What Do You Do When a Client Isn't Processing?
I was teaching an EMDR training recently when a question came up that I hear constantly, both in training and in case consultation. What do you do when a client isn't processing, or isn't responding to the processing?
My first question back is always the same. What's going on that that's the case?
I want to share a moment from a session I used as a teaching clip, because it captures something important about how this works.
The client I showed was reprocessing memories connected to her mother's rages. Her pattern, understandably, was to brace against the experience and try to move away from it as much as possible. She had been on her own with those emotional responses for a long time, and that showed up right in the room with me.
We targeted one of the memories and did a set. I checked in. "What are you noticing now?" She said, "It's better." But it didn't look or feel better when I checked in nonverbally. So I asked her to say more about what she was experiencing. She described holding onto herself just to get through it, because she was so uncomfortable.
I explained to her that while that response made complete sense, her reactivity was exactly what we were reprocessing. Every time this happens, she gets hijacked. That's what we want to change, because we can't change her mother's actions. We can only change her reactions.
I asked if it would be okay to give herself permission to ease into the experience, knowing she wasn't alone in it this time. If she could process through the shock and startle in her body, it wouldn't keep happening. It would be over, and it would be in the past.
She agreed. Over several sets of bilateral stimulation, I could see the shaking and trembling, but I could also see the movement. Eventually she came out of the shock and overwhelm into feeling anxious, because now she didn't know how her mom would respond next. That's traction. That's a very reasonable response to a situation with real unpredictability.
We continued processing. She got to the other side. Zero SUDs, seven VOC, clear body scan. It was truly over, and it was in the past for her.
The takeaway is simple. We all respond to the demands of memory processing the same way we respond to other life demands. Our clients are going to do in EMDR reprocessing what they do in their lives. In this case, bracing against arousal and trying to move away from it. Of course that's what showed up in the room.
So when the process seems stuck, the work isn't to push past the client's response. It's to coach them, help them give themselves permission to ease into a different experience, one where they aren't alone in it and where it will actually resolve. There will be a beginning, a middle, and an end. And then it's truly over, and in the past.
I go into this in more depth, walking through the steps for getting things moving again when processing has stalled, in the video below.
