Treating Childhood Trauma with EMDR with Debra Wesselmann
Treating Childhood Trauma with EMDR with Debra Wesselmann
In this episode of Going Inside, trauma therapist John Clarke sits down with Debra Wesselmann, MS, LIMHP, to explore her decades of work with attachment trauma in children. Debra shares the evolution of her integrative model combining EMDR and family therapy, explains how to work effectively with kids carrying "little parts" of trauma inside, and highlights the critical role of parents in the healing process. Whether you're a clinician or a curious listener, this conversation offers valuable insights into the art and science of trauma therapy.
3 Key Takeaways:
🌱 Discover why traditional EMDR protocols often need adapting when working with children who have complex trauma.
🌱 Learn how involving parents and building a secure emotional environment is foundational before trauma reprocessing can even begin.
🌱 Hear how "little parts" work and therapeutic storytelling can unlock healing for kids long before adulthood
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TRANSCRIPT
Debra Wesselman: [00:00:00] And the other, the other piece I think that's really critical is. These kids with this complex trauma, just like the adults, they have littler parts inside.
They may be five, but they may have a 2-year-old part that is. Is traumatized that they care. They carry those old hurt feelings.
John Clarke: Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their authentic self. Join me trauma therapist John Clarke for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions and soothing guided meditations. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, going inside is your companion on the path to healing and self-discovery.
Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in. Debra Wesselman , has been an EMDR therapist for 30 years and is now a trainer with the EMDR [00:01:00] Institute of Francine Shapiro. She conducts research and has authored and co-authored numerous articles, chapters and books, including two chapters. She co-authored with Francine. In the newly released book, EMDR and Family Therapy Integrative Treatment for Attachment Trauma in Children, Ms.
Wesselman , presents keynotes and workshops for organizations both nationally and internationally. , Deborah, thanks for being here. What else should people know about who you are and how you got here?
Debra Wesselman: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Oh, gosh, how did I get here? You know, I started my career as a, as an elementary school teacher.
And I was teaching in a, a part of. Our community, that really low social economic area and had a lot of, there was a lot of drug addiction problems in that area. And uh, the kids that I was teaching were traumatized and I. I realized that what I really wanted to do was help [00:02:00] them with their trauma instead of trying to teach them when they were not really interested.
, And that led me to go back and get my master's degree and, and really kind of zero in on trauma. And then also we. My husband and I started our family. This is way back, we're talking a long time ago, but, , so in our, in the early eighties then, , we also started a family and we brought our middle child home from Korea and she had, you know, a difficult history and that also made me think a lot about trauma.
, When I. I started, I graduated in 89 and I started working for a psychiatrist who worked with a lot of complex trauma patients. , We didn't really use that term back then, but that is definitely what they were. , And so I got interested early on in hypnotherapy. Mm-hmm. And thought. That might be the way to [00:03:00] go.
And I, I actually got certified in hypnotherapy through the American Society Clinical Hypnosis, but I was at a hypnotherapy conference and people were all buzz about this EMDR, and this was like in 94. And I was, at first I was like, oh, that sounds ridiculous. And. Then the more I heard about it, the more intrigued I became.
And so I got my first training in Denver with Francine Shapiro. , I was lucky that she was still training then, and, and Gerald Puck, I think did the part two. I think Francine was part one. , And it, it blew my mind. And, and when I came back to Omaha and started using it, the people in the, I was the.
First in the community to use it. And the psychiatrist that I was working with were all like, what? What is that nonsense? But as they started seeing changes in their [00:04:00] patients, they were calling me, can you see this patient? Can you see that? They were having me In those days, we had privileges in the hospitals.
We don't really. Do that anymore, but they would have me come into the hospital and work with people. , And, and, but I was always interested in kids too because of my, , you know, because of my history as a teacher and my own family. And, , so then I was like, you know, there was not that much out there on working with kids and, and I was interested in this area of attachment, so I was.
