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EMDR for Families
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Hello friends! This episode features Cassandra and Garth, as they talk about: how EMDR can be used in family therapy, the importance of caregiver attunement and responsiveness, and why parents can become powerful healing resources in the trauma reprocessing process. You can learn more about Cassandra and her practice at: seentherapy.org. Get a taste for the episode below. If you enjoy your listen give us a follow, share, or five star review. Have a good one!
“Parents can be really incredible resources during EMDR for families, really incredibly incredible resources to their children and they can really speed up EMDR and make the results just a lot more solid.”
Hello, hello, hello friends. You are listening to Simpli Mental. Welcome to the podcast where we simplify everything about mental health. Just kidding. But here's what we are gonna do. We're gonna sit down together, a licensed mental health professional, that's me, and a regular old Joe, as my husband Garth would describe himself. We're gonna talk about the nitty-gritty of the MBR, some nervous system mapping, how couples can help each other heal, what's healthy parenting actually look like, maybe a little bit of good old banter mixed in. All with the goal of making mental health a little bit simpler for you. Quick note, because my lawyer says that I have to, I'm a therapist, but not your therapist, unless I am. Even if I am, this is still just a podcast, okay? Now have a good listen. Hello friends, this is Cassandra, and as always, I am joined by Garth.
SPEAKER_02Here I am.
SPEAKER_00Folks, thanks for joining us today. We are continuing our series EMDR for dot dot dot. And today we are talking about EMDR for families. This is another episode where we establish that EMDR can be done with more than one person. And obviously, doing EMDR with families looks different than doing EMDR with couples. There is a lot to learn in doing EMDR with families. There's a lot to consider. I think the primary thing we should remember as clinicians is can the adult caregiver in the family attune to and respond effectively to the child or children's emotions? If so, that's awesome. We now have an incredible resource to reinforce in EMDR. Obviously, this is on a spectrum. It's not all or nothing. But if the adult isn't able to effectively attune and respond to the child or the children, can we get them there in a reasonable time frame in family therapy? Or do they need to do their own work to get there? And then how do we best help the kiddo or kiddos in the meantime? Okay.
SPEAKER_02But sounds good. Before we move forward, the most important the thing people tune in for high pressure.
SPEAKER_00Let's band.
SPEAKER_02If you could be an animal, what animal would you be and why?
SPEAKER_00So you've asked me before on the pod what my favorite animal was.
SPEAKER_02But is it different? Because some animals that are super cute don't have a high quality of life.
SPEAKER_00This is very so that's an interesting way to think about it. High quality of life, right? Because I think of like a lioness, right? She's got if you ever see like up close video, girlfriend been in fights. Girlfriend's been in fights. Girlfriend, which like I don't particularly want to do that, but the the gnats.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, the bugs are bad, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like the fights, like, okay. Yeah. But the gnats, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Constantly just going for your eyes.
SPEAKER_00But really, that's probably gonna be like any mammal in the wild, right?
SPEAKER_02Like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00You know what I want to be? I want to be a penguin.
SPEAKER_02A penguin. Deal with the freezing cold temperatures, huh?
SPEAKER_00Strictly because there wouldn't be any gnats.
SPEAKER_02Orcas.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the orcas. Yeah. Oh shoot. Wow. You know what this is this bant is doing for me? So I'm gonna stick with penguins just for to keep things brief.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it's just bringing up a lot of gratefulness. I'm I'm a human in a very safe home. Yeah. And uh I'm very appreciative. So anyway, yeah, I'm gonna stick with penguin, but good point on the orcas. I would rather have brief periods of significant threat than constant irritation. Irritation. I don't know what that says about. Says a lot. And that's all, folks. You now know Cassandra Minnick. Yeah. Gart, what would you think?
SPEAKER_02See, I think you should I think you have to pick an apex predator and whatever. Like you have to, because then you're you're like the boss of what's fair.
SPEAKER_00I could be an orca. I didn't even think of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you could be an orca. That would be a good one. Yeah. I was gonna say an owl. Because flying.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_02Cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Also, nothing hunts owls.
SPEAKER_00Like they're they're apex predators, but you know, they think they deal with any sort of gnat situation? Ah, probably not. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Probably not. Okay. Probably gnat.
SPEAKER_00You know who I want to be? I want to be Phoebe.
SPEAKER_02You want to be Phoebe, our dog. Phoebe. Phoebe's got it good. Phoebe is incredibly well taken care of.
