1:14:57
um and other kinds of um you know really Troublesome things that uh that happen hang on a second
1:15:08
um so uh one day he's working with a a veteran a
1:15:15
man and uh the this uh the the VA uh
1:15:21
program there was residential so people came and stayed there for sometimes
1:15:27
weeks at a time and he would see a patient every day so he sees this man
1:15:32
who's been there a little less than a week and um they've been doing EMDR
1:15:39
um uh for five or six days and uh this time
1:15:46
um Al does this and uh oh oh I know what happened they finished really processing
1:15:53
the traumatic memory that that the soldier had brought up and there was still about like 10 minutes left in this
1:15:59
session and so Al said well why don't we just throw in another set of eye movements and see what happens and you
1:16:06
know maybe something helpful will happen so he does this the guy closes his eyes and he bursts into tears and nails like
1:16:12
oh my gosh what's going on here and the gals the guy is weeping and weeping and
1:16:18
then after about three minutes he breaks out into this huge smile and he's like
1:16:25
beaming and then he opens his eyes and Al says what you always say when they open their
1:16:31
eyes like what's happening and the guy said I saw
1:16:36
her and Al says who and he and the um the vet says
1:16:44
um Lee l-l-i and Al's thinking Lee Lee like
1:16:50
who who is this and then he vaguely remembers that when he did the intake for this patient the patient reported
1:16:57
that at one point in his Tour of Duty in Vietnam his uh troop had been stationed
1:17:04
out in the jungle where they lived essentially and they did their missions from from their camp and orphans would
1:17:13
find their way to the camp because the soldiers would give them food and chocolate and all this stuff well this
1:17:20
guy at that time had a daughter at home who was 11 and one of the orphans there
1:17:26
was an 11 year old girl and he became really they had like this fatherly
1:17:31
attachment to her and her name was Lee and so
1:17:37
um they probably had been two three weeks you know where he saw her every day and gave her food and you know got
1:17:44
to know her and stuff like that and then one day the truck came from the large
1:17:49
city nearby uh that had an orphanage they'd heard about these orphans and they were coming to collect them and
1:17:55
bring them back to the orphanage so the soldiers are loading all the kids onto
1:18:01
the truck and um and they're bidding a tear if he's bidding a tearful goodbye to Lee
1:18:06
mutually tearful and he's telling her you know I'm gonna find you and adopt
1:18:12
you and bring you back to the US which he didn't even know that soldiers weren't allowed to do that but anyway
1:18:18
um suddenly shots ring out and there's a sniper a Vietcong sniper so they
1:18:24
scramble the kids off the truck and everybody lie face down and you know in
1:18:29
and a few soldiers go off and after a few minutes of where there's been more gunfire and stuff they they finally hear
1:18:36
a lot of gunfire and then silence and then they get the all clear that the sniper has been killed
1:18:43
so then they get gather the children up start getting them and back in the bus and he's looking around like he can't
1:18:49
find Lee and he goes around near the front of the truck and there she's lying on the ground and she's she's dead she's
1:18:55
been shot and killed by that sniper and he said it was more a more painful loss
1:19:02
than even the time that they were walking through the jungle and his buddy got blown up you know by a a hidden
1:19:11
um device yeah and so um so Al's like uh okay Lee and and uh
1:19:21
and the guy said yeah she was there and he said she's grown up and and he said
1:19:27
she's in she's in her early 30s now which she would be chronologically and
1:19:32
um and he's saying uh she she thanked me
1:19:38
for what I did for her and then at the end she came and hugged me and I just I
1:19:44
felt her arms around me and it was just the most beautiful thing
1:19:49
and um so L is like okay because L is just
1:19:55
like you know very traditionally trained ADC is not a word in his vocabulary and
1:20:02
so he just makes sure the guy is like okay and leaves the session because Al's
1:20:08
got his next patient coming well what happened was when the when this patient
1:20:14
came back he had no more traumatic memories and in a matter of three days he was so consistently fine that they
1:20:22
just discharged him and they had expected him to stay you know for a few weeks and that really struck out so long
1:20:29
story short Al uh refined this technique of
1:20:35
facilitating after death Communication in counseling sessions so the way that
1:20:41
that it works now in a nutshell is that um when a client comes in uh I first
1:20:48
find out just you know about their who their disembodied loved one is their relationship with them what this person
1:20:55
meant to them and all that kind of stuff the history stuff and then um then we do then the next phase there
1:21:03
are like three phases or four phases to this the next phase is that uh I asked
1:21:09
the client what is the most painful aspect of your grief
1:21:14
and once we identify what that most painful aspect is
1:21:20
we do EMDR or or um bilateral stimulation processing it
1:21:28
isn't exactly the same as EMDR it's close but not a couple couple differences but not not important for
1:21:34
our purposes here and the person processes and they'll they'll say like you start out saying
1:21:41
you know and and on a scale from one to ten how bad is that worst aspect and
