Funny You Should Ask! Looking For In-Person Training?

In-Person EMDR Training in Salt Lake City, Utah

Have you been wondering, Where can I find EMDR training near me? If you reside in the southwestern part of the US or are interested in an in-person EMDR training, the Center is offering an advanced program in Salt Lake City. This is a growing community of EMDR clinicians who want to continue doing their best work with their clients and are eager for an in-person educational experience. I have a long history there, teaching both EMDR Basic Training and Advanced EMDR Trainings, so I’m truly delighted to be invited back again!

The Triangle of Trauma:  Victim, Victimizer, or Rescuer, is the only in-person training I’m offering in the US this year!  This Advanced EMDR training takes place April 20th & 21st, at the Doubletree Hotel by Hilton at the Salt Lake City Airport.  I’ve presented there before, and it’s a great location for an in-person EMDR training event!  We’re on Salt Creek Lake where you can take nice walks during breaks while enjoying a breathtaking view of the snow-capped Wasatch mountains!

What is the Triangle of Trauma?

Karpman’s Triangle (1968) refers to a particular relational dynamic that happens in families where there is unresolved attachment trauma, and people start to play out the roles of Victim, Victimizer, and Rescuer.  This dynamic isn’t limited to families, of course, as we see it in many types of relationships on both the macro as well as micro levels. What makes it important for us as therapists, however, is that the roles are both dependent on one another and interchangeable.  In other words, while we may favor one role over another, we will end up in all three roles sooner or later.

Every Victimizer needs a Victim.

Every Victim needs a Victimizer.

Every Victim needs a Rescuer.

In EMDR therapy, we’re working with experience in real time, based on how the client is currently experiencing it. And as we all know, it can be intense and unpredictable. As therapists, we can inadvertently step into any of these roles, depending on what’s happening with the client and how we relate to it!

For many therapists, our proclivity under stress is to rescue. It’s our strength, and it’s our vulnerability.

It’s also our superpower.  

We’re good at being helpful, but as is often the case with superpower qualities, it can be too much of a good thing.  And when it’s too much of a good thing, we inadvertently step into and reenact these dynamics, which can be problematic for us, the client, and the work. What happens? We run aground and get stuck.

So, what’s this in-person training about?

The Triangle of Trauma is about helping clinicians identify and be aware of these relational dynamics because they’re happening whether we know it or not.  So, it’s not just that it happens; it’s also about what we do about it when it does.  How we work our way through it in our relationship with our clients determines whether it can be a reparative, if not a corrective experience!  How many people who were hurt by their primary caregivers as children got an apology for it?  And if they did, what happened next?  Was it really different the next time, or did it just happen again and again, adding to the already long list of broken promises?  These common foundational experiences contribute to these triangle dynamics and provide a rich landscape of unresolved experiences that we can treat in EMDR therapy.

 This is actually a great course to experience as an in-person EMDR training because we’re having a shared experience throughout the course with one another as colleagues, which both normalizes what can happen while at the same time discovering how we can each respond differently to a similar presentation.

Because we’re all going to get in the dynamic. It’s inevitable, and it’s going to happen. The question is when it does. How long does it take for us to know when it’s happening? Because that’s the only way we can step out of it.

When a victim is having the experience of being rescued, it feels good! So, when a therapist catches themselves in rescuing, the therapist might think, “Oh, I need to stop doing this, because it’s not all that helpful to my client.”   Most of us have had to navigate this shift before, and if it’s not carefully done, the client may feel victimized by the change.

Because the only way out of the triangle is through the position of the victimizer which is not easy for us as therapists.

What the course includes

The course will include small and large group discussions for us to explore our reactions and how to identify how it feels in our bodies. If we can know for ourselves what it feels like to get “hijacked,” then we stand a better chance of finding our way through it with our clients.

 We all have our moments. It’s what happens next that really matters.

Whatever it is, we need to get to the bottom of it for ourselves, in the same way that we want to get to the bottom of it for our clients.

Will you join me in Salt Lake City? For more information and to register for the Triangle of Trauma course, click here.