SPEAKER_00I say that. We don't go like over the top, but like, yeah.
SPEAKER_02She has like no no problems with her life.
SPEAKER_00Phoebe does not deal with a gnat situation. On her worst day, Phoebe has to go outside and poop in the rain, which she doesn't seem too upset over. No. Which I guess if I'm her, I I mean I would be. But anyway. Okay, so I'm either a penguin or an orca. I am some sort of black and white animal that has the ability to survive. And you're an owl.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think an owl would be cool. Wonderful. I feel like an eagle would be neat too. But yeah, probably some sort of a bird.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_02A big bird. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be big bird. You'd be big bird. Don't sue us, estimate.
SPEAKER_00Right. Okay. So EMDR for families. So we just did EMDR for couples. And I think even doing that episode, it kind of introduced the idea to folks that you can do EMDR with more than one person. So if you haven't listened to that episode, you can in fact do EMDR with more than one person. In fact, you can do EMDR with multiple people. So with families, there are a couple of significant things, a couple of significant differences in working with families than working with adults with an adult couple.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the first most obvious is there's a power differential, there's a power dynamic between parents and children.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think for all family therapists, this isn't specific at all to EMDR, that as you're walking into family therapy, you really need to be assessing and working with the parents' ability to be responsive to the children. And we want parents obviously to be responsive to kids outside of session, but we definitely want them to be responsive to kids inside of session. So like to be able to attend to their emotional needs, right? Like this is even more, I think, important, elevated in EMDR work with families. The last thing that we want to do is to open up a trauma for a child, expecting to use that parent as a resource to that child, and then the parent isn't able to show up in that moment. Now that can happen and we can show up in that moment.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. And we can support, you know, both people or maybe all three or all four or you know, in the moment, but in an ideal world, we are prepping that parent effectively. We're being proactive rather than reactive. Yeah. So if we opened up, excuse me, if we opened up a trauma to work on with the family during session and we're maybe helping a child desensitize, which is language that if you've listened to some of our previous episodes, that's EMDR language. If we open up something for that kiddo desensitize and the parent is not ready to be a resource, which is another EMDR term, to be responsive to that, we could reactively hop in and help that situation. But in an ideal world, we want to be proactive. We want to get the parent ready.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think any family therapist is doing that. They're like prepping the parent to be emotionally responsive to their child in an appropriate way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And what does that prepping look like? Is that like parents have sessions before kids are brought in? Or just some sort of prep while the kids are there, like testing the waters with the parent to see if they're gonna be good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't think there's a right or wrong. There's different ways to do it and it can look different, right? I think the the primary thing is that you feel reasonably confident that a parent is able to be emotionally available as a resource before you start EMDR for families. If the parent, if you if in a reasonable amount of time you aren't able to get the parent to the point where they're able to be an emotional resource for their child in EMDR for families, what I would do in that case is I would refer the parent to individual EMDR and I would do as much individual work with that child as I could or refer that child for as much individual EMDR work as I could. Does that make sense? Yes. So a a therapist that's working with families, whether or not they're doing EMDR, they may have an intake session with the entire family where they're not really diving into anything deep. They're just kind of observing dynamics. They are gathering information, they're watching how attentive parents are able to be to their kids when the therapist brings up something emotional. How does the parent respond? How does the child respond? You know, if the there may be kind of the therapist in an intake session should be kind of dipping their toes in the water just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I, you know, I know family therapists who meet with just parents initially, even if the parents aren't together as a couple anymore, even if they're co-parenting, I know family therapists who meet with parents individually first. I know family therapists who meet with the whole group first. Gotcha. Again, I don't think there's any wrong answer. I think that we need to make sure that parents are appropriately attuned and responsive emotionally to their children. And again, if you're not able to get that that family to that place in a reasonable amount of time, then maybe it looks like referring for individual work. Yeah. Especially if they're in more of a crisis situation, right? So if we're in a crisis situation and we really need let's pick on mom, but because that's who gets picked on, right?