Trying to early on, figure out how do I work with these kids who were coming in and, you know, their attitude was, you know, I don't, I'm not gonna go there with you. I don't wanna talk about that stuff. , So, so it was a, an interesting challenge and. From that in those early days and kind of all of the, the work [00:05:00] around that, I, I really began developing some specific strategies , , and I, early on I worked with, um, Kathy Schweitzer and Stephanie Armstrong.
Um, we together. Uh, the two of us and a couple of other people started the attachment trauma center of Nebraska and they helped me really, um, fine tune this model and. So from that came our first book and, and then I've done some more fine tuning since then and, and learning more about like fetal alcohol effects and yeah, neurodivergence and, and, and more about dissociation and how that all comes to into play.
Mm-hmm. So I had more I wanted to say and, and show people. So from that came the. The second book, Kathy and Stephanie are off doing work creating centers, more centers with focused on this [00:06:00] model. And so they weren't ever crazy about the writing aspect of things, so they said. You just go do that, Deb. Yeah.
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It sounds like you all make a good team in that, that regard. It's kinda like Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. The right combination of people for a class project. You want, you want someone who can like put pen to paper and get it in on time and, you know. Right. I was always like, get in school. Yeah. Yeah. I, I was like the comedic relief like this.
Right. The other, so I probably would've been on your team. Yeah. For better or worse. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it, it's interesting because. In my view, like therapists and like consumers, like the, the zeitgeist around trauma is in a really interesting place right now and kind of exploding both in terms of therapists waking up to, , this idea of actually treating trauma and not just having clients talk about it and put themselves back in it and going, yeah, this sounds really tough.
See you next week. Which is how a lot of, you know Yeah. Trauma gets talked about in the room. Right. Uh, well intending. That's kind of how I started out and even what brought me to [00:08:00] EMDR in 2015 was, gosh, I wish I had something to do, uh, with all this stuff that's coming up. Yeah. But I'm so curious for you, like having done EMDR for decades, you know, , what, what's it been like to see it transform and, um, even, what do you wish you had known back then when you were Yeah.
Getting started with it all and then considering everything, you know now?
Debra Wesselman: I do wish I had done everything now back.
John Clarke: Of course, of
course. Don't bottle it and No, we all do.
Debra Wesselman: But,
but I do, I feel, I feel really grateful to have sort of been part of the whole journey of EMDR and, and grateful that
John Clarke: it's like a revolution.
Yeah. Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: It was like being part of a revolution. It really was. And um, I got to know Francine and that was such an honor. She was, she was so amazing. And, you know, writing the chapters with her, I learned so much. So that was amazing. But, but going back to your [00:09:00] question about what do I wish I had known?
Well, you know, like, I can give you an example of early on after I got my training, um, a mom brought her daughter in who had been headbanging at night and she was a biological daughter. Um. Clearly there was a conflictual relationship and thinking back on it, oh my goodness. Um, you know, it was a probably a terribly disorganized attachment.
Mom probably had all kinds of trauma of her own. And so, you know, I just had the mom leave and I was going to work with the daughter and I, I don't remember what our target was, if it was a. I, I just don't remember anymore. Yeah. But, but what I remember is having her do the eye movements and having her say.
I'm getting nothing. No, no, nothing. [00:10:00] You know? Well, of course she wasn't getting anything. Of course, her defenses were protecting her for good reason. She didn't have a secure holding environment to protect her and support her. And you know, I was totally jumping into that. Before I, before anything was prepared.
, And I remember it was one of those situations where, okay, we have, back in the day we had, uh, a lot of insurance companies where it was like, okay, you got six sessions. Get it. . Get her done, you know? . Wrap it up. Mm-hmm. And I just remember I did not get very far with that kiddo.
John Clarke: And Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: Um, I look back on, you know, cases like that and feel sad.
That I didn't have more. No more, yeah. At that point in time. Yeah.
