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EMDR for Couples
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Hello friends! This episode features Cassandra and Garth, as they talk about: how EMDR can be used in couples work, why communication breakdowns are often trauma-based (not skill-based), how triggers show up most strongly in intimate relationships, and how healing individual trauma can transform relational dynamics. They explore what EMDR for couples actually looks like in session, how partners can support each other’s healing, and why repair matters more than perfection. 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!
“If you’re reacting to your partner at a nine out of ten, and they’ve only ever hurt you at a two out of ten, you’re bringing a lot of trauma into that reaction that has nothing to do with them.”
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 everyone. We are continuing our EMDR 4 series. And today we are talking about EMDR for couples. I am Cassandra, and as per usual, I am joined by Garth.
SPEAKER_01Hi everybody.
SPEAKER_03Garth, thanks for coming back.
SPEAKER_01No, of course.
SPEAKER_03You just keep coming back.
SPEAKER_01Yep. I do live here.
SPEAKER_03You do live here. Alright, what's our bant for today?
SPEAKER_01Today, our bant is a favorite kind of genre of food. I think we've talked about favorite food, but like if you could pick any particular one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What would be the favorite genre? Right. So I would say I'm really loving ginger right now, even though the rest of the family doesn't love ginger, so I'm getting most of my ginger and ginger drinks. But I think, and I'm not the foodie in the family, you're the foodie in the family. But I think there's quite a bit of ginger traditionally in like Indian cooking. So I, if you make an Indian dish and there's ginger in it, it is for me usually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You tone down the ginger. I tone it down. Yeah. Not everyone else in the family is quite the fanatic for ginger that you are.
SPEAKER_03I've never had enough ginger.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I newly in the past couple of years discovered that I love ginger, but up until this point, I have not had enough ginger.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03Our dog has just chosen this moment to absolutely hydrate herself for the day. So hopefully. Like we get the big kids off to school, and we get the little one down, and Phoebe is still just you're just hanging, aren't you, girl? Our our senior senior dog is hydrating. Okay, so what's your favorite genre?
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh. So I am the foodie in the family, so it depends on the day for me. I love so many different aspects of so many different styles of cooking. So right now I've been getting into stir fries, and I feel like my stir-fry doing a lot of my stir fry game has really elevated, I think, recently.
SPEAKER_03It has. I think you're making it healthier and tastier, which is hard to do. That's always what you strive for, but sometimes it's a lot of experimentation to accomplish both.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep. And it's it's trial and error in the Asian grocery stores around town. You know, I've had some things there where I get it home, and it's like that's not good. And then other things I've been like, oh my gosh, this really is gonna elevate to the next level.
SPEAKER_03That yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm saying um ginger food specifically. I say specifically, it's probably it's more general to say Indian food.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of the stir fries have ginger in them, and that's more either Japanese or Korean or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Um that's fair.
SPEAKER_01Whatever style we're going for that night.
SPEAKER_03But so I don't know what makes it a genre of food specifically, but you say stir fry, I say ginger. And I think genres general enough that loose enough that we can fit both of those there. Okay, so on to our topic for the day: EMDR for couples. So we have done EMDR for anxiety, EMDR for depression, and now we're moving on to today EMDR for couples in our EMDR for series. And in talking about EMDR for couples, the first thing that I want to talk about is what I say to a potential client or potential clients when I'm talking to a couple who calls in for a consult call. So if you would reach out to us to schedule with us, you would already be ahead of the game because you would have some of the information that I share on that consult call.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So when couples reach out to us, one of the things that they're asking is what sets you apart, what makes you different from somebody else that I would see for couples counseling? Don't always directly ask that, but some version of that question is being pitched to me. And I will tell couples that if you are going to another therapist, you're probably working on something like communication skills. How do we enjoy time together? What's keeping us from enjoying time together? And just like we do in individual work in the practice, we're really looking to get to root level causes with couples in the same way that we do with individuals. So I might can you play a caller for me for a second during consult call? Oh, hello. Oh, great. Yeah.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Wait, I called you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. I I'll be serious now.
SPEAKER_03Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Ring, ring.
SPEAKER_03Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. So you have called. I don't even know that you should be able to do this. You have called, right?
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03And you are, let's say it's just you on the line, but you're you're seeking out couples counseling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So you call and I ask you, well, tell me this. You're saying that the two of you just have trouble communicating. Do you notice that either one of you have difficulty communicating with like people at work, with colleagues, with friends? Uh, are you having a hard time communicating with anyone else?