1:21:46
people usually say eight nine or ten you know it's really up there bad and then we do this processing that can
1:21:54
take um you know 20 minutes 30 minutes whatever and
1:22:00
um and at the end of which we say to the person
1:22:05
um and how painful is that worst aspect now and they'll say
1:22:12
it's not a problem or it's like still like a one or a two or maybe even a
1:22:18
three but that's it they they've come way down on how distressed they are about that at that point we do another
1:22:25
set of eye movements or bilateral stimulation now actually we tap the backs of hands and um
1:22:33
and about half of patients have a spontaneous after death communication
1:22:38
with their disembodied loved one and it can take any of those forms you know
1:22:43
that you saw that might be that that absolute sense of presence or they might see them in their Mind's Eye they might
1:22:50
hear them um have conversations with them and things like that
1:22:55
um and for the people who don't have an ADC spontaneously we then ask
1:23:03
um if you could say one thing to your disembodied loved one what's the the single most important thing you would
1:23:09
want to say to them and once we figure out what that is then we do bilateral stimulation and uh another 25 of people
1:23:18
have an ADC with that now um I the study that I did we took grieving
1:23:28
people and of course we told them all about what the study was about but what I'm
1:23:33
going to tell you but here's this is what happened um when they came in we randomly assigned them either to
1:23:41
um traditional grief therapy which is mostly talk therapy doing things like
1:23:46
writing a letter to the disembodied and having doing some kind of rituals and things like that and figuring out how
1:23:53
you're going to manage without them and stuff like that and the other half we assigned to
1:23:59
iadc-induced after death communication what I just described to you and uh
1:24:04
everybody got two sessions so the the way it worked is uh once we got them scheduled they came in and uh completed
1:24:13
a a set of questionnaires about their grief and then they immediately went into a 90-minute session either
1:24:21
traditional talk grief therapy or iadc then exactly a week later they came back
1:24:28
exactly the same time went into their second 90-minute session and then
1:24:34
um came right out of that went and completed the questionnaires about grief
1:24:40
so you're looking at grief um a comparison of grief symptoms one
1:24:45
week apart with these two 90-minute sessions and a week of time in between and what we found in a nutshell was that
1:24:52
the IDC people had a statistically significantly greater reduction in their
1:24:59
grief symptoms and the uh that's what's called statistical significance and for anybody
1:25:06
who knows anything about statistics there's also practical significance like clinically how meaningful is this and it
1:25:14
was what has been termed a huge practical significance a huge clinical
1:25:20
effect so um so it we we had been having reports from
1:25:28
people from therapists who'd been trained in iadc doing this and seeing these remarkable shifts in their clients
1:25:36
and um and so this is the first time that it's really been documented subjectively
1:25:43
so um so we just know that it it that it works it it does something and
1:25:49
interestingly the people who did the traditional talk therapy for grief
1:25:54
um were made virtually no improvement and some actually got worse whereas the
1:26:01
iadc people all got better and and most substantially better so
1:26:08
um now maybe traditional therapy over time is going to be more effective but like why do that if you've got something
1:26:15
that's going to help somebody right away in with less time less money you know
1:26:21
and and so effective why not do that for people so
1:26:27
in the iadc group um you bilateral stimulation and half
1:26:35
the people had an after death communication uh I I I would I would say
1:26:41
that in I I actually haven't interestingly enough I haven't looked at exactly how many people reported that
1:26:48
they had ADC but my sense is because I watched all the sessions uh that
1:26:55
probably about 60 percent did and uh and then we had a couple of people who had
1:27:01
spontaneous ADC the following week and came back at the session and said I
1:27:06
didn't have it during the session but it during the week you know blah blah blah this happened so um yeah what was what
1:27:14
were the adcs how would you characterize the adcs presumably all types well
1:27:20
except more they tended to be more in the Mind's Eye because the purse person had their eyes closed you know we tapped
1:27:26
the backs of their hands and then they closed their eyes and and stay in that's
1:27:31
that um posture you know for 30 to 60 seconds
1:27:37
or sometimes more if a lot of stuff is happening um so it was in their Mind's Eye that
1:27:43
they would see their disembodied loved one they would feel the um the distinct
1:27:49
presence of them or they sometimes would get a communication from them with no
1:27:54
sensory anything um and that that didn't seem auditory it
1:27:59
was like there was mind-to-mind communication without any other indication of the presence of the of the
1:28:06
person as to because it seemed to be two things going on in the iadc and that is
1:28:11
you've got the bilateral stimulation and then you've got the additional off to death communication from a loved one who
1:28:18
