EMDR and IFS Integration
Are You A Therapist Who’s Struggling To Integrate IFS With EMDR?
Have you been feeling stuck in your EMDR practice?
Do you wish you knew how to incorporate IFS into each phase of treatment?
Are you doing IFS with clients and wondering how EMDR can help your clients, too?
Maybe you're trying to integrate IFS into your approach because the standard EMDR protocol doesn't seem to work for all of your clients. However, the process has left you with more questions than answers.
Perhaps it’s not entirely clear how IFS and EMDR are supposed to intersect—you find yourself struggling to incorporate IFS interventions into each phase of treatment. You might feel as if you’re providing IFS solutions without a clear clinical goal, creating anxiety and uncertainty about how to support your clients.
Thankfully, you’re not alone in feeling this way.I began offering EMDR and IFS integration courses because I noticed how many therapists (just like you) were struggling to implement these complimentary therapy models into treatment. If you want to learn how to skillfully apply adaptive integration techniques to the EMDR treatment process and feel more confident helping clients with complex trauma histories, my IFS and EMDR integration courses are just for you.
Even The Best EMDR Therapists Have Trouble Integrating IFS
Despite being EMDR trained, many therapists don’t know how to work with "parts" that are more noticeable in clients with complex trauma histories. Conversely, IFS-informed therapists might know how to implement parts work successfully, but struggle to integrate IFS with EMDR.
The truth is that integration is tricky. Competence comes with practice and can’t be mastered right out of the gate. Even if you have in-depth knowledge of both approaches, weaving them together successfully is an entirely different ballgame.
For example, if a trauma client has a very sad or depressed part, you may have a tough time identifying whether the client is experiencing a PTSD episode or depressive episode. Or if a trauma client has a very anxious part, you might have trouble figuring out how to befriend that part, especially since EMDR requires giving the client coping skills for minimizing anxiety.
When many EMDR practitioners face such quandaries, their reaction is: If this one part would just step aside, then we could do EMDR. Yet applying an IFS case conceptualization can help us better understand why a part may be protecting the client. It can also change the way we support and guide our clients in trauma treatment.
My IFS and EMDR integration course can help you learn to work with any and all parts, enabling you to transition from one phase of EMDR treatment to the next without feeling stuck.
EMDR and IFS Integration Can Help You Weave Both Models Together Seamlessly
Trauma makes an individual’s parts feel frozen in time. And since EMDR helps resolve trauma, the EMDR process naturally brings a client’s parts to light. The parts can act as a roadmap that shows the therapist and client exactly where to go, which is why EMDR and IFS make for such a powerful integration of modalities.
That said, there are inherent difficulties in weaving the two models together. While IFS trusts the innate wisdom of the client to direct the course of therapy, EMDR follows a more structured treatment plan.
My integration course can help you learn when and how to bring IFS interventions into the eight phases of EMDR therapy. This can not only improve your skillset for navigating complex cases, but also boost your sense of confidence and competence.
Best of all, you’ll be taking this course alongside other therapists in the same boat as you. The course is didactic, experiential, and hands-on, so you and the other therapists will get to practice the skills on each other.
What to Know About My EMDR and IFS Integration Courses
I offer three different types of EMDR and IFS consultation courses: one that focuses on phases 1 and 2 of treatment, one that focuses on phase 3, and another that focuses on phases 4 through 8.
All of my courses take place in a group setting over Zoom. Each session is an hour and a half long and limited to six individuals, making for an intimate and interactive learning experience. You also don’t need to be certified in IFS to participate—as long as you consider yourself an IFS-informed therapist, you are welcome to join any of my online integration courses.
Some of the main areas the group consultation can help you with include:
IFS Case Conceptualization
Parts Mapping Options to Use in Phase 1 and Phase 2
Using Parts Mapping with Complex Trauma Clients
How to Transition from Parts Mapping to IFS Befriending Techniques
How to Integrate IFS with Traditional Resource Development
Clinical Decision-Making on Target Sequencing
How to Close Incomplete Sessions by Bringing in IFS
How to Integrate EMDR Into the IFS Steps
The focus of my courses is not on individual case consultation, but on learning to apply these skills to all parts of the EMDR treatment process.
How Can EMDR And IFS Integration Benefit My Practice?
Ultimately, my integration course can help you trust your own clinical decision-making so that you can smoothly integrate IFS into all eight phases of treatment. You can learn to support clients’ stabilization and help them increase their window of tolerance, enabling them to therapeutically prepare for EMDR processing. You can also learn to support the therapeutic gains they make, minimizing backlash and decompensation.
Most importantly, you can improve your ability to work with all of your clients’ parts, even the ones that seem to be blocking or disrupting the healing process. So instead of feeling stuck or frustrated, you can seamlessly move through EMDR treatment and successfully treat clients with resistant parts and complex trauma histories.
You May Have Some Questions About EMDR and IFS Integration…
Should I choose the integration course or the group consultation?
It depends on what your needs are. The group consultation can help you work through individual cases and receive more in depth case consultation. The IFS integration course, meanwhile, is less about individual cases and more about you learning and practicing specific skills that are key to the integration process. If you’d like to talk with me about which option would be better suited for you, I would be happy to book a brief discovery call so that we can talk things through! The integration course does not count toward EMDR or IFS certification.
I am IFS-informed, but I don’t have a lot of practice using IFS interventions. Is this course still for me?
Yes, this course is for you! Integrating EMDR and IFS takes practice, and that’s what the bulk of this course is about. Many of the therapists I work with have done IFS workshops but haven’t done any experiential learning, so you are in good company no matter what your level of knowledge or experience is.
I have a sense of how to do this on my own. Will an integration course help me?
Oftentimes, we as therapists are left to figure out how to navigate difficult clinical situations on our own. Many of us also have a hard time reaching out for help when we feel stuck—we’re used to doing things independently.That’s why my courses are specifically designed to equip you with new skills and insights for integrating IFS into each phase of treatment, ensuring that your clients benefit the most from your expertise.
Integrating EMDR And IFS Doesn’t Have To Be So Difficult Anymore
If you’re an IFS-informed therapist who wants to successfully implement parts work into EMDR treatment OR if you are an IFS therapist who wants to integrate EMDR into the IFS steps, I encourage you to email me or use the registration link. These courses can help you administer trauma treatment with clear clinical goals, effective IFS interventions, and an enhanced approach to IFS/EMDR integration. I look forward to working with you!
All EMDR and IFS integration courses are offered online.
Recent Posts
