A client can describe their trauma perfectly, name the pattern, trace it back to childhood, and still feel exactly the same. Insight is not the problem.
So I want to turn the usual question around. Instead of asking about your clients, ask about yourself. The pattern that helped you survive is very likely the one now standing between you and the work you want to do. That is the core of the S.A.F.E. Approach (Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR).
An Unhealed Wound Creates the Illusion That the Past Is Present
The basis of EMDR is that trauma leaves an unhealed wound. It sits in the brain, in the body, in our reactions, in the way we see ourselves and the way we see the world. And it does not expire. A wound can go unhealed for 65 years, for 80 years, for an entire lifetime. Trauma creates the illusion that the past is happening right now.
So when something in the present hurts more than it should, that is information. If you take something personally, it is because you have an unhealed wound. Leave aside the genuinely big things (the death of someone, for example), and a big reaction points to old damage, not to the person in front of you.
That is also how targets get found. Present triggers lead back to the touchstone memory, those early events usually before age 6 and almost always before age 10, where the foundation for current suffering was laid. Phase 3 accesses the wound in the form it was stored: the image that represents the worst part, the emotion, the negative belief, the body sensation.
I want to be direct about why this matters. Trauma cannot be healed through understanding. Trauma cannot be healed through insight. It became stuck in the nervous system as it was originally stored, so it has to be reached experientially, not explained away.
The Answer: What You Built in Order to Stay Connected
What the S.A.F.E. Approach adds is the second question. Not only what happened to you, but what did you do in response to what happened.
For a child, attachment is survival. You cannot pack a bag, you cannot interview new parents, you cannot leave the foster placement. So you adapt, and you do it without planning it, because humans are pattern making machines. Maybe you worked hard. Maybe you ignored your pain. Maybe you became super independent. Maybe you disappeared. Maybe you cut off from your feelings. Maybe you became angry. Maybe you ran away. Maybe you became really nice. Maybe you learned to scan the room and make sure everyone else was okay so that you could be okay.
Those adaptations are what we call the Answer: the way we maximize connection and safety by altering ourselves, moving away from our authentic self. And here is the hinge of the whole thing. Whatever you did then is now your block to intimacy, freedom and happiness.
I developed the concept because I kept watching it happen in basic trainings. Therapists could not get to the touchstone memory, could not process, were distracted, were irritated. What I was hitting was the extra layer sitting on top of the wound.
One Concept, Many Patterns
Is the Answer only one pattern? Absolutely not. It is called the Answer because it is a single concept with a multitude of ways it shows up. Most of us have a go to, and most of us have several.
Look for where you are stuck. If it is here and it is in the way, it is an Answer, and every one of them is a trauma response.
It does not always look like classic abuse. One version is the golden child: you were so cute, so wonderful, so nice, you made everybody happy, and everyone praised you for it. What was missing was anyone asking about you, including you. Another is the unstable adult: if they are okay, I am okay, so I had better make sure they are okay first, because I am just a kid and I need them.
Look for the Extra
The practical tell that an Answer is running is the word extra. From the list in my book, where the concept is explained in full: extra effort to help someone feel better, to not make a mistake, to achieve something, to prove something, to be liked, to keep the peace, to make people happy, to feel important, to not be seen, to control things, to be perfect, to be nice.
Answers also tend to be black and white. One therapist described being scared of getting clients to stick to the protocol, and then feeling shame about admitting that to other therapists for fear of being judged. My read: fear of asserting your will plus fear of judgment, which travel together. And in truth, we do not get clients to stick to the protocol. We invite, we educate, we inform. When an Answer is present, it adds that little bit of extra on top.
Another therapist asked how to keep their frustration during sessions from coming across to the client. The question was not how do I work with frustration as an Answer, it was how do I hide it, and the hiding is part of the Answer.
Your Reaction to the Pattern Is What Holds It in Place
The usual response to catching yourself in an old pattern is some version of why did I do that again, I know better. That judgment is not neutral. Not wanting the shame to be here is what holds the shame in place. Not wanting the reaction to be here is what holds the reaction in place. The anger ends up aimed inward, at yourself, for the trauma response showing up at all.
One of our working principles: you cannot be in a state of curiosity and judgment at the same time. So the switch is small and specific. Instead of why am I doing this again, it becomes oh, here it is, and this big feeling is here. Notice the strong body sensation. Then picture the little boy or girl who had to do that.
Appreciation First, Then the Flip Side
Our four trauma informed principles (nonviolence, mindful awareness, compassionate assumption, and healthy boundaries) go together like four legs on a table. Compassionate assumption is the one that does the work here. It changes the question from if this was helpful to how it was helpful. You stop auditing whether you are defective and start looking for the adaptive value, because if it is here, it is here because something was painful.
Give the kid credit. You figured that out, good job, and you are really good at it. Then bring the adult self in: I am not 6 years old anymore, and we have other choices. You do not have to know yet what they are.
From there, targeting gets clearer. The key to healing an Answer with EMDR is identifying its flip side. If the pattern is perfectionism, the flip side is that making a mistake is dangerous, that you will not be loved if you are not perfect, that you need control that is impossible to have. That flip side is the wound, and the wound is the target.
One more place to look: the subtle versions. A therapist described wanting to fix her mother’s pain and being grateful it was not a problem with clients. My guess is that it is there with clients too, just quieter, and that the quiet versions are the real key. Find those and you can see how the Answer permeates most everything.
What the Answer Is Protecting
I worked with a client who was the product of a one night stand. His parents never had a relationship and never married, and they raised him in two completely opposite environments with completely opposite expectations. What he learned to do was whatever was asked of him.
Underneath that, and underneath all of the Answers, is the same longing: to be able to be who we are, to have someone see our authentic self and love us just as we are. That is what the adaptations were substituting for.
When the Wound Has No Picture
Can a very early touchstone memory have no visual at all? It might. Some wounds are preverbal, laid down when the infant needed connection most and did not get it, and what remains is not an image but an energy in the body. Flashbacks fit the same frame: any overreaction is really a flashback, some more intense than others, and they soften as the material gets reprocessed rather than avoided. With memories that have no picture, you allow whatever appears to come up in the story to be told so the memory can be reprocessed.
Go Deeper
I host a free webinar once a month, same time, same place, and every one is recorded and added to the Pathways CE Library. Pathways membership is $12 per month and includes one free CE credit each month for that month’s webinar. Members log in, complete the evaluation, and get the certificate.
If you want to go further with the Answer, and with your own patterns, these on-demand courses take it deeper:
- Deeper Into “The Answer” (2 Hours). The framework in this article, taught in full.
- Dance Of Wounds In Therapeutic Relationships (2 Hours). What happens when your Answer meets your client’s.
- Anxiety as the Answer and the EMDR Protocols to Help (2 Hours). When the adaptation shows up as anxiety.
- Targeting the Attachment Wounds (2 Hours). Finding the wound underneath the adaptation.
- Simplifying Complex Trauma: An Attachment Approach to Complex Cases (6 Hours). The same lens applied to your hardest cases.
Every one of these, plus the full webinar archive, is included with a Pathways CE Library subscription. The concept of the Answer is explained in full in my book, and to learn to work this way clinically from the ground up, the S.A.F.E. Approach is the foundation of PTI’s EMDRIA approved 6 Day EMDR Basic Training.
👉 Access the Pathways CE Library
👉 Browse all on-demand EMDR courses
👉 Sign up for our next free EMDR webinar
👉 Learn more about EMDR training with PTI