might walk in I'm just wondering right and we don't we don't know we haven't said we could not separate well maybe we
1:28:26
could to some degree but um but that's a that's another study to separate the
1:28:32
effects of of the two phases the ADC because in the bilateral by itself will
1:28:39
do a lot of good but if in addition the person gets an ADC it's going to be exactly exactly right and my
1:28:46
understanding is that there's a study going on in Europe right now where they're comparing uh EMDR
1:28:54
grief therapy with iadc so they're doing the E
1:29:01
yeah the EMDR alone and comparing to see how effective they are but I can just
1:29:08
tell you uh my impression is that
1:29:13
um the first the the second phase where you deal with that most painful aspect of the grief is helpful
1:29:20
that ADC is qualitatively more helpful
1:29:27
yeah because it's that experience of ongoing connection with the loved one
1:29:34
that is that brings so much relief yeah so that's my impression how do you
1:29:42
deal with a person who's bereaved and suffering greatly if they're really not sympathetic to the idea of an afterlife
1:29:48
to begin with actually what uh Al has found and what I
1:29:54
know from our study as well is that uh you can you can believe whatever you want but when you get into the session
1:30:01
you're just as likely to have in fact Al believes that um that uh his patients have been more
1:30:09
more likely to experience ADC if they if they were a little skeptical and the
1:30:15
reason is that if I believe and I really want this the grasping the reaching the
1:30:23
the um it puts me off balance and whereas if I'm skeptical I'm like centered and like
1:30:30
okay you know like if it's there you know like bring it on but we'll see and
1:30:37
that that centeredness seems to be more facilitative of of having ADC so that's
1:30:45
what we found is that um uh almost always when somebody doesn't have an ADC it's because they
1:30:53
have some emotional intensity that still is unresolved around the around the loss
1:31:00
and that emotional intensity gets in the way we have a question from someone could
1:31:05
you please give contact information for scheduling and iadc for people yeah
1:31:11
um actually if you go to the website uh induced
1:31:19
induced after death communication uh and and put even if you put in iadc and Al's
1:31:26
last name botkin b-o-t-k-i-n that'll take you to the iadc
1:31:32
website and there they have listed um therapists who've been trained in
1:31:39
iadc this is Al Botkins yes well it's
1:31:45
the it's I I hesitate to say that it's his anymore because he's actually
1:31:50
retired but it is the iadc website um there's a
1:31:56
um an ongoing organization a small organization yeah okay so for people who would like
1:32:04
to have uh more uh or some after death communication with their loved ones
1:32:11
um is there a practice that you would recommend that's safe because mine is
1:32:17
you know you don't just invite anybody anything in you have to be very careful yeah so it's always a good idea in
1:32:25
transpersonal processes in general to um take protective action so uh like say
1:32:33
a protective prayer you know uh even just
1:32:40
State the affirmation that I invite only benevolent spirit
1:32:47
and uh and that all others are not welcome but some people actually like to invoke
1:32:55
protection from Jesus or you know any any way that that helps you to feel to
1:33:03
feel protected and then um my my only recommendation is to invite
1:33:12
net demand um not uh if you're feeling desperate
1:33:19
that's going to get in the way so it's important to get try to get into
1:33:26
a centered place of of um emotional Equanimity you know peace
1:33:33
calm that sort of thing and invite the disembodied to be present
1:33:42
and then uh and this is in some ways the trickiest part be open to how they
1:33:50
uh how they communicate because um some
1:33:55
some communication seems to be easiest through Electronics like flashing lights
1:34:01
uh some through auditory some through symbolic like finding
1:34:09
um pennies or being being followed by a little flock of butterflies right after
1:34:15
you've asked for you know something to be shown um and uh just being open to that the
1:34:24
person the person may communicate in ways that the disembodied uh in ways
1:34:30
that may or may not seem characteristic of who they were before they passed so
1:34:36
it's just about being ready to receive the communication however however it can come and then
1:34:45
um uh trying to keep a check on doubt
1:34:54
um receive the message say you know if this was a message from you I I got it
1:35:02
um it might help me to get something else if you can if you can do that you
1:35:08
know that that kind of thing for you and and not wishful thinking pardon me I be
1:35:14
sure it's from the loved one and not my own wishful thinking yes and you know
1:35:19
um people sometimes wonder if it is and and yet usually the sense of the
1:35:26
experience is so real that it's not it's not an imagination or a fantasy you know
1:35:33
that that I made up sort of thing and you know I could I could give you examples from my own experiences
1:35:42
um that that point to that um but but a lot of adcers I mean they
1:35:48
by and large 80 Sears have no doubt what
1:35:53
they experienced um it's only when we have an uh a
1:35:58
culture that's unfriendly to adc's when people have uh just don't know about the
1:36:04
phenomenon they don't have a context for it that uh they have trouble accepting
1:36:10
what felt absolutely real but how could that possibly be sort of thing
1:36:16