SPEAKER_02Whoa, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_00Whoa, whoa. Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I don't pick on you know yeah, you know this. Culturally, we pick on mom, right? We have this expectation that like mom, mom arrives. I don't abide by emotionally. I know. Okay, but we'll we'll pick on mom for a second. Let's say that mom isn't able to emotionally attune to be responsive to their child, and child is really in a very significant crisis. We'll just be really stereotypical here, right? We'll now we'll pick on dad. We'll say that dad's not even available, that maybe they've separated and he's left, right? Like he's not available to child, and child is having a really significant response to it, right? So I would say that that family is in uh a crisis state.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And really quickly, therapist needs to be assessing if mom's not able to attune and be responsive, there needs to be some individual work here to get her to that point as quickly as possible. Because the faster we get her to that point, the faster kiddo's gonna be able to regulate. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. So let's pretend for a moment that parents, whether it be mom, dad, you know, both parents, whomever they are, are able to come to the table. Or not even parents, but caregivers, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00One or two loving adult caregivers are able to come to the table and they're able to attune and be responsive to the children in this family. Wonderful. Then we get to use them essentially as an EMDR resource for the kiddo. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So if we really dove into this today, this would be a 40-minute long podcast, and that's not the goal.
SPEAKER_0220 minutes is the goal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Never hit it, but but it's the goal. And I say 40 minutes, I mean this could be its own standalone series. Almost. Or podcast, really. Like you could do EMDR with families as a standalone podcast. So obviously, we're not here to do that today. For a minute, I want to brag on a specific therapist and EMDR consultant and trainer and author. I hit the jackpot whenever I initially finished my EMDR training about a decade ago. My first consultant outside of basic training was Deborah Wesselman. And I was naive at the time and didn't really realize what I had. She has created a few protocols now to address attachment trauma. And her integrative attachment trauma protocol for children, she has expanded on that and now it, you know, has it for adults, but also I think in the next couple of months, it her book releases Integrative Attachment Trauma Protocol for Families. Okay. And so you've been able to kind of infer how to do family work from her previous books that she's released. But I think this is going to really dive into how to address this with families. So we're we're kind of getting in the weeds, but whether you're a parent that's thinking about EMDR for your family or you're a clinician listening, what I want you to hear is that EMDR for families is possible. There are actual legitimate resources out there, people that have been pursuing doing this well, not just for a year or two years, but like decades. Deborah Wesselman is one of them. One of the really cool techniques within this protocol is a therapeutic story. And within the therapeutic story, the parent acts as a resource, an EMDR resource. And essentially what we do is we write out a story and without describing the entire process, we write out a story and the parent inserts if I were here during this given trauma, how would I be responsive to this kiddo? And we include that in the therapeutic story, and then we utilize that during desensitization and reprocessing.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Or even not how would have I responded if I was physically there, but maybe even sometimes with some families, how would have I responded if I was in a healthy place? If I wasn't injured too, uh, whether that be emotionally injured or physically injured, right? So that's an example of like parents can be really incredible resources during EMDR for families, really incredibly incredible resources to their children, and they can really speed up EMDR.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And make the results just a lot more solid.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, if you're seeing somebody that's been doing if you're a client seeing a clinician who's been doing EMDR for a year, and you say, Hey, can you do EMDR with our family? And they're like, Yeah, we can we can try that. I I just want to throw out there that like there are actually legitimate protocols for this that EMDR therapists can be trained in. Yeah. And this can can go really effectively. Uh so just like with couples, there are some specific kind of parameters that clinicians need to follow.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And really the the first thing is it's important in all family therapy, I think, but particularly in EMDR for families, how attuned and responsive is the parent to the child?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if there's not that attunement and responsiveness, attunement means they're able to notice their child's emotions. Responsiveness, how effectively are they able to respond?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So it the you you've brought up a few times how connected the parent is emotionally to the child, or what was the exact phrasing that you used? How in tune they are with attune and responsive.
SPEAKER_00So attune how well do we notice what's going on with our child emotionally responsive? How effectively do we respond?
SPEAKER_02So maybe this is kind of a silly question for this far into the podcast, but so EMDR for families is it geared towards helping the children and families primarily, or is it geared towards helping the parents or the family unit as a whole?
SPEAKER_00No, I think that's a great question to ask before we wrap up. My view of family therapy with minor children, yeah, in particular, but even adult children with adult children, there is still a power dynamic with adult children and their parents. My view of family therapy is that we have to be cognizant of that power dynamic. And as a result, the approach to family therapy versus couples therapy, for instance, should look different. Yeah. So for instance, I would never expect or even want a mother to be as emotionally vulnerable in front of her children.
SPEAKER_02Right. As she might be one-on-one with you or might be with her partner with her partner in couples therapy.