SPEAKER_01No, I don't really notice that outside of just this relationship.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And a lot of people that call in to talk to us will describe that, that they and their partner can go to work and communicate pretty effectively. They can communicate pretty effectively with their friends. It's really just here that they're running into problems. And so what I'll tell people whenever I'm on consult calls like this with them is that you have basic communication skills down because that's not a problem in other areas of your life. So you're calling saying I need to improve this basic communication with my partner. Is it about basic communication, or is it that you are being triggered in the most intimate relationship in your life? There it is. Yeah. Yeah. In a different way than you're being tri you're still the caller. You just step back into Garth mode. No, I'm kidding. You can step out of caller mode. Okay. Is it that you are struggling with basic communication skills or are you being triggered by the most intimate relationship in your life in a way that you're not triggered by other people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's the root cause problem.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And so when we just work with couples on communicating more effectively, that can get us a little bit down the road, but it doesn't get us very far down the road.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it makes sense, right? Yeah. Okay. So then here's something uh two things. I think I've mentioned at least one of them on the podcast before, maybe both. Here's two other things along those lines that I tell every couple that I work with, and most individuals that I work with that are partnered up. I think as partners, if we imagine trauma triggers as being these, I see them as like easy buttons, you know, the staples easy buttons. If we imagine trauma triggers being like these buttons on a wall, and I see them as like big red buttons, some of them are big, they can be different sizes, right? I, Cassandra, have my wall, and you, Garth, have your wall. And both walls have buttons on them. I think it's my responsibility as your partner to work to make my buttons as small as possible and to effectively communicate to you what those buttons are. I think it's your responsibility as a partner to care enough about me to hear me when I tell you what those buttons are and to attempt to avoid them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Knowing that in an intimate relationship, you are going to run into them sometimes and you're going to need to repair. If we can do those things, we have bettered the relational health of a couple like tenfold. If we can help them to individually make buttons as small as possible, recognize and explain what buttons are to their partners. And then on the opposite end, if partners can receive that and attempt to avoid them and then repair effectively whenever they can't avoid them. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's just the communication cycle, right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, it's yeah, that that's like, but that's gold, right? So like it's not your responsibility, you are not ultimately responsible for my emotions. So it's not your responsibility to make my buttons smaller.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Because you can't do that. And so when you try to make that your responsibility, that doesn't work. Right. Right. And you get frustrated and I get frustrated. But it is your responsibility to hear me whenever I tell you what the buttons are and to do your best to avoid them, knowing that you won't always be able to, and you can repair whenever you don't. So I walk clients through that, and then I walk clients through again. I think this one we've talked about on the podcast before. If you are reacting to your partner at a nine out of 10, and they have only ever hurt you at a two out of 10, you are bringing a lot of trauma into that reaction that has nothing to do with them. Now, if there was an infidelity two weeks ago and you're responding to them at an eight out of ten, a nine out of ten, that's that makes sense. Yeah, wanted. Yeah. And in situations like that, sometimes it's just damage control. How can we? It's a crisis situation. And how can we both get out of here as unscathed as possible? Yeah. But outside of crisis situations like that, a good question to ask yourself is like, okay, I'm this elevated with my partner right now. Does that really make sense given who this person is to me? Right? Like you've never, and it's normal to move through relationship and hurt one another.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Right. So like you've never hurt me at a nine. So if I'm coming at you at a nine, is that really about you?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Oh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But right, bad.
SPEAKER_03And you don't have to know what it's about in the moment. It's just kind of a stop signal in your brain. Like, oh, I'm talking to Garth at a nine right now. Garth has never brought a nine to my life. I need to stop. This isn't about Garth. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then go from there. I think that our nine-month-old might be joining us. I don't know if you can hear her in the background. We'll give her just a moment and see if she's decided. She, I think she joined the last episode too.
SPEAKER_01She she may be the third member of the crew.
SPEAKER_03She's becoming a regular on the pod. Regular. Okay. So I want to loop back to trigger buttons, right? Because I think that that kind of gives us a whole or can give us kind of a whole picture of how we approach working with couples.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, I'm pausing just to listen for her for a second. We'll go grab her and we'll continue with our third member. Okay, nine-month-old has joined us, and we were just talking about if she were to give a class to newborns right now. I think that she, if she could talk, she would sit with the newborns and say, listen up, guys, it's not about actually being upset. It's about getting out of the crib as soon as possible because it's boring in there. So you wake up and you need to act upset because they will come get you if you act upset. She is the queen.
SPEAKER_01She likes to right now scream and then giggle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00She'll just and then and then you go pick her up and she's Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, she's smiling right now.
SPEAKER_03She's like, yeah, that's what I do. Okay. So I want to loop back to the trigger buttons because I hadn't really thought about it prior to coming into the podcast, but I think that it does kind of outline for us pretty well how we work with couples using an EMDR framework. So first thing is I need to recognize my triggers and I am responsible. Yes, yeah. I yeah, you're wanting to chat too. We hear you, girlfriend. Okay. So I want to recognize my triggers and I am responsible for making them smaller. Now, what does that actually look like in session? It looks like EMDR desensitization, right? Or utilizing EMDR for desensitization.
SPEAKER_01Right, making those triggers less powerful.
SPEAKER_03Making the triggers less powerful.
SPEAKER_01And so I think it's impactful might be a better word than powerful, maybe. I don't know. You tell me.
SPEAKER_03Well, power is impactful, right? Because the yeah, yeah. I think one in the same. So there's a couple of different ways this can look with couples. Sometimes in couples therapy, when we're utilizing EMDR, it looks really similar to EMDR, but the other person is there as a support in one session, and then vice versa in another session. So, you know, for instance, if we're working through a lot of childhood memories for each person in the couple, one person would be desensitizing while the other person is there as a support.