John Clarke: That, that brings up an interesting point and I, I, I do wanna ask you more about what I think you're already alluding to, which is essentially your, your [00:11:00] model and, and the model that you all are writing about in your new book, um, or have written about in your new book.
But this idea of like, how. How, , fast or slow to go in therapy, how much to push or encourage or challenge clients to get into that kind of optimal, , zone of arousal without taking them? Out the other end. Right. . Or without therapy being so, uh, boring that they're disengaged. Right. . And in my experience, especially with EMDR, sometimes we don't exactly know where that threshold is until we kind of bump, bump up against it, right?
Yeah. And go through that. Yeah. That was too much. Right. Or for the client to go, oh, that, that was too much for my system, or I'm feeling really spacey now, or whatever. And the therapist is going, uhoh, we've only got seven minutes left. You know? . Whatever it is. So like that dance and finding that, that, , that optimal zone is to me a big part of like the art of using the DR protocol or just, you know, doing trauma work and reprocessing work in [00:12:00] general.
. What are your thoughts
on that?
Debra Wesselman: Yeah, I was, I was talking to a Consultee just yesterday and I used those words pretty much. I said, we were talking about how fast to go and when with a, a certain complex client that she was working with. And I said, this is, this is where it's both an art in a science.
This is where, um, we want to. You know, it's like, um, Marsha Linnehan in the DBT world always says, you know, that you wanna balance acceptance with the push for change. Yeah. And that I feel like we're always kind of NGA navigating that balance and where there's not a readiness finding out, you know, what can we do to bring.
Bring more readiness. . , To this situation. And, and I, you know, I work with adults too and, and attachment issues, but with kids, I [00:13:00] think it's so much about the environment and and involving those parent because we can't expect kids to be self regulators there. They're old enough, they're not even teenagers.
They, they need that co-regulation and, and if the attachment is disorganized or insecure, then that co-regulation is, Hmm. It's really not happening. Not happening well at all. So, so much of it to me is about, you know, that's why. In the book, we talk about the three stages where with kids, we actually now stage one is the parent work, and I do at least two to six sessions with parents without the kids in the [00:14:00] room when, when it's this kind of attachment, trauma complex, trauma situation, um to start with them.
And sometimes it's about. You know, if I, if I have some one-on-one time with them and I can, you know, develop some trust and rapport, sometimes I can move them into doing their own work, maybe with one of my partners, , which can do so much too to make them. Ready, ready, and, and able to attune to their child.
Right. Right. Because if they've got all these defenses and, and they're all about survival, they're in survival mode all the time, then they're not their, their brain is not attuning. To this, this child of theirs. . And, and that survival brain, it's just not good for parenting. It doesn't help. Yeah. So that's the first, and
John Clarke: it's, it's a really common state that we [00:15:00] find ourselves in as parents.
It's just surviving, you know. I was thinking about that this morning. Um, I've got a 5-year-old and another one on the way any day now. And, Oh, congratulations.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah.
John Clarke: Thank
you. Um, you know, and, um. Some mornings are always tough for me. I'm not a morning person, and if you have kids, you gotta be a morning person all a sudden, you know?
Mm-hmm. Whether you like it or not. And, , there's just so much to get done in the chaos of the morning. And my wife's already gone to work, you know, by the time I've gotten up, she's. Out the door super early, and then it's me. It's all on you. Breakfast, lunch, getting myself ready somehow. Right. Um, thinking about work, right?
Like thinking about this interview and whatnot. And, uh, yeah, sometimes we are in that survival mode, like just barely getting by. And then if my kid becomes dysregulated right? And I'm already dysregulated, you know, for reasons that have really nothing to do with her. Then that's, you know, I'm not in a good place to, uh, to be reson in resonance with her, you know, and [00:16:00] I'm not as good of a parent.