and um are the people with the um ADC is do they always know who the loved one is
1:36:23
who's communicating that's a great question um
1:36:33
I think I think sort of by definition they would have to that that
1:36:39
um well no no that's not true um although I don't know if they would
1:36:45
have known because there there have been cases for example where
1:36:50
someone uh like a child uh
1:36:56
talks a childhood a near-death experience and was met by this really kind older man who held his hand the
1:37:05
whole time and and reassured him and was so nice and helpful and and the child
1:37:11
like drowned in a swimming pool then they resuscitate him and the kids back and
1:37:16
um and the and the child this is actually an actual case where the child then a couple weeks later is eating
1:37:23
lunch and he says to his mom you know when I when my body was in the pool I wasn't there I was walking down a path
1:37:30
with a really nice older man and he was so nice he just kept saying that I was
1:37:36
okay and and pretty soon I'd be able to go back and be with you again and
1:37:41
um and he was just really really nice and and the mother's like okay you know
1:37:48
um finish your you know sandwich and um so then uh a couple of months later
1:37:55
they're visiting her sister who is the sort of family archivist and has all the
1:38:00
photos of the old photos and stuff like that and the um the little boy happens to come in to
1:38:07
ask permission to go do something and they're on a particular page and he glances down and he said mommy there's
1:38:14
the man that was with me when I my body was in the pool and it was her father his grandfather who had died before he
1:38:22
was born and he'd never seen a picture of this man he was only four years old he'd never seen a picture of him before
1:38:28
and yet he recognized that that was his grandfather so yeah I guess sometimes
1:38:34
people don't know the identity uh that that this is actually a relative of mine
1:38:41
but I think that's very much the um the minority of cases well the reason I
1:38:49
asked the question is because sometimes people will have a sense of don't walk into that space stop the car turn right
1:38:57
um but sometimes it's the higher self that's actually talking to us not necessarily A Love so I'm wondering
1:39:04
well I don't I don't think there's a way to determine in that case it it might be their higher self it might be a loved
1:39:10
one who's uh communicating in a way that they're that their identity isn't you
1:39:17
know conveyed um hard to know we have a question from Monica here and
1:39:25
she's wondering how she can how she would go about getting credentialed ah
1:39:31
yeah uh also at the iadc website there's information about training and
1:39:39
um and I uh I know one person here in Texas he
1:39:45
lives near real close to me um his name is Graham Maxi and uh and
1:39:52
he's uh in Arlington Texas and he just did a a training session a couple of
1:40:00
weekends ago because one of my students attended it and the training tends to be
1:40:06
an intensive weekend and he does it online so you can be virtual and uh yeah
1:40:13
so and it um I'm trying to I I shouldn't say I when I went through it it cost
1:40:20
eight hundred dollars but that was you know several years ago uh I don't
1:40:26
know I don't know what he's charging now but it's the kind of thing that like once you've well I will say once you've
1:40:33
gone through the training I think it's really smart to meet with some of the other counselors and practice on each
1:40:40
other um before you let yourself loose on your clients that's what that's what I did
1:40:46
when I first learned iadc I brought three of my students with me and then we met here in my this is my home office
1:40:52
behind me and um and in fact I'll if we have time I'll tell you a story about
1:40:58
one of the episodes from that uh time when we were practicing on each other that's very interesting so please hold
1:41:05
on to that thought and let's come back to it um the uh the additional part of the question was are there what are the
1:41:12
requirements but I'm assuming that um she could get that information from going to India yes but but I can tell
1:41:21
you that you need to be a licensed mental health professional or uh an ELP
1:41:27
at the at the least an intern at the intern level of
1:41:32
um preparation where you're being supervised by a licensed person and uh
1:41:38
that's that's the uh the correct uh Graham's Criterion and uh you don't have
1:41:45
to believe in reincarnation or that sort of thing you can you can believe that
1:41:50
this is helpful fantasy if you want to you believe what
1:41:55
you want it it helps people but yeah but that's that's really the primary
1:42:01
um requirement is to be either licensed or at least at the internship level does
1:42:06
it include EMDR do you have to have experience with the MDR to be able to do
1:42:11
this training different iedc trainers have different ideas about that Al used
1:42:17
to require people to go through EMDR first which I did but Graham doesn't
1:42:23
require it he doesn't think it's necessary and and I would say that IDC trainers are about split 50 50 about
1:42:30
whether you really need to go through EMDR or not I I lean toward that you
1:42:36
don't need to you can learn what you need to through do you think it would be
1:42:41
open to chaplains and pastoral counselors well
1:42:48
I'm not sure that that would be I know that I know licensed mental health
1:42:55
professional um like if somebody is a pastoral counselor
1:43:01
and they're licensed ...'