Clients do not walk in asking to reprocess their childhood. They walk in with a symptom that is disturbing them right now. Whether EMDR helps or overwhelms them depends on what you do before the first set of eye movements, and most of that work happens in the two phases clinicians tend to rush.
Deb Kennard, founder of the Personal Transformation Institute and developer of the SAFE (Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR) Approach, hosted September’s free monthly webinar on a question every EMDR therapist faces with every client: how do you know when someone is ready for Phases 3 through 7? Her answer came down to what you learn, and predict, in Phases 1 and 2.
Why Phases 1 and 2 Get Shortchanged
All eight phases are taught in basic training, but a training cannot give you the length of time Phases 1 and 2 actually take with a real client. You practice pieces of history taking and preparation, then move on, and many clinicians come out without a working understanding of what those phases are for. That matters because EMDR does not create the client’s emotional reaction, it accesses what is already stored, as if it were a flashback. When you access that material, the client will react, and you need to know ahead of time how.
Every Symptom Was Once an Answer
The SAFE Approach starts from one assumption: anything a client comes in with today was once helpful. Deb paraphrased Carl Jung, that if the unconscious does not become conscious, it will always be in the way. The Answer is what we maximized in ourselves, or cut off from in ourselves, to get the most safety and connection possible from our caregivers. Those adaptations become attachment patterns, automatic reactions, and eventually symptoms.
Deb used herself as the example. She had hip replacement surgery last month, and for a couple of days she had to rely on other people. One of her greatest strengths, being independent and making things happen, was unavailable, and the thought “nobody cares about me” surfaced while people were reaching out constantly. She recognized it as how she probably felt as the youngest of ten who lost her father before age two. When you cannot use your Answer, what it was built to protect you from shows up. That is exactly what happens to clients when reprocessing gets close to the pain.
Assess Affect Regulation Before You Ask About Trauma
This was the central instruction of the hour. Before a client gives you any trauma history details, investigate how they regulate affect. Can they dip a toe into something disturbing and come back out, or do they fall in?
PTI uses a 17-question Answer questionnaire, but the investigation matters more than the tool. What do you do under stress? Is it easy or difficult to ask for help? What do you do when someone tells you no? You are looking for how this person regulates, whether they can do it alone or only with someone else, and what is underdeveloped as a result. Skip this and you may get a client who cuts off from the neck down, reports everything flatly, then leaves wanting to use, cut, or fall apart. You need to know before that happens.
Resource Just Enough, Then Check Safety and Connection
Deb recalled Shapiro cautioning clinicians who overdo Phases 1 and 2, effectively running an entire IFS therapy before looking at any trauma. Her guidance was to resource just enough, because Phases 3 through 7 are what release the disturbance charging the present symptoms. It does not need to be perfect. It needs to be safe enough.
Practically, that means one resource that takes the client from upset to calm, practiced in your office and at home. If they can still do it when they return, it is time to go. Not practicing between sessions is not a disqualifier, since not doing what you are told may itself be an Answer. Ask instead whether anything disturbing happened and whether they came back out. Ice cream, a pillow over the head, or music all count.
Then check the stop signal and life circumstances. For one of Deb’s clients with an extensive abuse history, practicing the stop signal was itself activating, because setting a boundary had been dangerous for her, so they took longer to find a different way to say stop. Do not schedule a first reprocessing session before a big meeting, because reprocessing continues afterward. With kids, Deb tells parents to expect behavior to get worse before it gets better, because a regulated parent is the number one tool for both.
Connection means the therapeutic relationship, and Deb was direct: people who treat EMDR as a manualized technique usually are not very good at it. Attunement is probably the most important tool you have, and part of it is knowing whether the client can give you honest feedback or whether pleasing you is one of their skills. If you predict that together, you can ask at the end of a session whether that zero is really a zero or whether this might be the Answer you talked about, and the client gets a chance to check.
From Symptom to Touchstone
Before reprocessing, you should be able to see how the client’s symptoms fit their history. The client will not know, and that is fine. You will find it together. Deb was emphatic on one point. When she was first trained, targets came from a list of the client’s ten most disturbing memories. That is not a good way to do EMDR. Start with a symptom and a recent experience where it was activated, then go back to the earliest memory. You do not find it by thinking, because that is not where it is stored. It is somatic, emotional, and sensory, which is why the float back and affect scan exist. The SAFE Approach adds another route: the relational longing present when the symptom is at its worst. That longing points to the missing attachment experience, which is usually at the root of trauma. And target the painful experience itself, not the reaction to it. Going to the anger instead of the hurt underneath will not go as deep.
When the Answer Is “I Don’t Care” or “It’s Their Fault”
Two chat questions illustrated the model. First: how do you resource a client who says they just do not get upset about that kind of thing? That is fine, Deb said, but then why are they in therapy? It is likely they cut off and avoid. What goes into that vault along with the pain is their passion, their joy, and their connecting, and in couples work the spouse feels alone. That is how every Answer works: the strength that solved a problem is also the way we walk through the world creating the thing we do not want. If you are protected, you cannot be connected.
Second: a client whose Answer is blame. How was blaming others helpful? It means it is not your fault, and someone with blame as a main Answer likely had severe punishment, so being at fault was genuinely scary. A great deal of shame travels with it. None of this is said to the client up front. It is how you conceptualize the case, and how you eventually help them see their role in their own suffering, without blame.
Signs a Client Is Not Ready Mid-Session
Deb told a story from early in her practice, before the Answer concept existed. A client came in wanting EMDR and wanted to get going. In the middle of reprocessing, she would take a long time to respond to “what are you noticing now,” with a blank stare and sometimes tears. She got some benefit and stayed safe, but she was in shutdown. The signs to watch for: long delays in answering, a blank stare, and one Deb learned later, a runny nose the client is not wiping. These usually mean the client is outside their window of tolerance. Slow down and name it gently. If there is still no answer, stop the eye movements and work on being present: toss a pillow back and forth, offer water, have them hold an ice cube. Then go in and out, building their ability to be with the material without falling in.
What you are seeing is likely what the client did at the time of the memory, and that makes a useful interweave. When a client is stuck or frustrated, say “I wonder if that’s what happened at the time.” You do not have to name it. Clients usually know. Deb also recommends offering a choice: would you like me to come up with a resource, or is there something you think would help? The offer itself is empowering.
Your Regulation Is the Most Important Tool
The best thing you can do as an EMDR clinician, Deb said, is get your own EMDR therapy. You experience it from the inside, you become more regulated, and that regulation is what lets your nervous system lead the co-regulation when a client cannot.
She described working with a young woman who had survived horrific torture. Deb’s job in the room was to convey that whatever the client had to say, she could handle it. When the client said it felt like it was happening now, what helped was simple: and it’s not happening now, right? Can you see me here? As the client saw that Deb was okay, her nervous system could stay present. Your steadiness is the evidence that it is not happening now.
Go Deeper
This session was part of PTI’s free monthly webinar series, hosted by Deb on the second Monday of each month. Recordings live in the Pathways CE Library, and members ($12 a month) can watch, complete the evaluation, and earn one free CE credit each month.
Deb pointed attendees to her book, EMDR for Anger Management, which covers the Answer, the longing underneath it, and resourcing in far more detail than an hour allows. To learn the SAFE Approach from the ground up, including how to assess readiness through all eight phases, start with our 6-Day EMDR Basic Training.
👉 Sign up for our next free EMDR webinar
👉 Access the Pathways CE Library
👉 Learn more about EMDR training with PTI
Deb Kennard is the founder of the Personal Transformation Institute and the developer of the SAFE (Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR) Approach. Learn more at emdr-training.net.