SPEAKER_01And then just trade off.
SPEAKER_03And then just trade off. I like to kind of assign sessions so that people have an idea of what they're coming into rather than putting people on the spot. So I try my best to prep couples. When you come in next time, we're going to be working on this specific target for this person, and this person is going to be a support.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Come in ready.
SPEAKER_03Come in ready with in the kind of the right state of mind because it is a really different mental place to be in. Am I a supporter today or am I more of a participant today? Now, the really cool thing about how this functions is, you know, when I'm working with individuals, hopefully they have a partner as a EMDR resource for them. So the partner is a nurturer or a protector.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Does that okay? We've talked about EMDR resources before. So an EMDR resources resource, essentially the goal is that if I can't come up with even cognitions on my own that indicate to me that, for instance, I am safe or I am lovable, then is there someone else or another entity in my life that would indicate those things to me, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Hopefully your partner or spouse or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Right. So if I have the the cognition I'm not lovable, I do truly believe, even on my worst days, that Garth believes that I am lovable. Right.
SPEAKER_00And so every day.
SPEAKER_03That is a powerful resource that can be utilized in individual, but it's even more powerful when then that partner is sitting there as a support. Now, something that we have to, yes, that's right. Even more powerful. Now it's something that we have to consider as clinicians is how safe is this relationship? Right. There has to be some degree of safety in the relationship in order to even accomplish that, right? If if someone's sitting on the couch next to you and I'm asking you to go through the most difficult pieces of your life, and that person sitting on the couch next to you is not safe, that's not fair of me as a clinician to ask.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03So one of the first things we need to be doing in our work with couples is assessing as clinicians, like how safe is this relationship? And we need to be doing that whether or not we're utilizing EMDR, but we certainly need to be doing it whenever we're wanting to utilize EMDR with couples.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Because that's not, we're not going to move forward with the couple if there's not some level of safety established for the couple.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes complete sense.
SPEAKER_03So the other thing that we might do with EMDR when we're utilizing it with couples is to work through a memory together that was experienced together. So I've done this with couples when families have been in car accidents. We desensitize that experience together. So this is usually not always, but usually a recent trauma that the family has experienced. Some and again, not always, but often it's a physical trauma or maybe even like a recent estrangement. Now, obviously, unless it's a friendship, usually that would play out differently for one person over the other.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Right. Could still be impacting the partner who wasn't the child.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Absolutely. And so we can do that as well, where both people are walking through the desensitization process together. So practically what that looks like is both people are in some way participating in bilateral stimulation at the same time. Does that make sense? Yep.
SPEAKER_01Makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_03So basic two options with couples, they are either providing support to one another during the desensitization process, or they are both going through the desensitization process together because this is a shared trauma. So that is how we get the button smaller. And then the next thing that we need to do is communicate to our partners, yes, this button is smaller, and this is still a difficult part of my life. It doesn't matter how much EMDR you do, it doesn't matter how much therapy you do. You are going to leave therapy as a human. There are going to be things that are difficult for you that your partner needs to know about. And so we are teaching people how to use I statements. So we're not diving as deep as maybe other clinicians would into some basic communication, but we are talking about how do I effectively use I statements. And then we're also accepting, just like we discussed earlier, that sometimes we are going to accidentally hit our partner's buttons. And then we need to repair. And so we're also teaching how does effective repair happen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And as far as how we utilize EMDR there, we can utilize EMDR by doing things like, oh my goodness. Hey you, do you want to get on the microphone and say hello?
SPEAKER_02Do I say hi? You're just gonna touch it. Okay. Yeah. You're just gonna touch it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Squealing. You're not hearing much feedback from Garth because he is standing up with our nine-month-old, just bouncing her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So as far as what we how we utilize repair, let me back up a little bit. As far as how we utilize EMDR in repair, we can do future template work. So let's pretend for a moment that Garth runs into one of my buttons. How is he going to respond to that? And how am I going to respond to that as effectively as we possibly can? So again, our focus is not effective communication in that we're not providing a lot of psychoeducation around effective communication. But of course, our goal is that couples leave being able to effectively communicate. We just think that the best way to do that is to desensitize past traumas that get in the way of effective communication, and then teaching couples the ability to use eye statements so that they can express what their buttons still are, and ability to use repair so that when buttons are run into, they can essentially acknowledge that, provide a genuine apology to one another, and move forward without a rupture in the relationship.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like gold.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03We have a nine-month-old that is smiling at us. If you made it through the little bumblings of this episode because she joined us, we appreciate it. We got started a little bit late today, so we butted up on the end of her nap time, but I think she was pretty happy to join. She is very interested in these microphones, and so we may let her take a closer look at them here at the end of the episode. Thanks so much for joining. Have a wonderful week. We will be back here next Tuesday continuing our EMDR 4 series. We'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_01Bye.
SPEAKER_03Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's all, folks.
SPEAKER_03Please see our show notes for ways to connect with us or go give us a follow on Instagram. You can find us at Simply Mintal. 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 me listen.