SPEAKER_00Vulnerable is maybe even not the right word. I don't want a mom walking through the same details of a trauma with her children that she would with her partner.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That said, sometimes there are even some details of a trauma that we don't necessarily want to expose partners to if we don't need to. Right. Yep. But there is obviously a difference between your child and your partner. And so then family therapy does look different.
SPEAKER_02When kids are involved. Yeah. It's gotta be. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That said, when you think of the therapeutic story that I described earlier, that can be incredibly therapeutic for the parent to walk through.
SPEAKER_02Well, and that's that's kind of what has me thinking it it could be mutually beneficial. You know, it could be but maybe at the same time it is more what I hear you saying is the approach is maybe to ensure the safety and protection of the children within this family.
SPEAKER_00But as parents, you and I, yeah, when when our children are safe and protected, what does that do for us?
SPEAKER_02Well, it makes me happy. Makes me feel secure knowing that they're secure, you know. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Right. And so what are you able then to do in your own work because of that safety and security? Yeah. There's a lot that you're then able to accomplish, right? And so yeah, it I don't I don't know wanna that I want to say the focus is on the kids because I think that could create a misconception, but I think family therapy, when it's done well, has to be done with the awareness that everybody plays different roles.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right? That makes sense. Yeah. And that in being the children in the family, they inherently their their roles are inherently affected by the reality that they are children.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? The role that you play in your family of origin versus the role that you play in our family, completely different.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. For sure.
SPEAKER_00So I yeah, I I think we we have to be mindful of that. And it would be incredibly harmful to to ignore that reality. That reality. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe desensitization and reprocessing looks different for kids and adults in family therapy. Maybe I maybe we could say there's a little more focus on the kids, but as the adults join in that process, like, man, that's pretty incredibly therapeutic as well. Yeah. And then what can they then take from that and and sidebar and and continue their own individual work?
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00EMDR for families is pretty great. The other thing is, as much as I love working with individuals, and you know this about me, like I love whether it's therapy or like just sitting down with an individual friend and having like a one-on-one chat.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00I love individual time. That said, when a family comes in and works on something, let's say that it's a family of like three or four, three or four people that you were able to help, right? Or a couple comes in, like when a couple is in a good place, how does that impact the entire family unit, right? Like one of the things that we're gonna talk about in this EMDR series is EMDR for groups.
SPEAKER_02No, even bigger than families.
SPEAKER_00I love working with individuals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And at the same time, I'm really pushing myself this year to expand beyond that and and work with the idea that, like, okay, but how many people can you help in an hour?
SPEAKER_02Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Individual therapy, you help one. Yeah. But in a group, you could help ten.
SPEAKER_00I'm I think I'm always gonna be the person that prefers to sit down and have a tea with one friend than going to a party. And that's okay. Yeah. Right. But yeah, there is something too. What can you get done with more people in the room? Yeah. Because we need therapists that are doing good work to help as many people as they can and still be healthy themselves. We need coaches that are doing good work to help as many people as they can and still be healthy themselves. Yep. So anyway, family therapy for EMDR. If you didn't know about it, you know about it now. Again, Deborah Wesselman, spelled just like it sounds great resource. I would really encourage you, if you are a clinician interested in EMDR, to look into her trainings, a clinician interested in EMDR for kids or families, to look into her trainings or just attachment trauma, because she has some attachment trauma material out for adults now as well. But also, if you are an adult caregiver in a family that's considering pursuing EMDR for families, look up Deborah Wesselman because she is one of the gold standards in our fields for this work and educate yourself based off of her work. And if you can't have a conversation with a clinician, they don't have to know her name, right? But if they can't kind of process through some of the concepts you learn from from her work, I'm not saying don't see them, but that just informs you. Yeah. Right. And again, there are a lot of names I don't remember. So you know, don't necessarily hold somebody to accountable to that. But do they have some of the general concepts down for um using EMDR with families? Yep. Okay. Well, we have surpassed our time limit yet again. Thank you so much. If you got to the end of this episode, we will be back with our EMDR 4 series next time. Talk to you later.
SPEAKER_01Bye.
SPEAKER_00Bye-bye. Well, that's all, folks. Please see our show notes for ways to connect with us or go give us a follow on Instagram. You can find us at Simply Mental. If this episode resonated with you, send it over to a friend. Give us a five star rating, subscribe, download all the things the cool kids are doing these days. Thanks for having a listen.