by Elena Engle, LMHC-S | Jun 9, 2026 | EMDR Skills
EMDR assumes something that often goes unspoken: that the nervous system has at least some opportunity to settle. When a client is living in an environment that is actively threatening, coercive, or unpredictable, that assumption no longer holds. Readiness for EMDR...
by Elena Engle, LMHC-S | Jun 2, 2026 | EMDR Skills
I hear this a lot, “My client intellectualizes everything. They want to talk and overanalyze. They’re not totally resisting, but are a little skeptical, and are more focused on figuring everything out instead of just noticing.” Boy, our client sure do keep us on our...
by Elena Engle, LMHC-S | May 26, 2026 | EMDR Skills
There are moments in EMDR work when memory is not only personal. It carries weight outside the therapy room. When a client has legal obligations ahead of them, whether that involves testimony, depositions, or any form of formal account, readiness for EMDR reprocessing...
by Elena Engle, LMHC-S | May 19, 2026 | EMDR Skills
This is something I hear from consultation groups from time to time: Sometimes my client will have an intense session and then call to say they need a break from EMDR, or even want to skip session that week and want to meet the following week. Yep. Makes sense. This...
by Elisa | May 12, 2026 | EMDR Skills
Substances often enter the clinical picture long before therapy does. Not as a problem to be solved, but as a way the nervous system learned to manage what felt unmanageable. When we talk about readiness for EMDR reprocessing, substance use history isn’t a side note....
by Elena Engle, LMHC-S | May 5, 2026 | EMDR Skills
Let’s talk about interweaves. If you go in and try to interweave at the first sign of trouble then that’s you saying to your client, “You can’t handle this. It’s not okay for you to be experiencing pain. You can’t do this on you’re own. You should be getting better...