And that also triggers, yeah, my parts that hold shame around that, around like, yeah, okay. I was like short with her or whatever. , Or impatient, right? And then a part of me is like, you know, you're, you're, you're not doing well. You're screwing up. So I, I was gonna ask you like, in that this first stage with parents, , how do you strike a balance between challenging them but also not.
You know, activating their protector parts so much that they shut down or feel like bad parents, because in my experience . As a clinician and as a parent, the worst news we could ever hear is like, you're a bad parent or you're screwing up, or you're screwing your kid up in some way. Right? And, and yet. We do have to see that when parents bring in kids to therapy, like the parents have to be part of the solution 'cause they're also part of the problem.
Debra Wesselman: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think it's so much about attuning to the parents and attuning to like, like you're talking about the stress in their lives and, and I, [00:17:00] and I can speak to them as a parent, not that you'd have to be a parent, but you know, to.
To, to being real. Yeah. And, and not like all up here. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm this expert and here's what you need to do, or you're a bad parent. , But speaking to them and being real and that, and I wasn't a perfect parent and boy, I, I wish I could go back in time and redo some things. . Uh, what, knowing that I, I would get dysregulated when I was stressed and, , and so that helps parents feel like they're not being judged.
Um, and you know that, that. Mentalizing state that really helps us connect and, and, , attune with people is, is really a state where we do let go of judgments and we're we're real. And, . We are not black and white [00:18:00] and we're not experts, you know, and I, and I tell people it's not a black and white thing, like you're a good parent or you're a bad parent.
, We all have our, we all have our shining moments in a and we all have our moments that we'd rather know and even know about. You know, that moment where I lost my cool whatever, and I just tell them, here's the thing. , When you have a child who has experienced trauma, whether it's. Trauma before they came to you or trauma within your own home.
Maybe parents who you know are now in recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction or something like that. But if your child has been through trauma or medical trauma, it sort of means we have to help you develop some superpowers and so. It's like, it's like you don't get to just be, you know, a, a regular old parent.
. You have to develop these superpowers. . And, and [00:19:00] I, and I feel your pain. I know that when your child is dysregulated and triggered, it is, it's like beyond what most parents ever have to. Expect to do, , because, you know, we have parents that come in and their kids are having meltdowns that last three hours and, you know, they're, you know, maybe they're, they're stealing and they're, , or maybe they're sexually acting out and all that sort of thing.
So it's a, it's a lot for any parent and then especially if they carry their own trauma. So I really attuned to that. And you know, I, and I tell them the best gift you could give yourself and your child is to just do some of your own work on your nervous system through probably some trauma work and other work that, that you could do and that that is going to.
Makes such a huge difference in terms of your kids. And your child's willingness, your child's willingness to open up [00:20:00] and do these hard things of feeling feelings and talking about traumas.
John Clarke: Well, you know, parenting is, is a daily exposure to your own. Unfinished business.
Your own work that's yet to be done, right? Yes. And you know, when we step back and go, why is it such a problem for me that my kid is having big feelings right now?
Is it really a problem that, or that it's happening in the grocery store? And I'm going, oh my gosh, all these people are noticing, right?
Something about this. Like, there's a part of me that goes, I need to shut this down, right? Or I need to get my kid to like wipe away the tears or whatever. , Yeah. And it's really our, our stuff, right? Yeah. Like this, it. Is it really a problem that my kid's having big feelings right now, you know? Yeah. , What, why is it that there's a part of me that wants to kind of like rush them along, right.
Or like
Debra Wesselman: mm-hmm.
John Clarke: Get
them to calm down, right? Mm-hmm. Which also, uh, uh, you know, as a kid or an adult, that doesn't feel good when someone is trying to change you in that way, right? Yeah. Yeah. In other words, saying feeling this way or feeling it [00:21:00] outwardly is not acceptable, like we need to. Yeah. We need to move on..
Debra Wesselman: And we all know how, how well it works. When you say Calm down,
John Clarke: calm down. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've, I've tried that one before. You know, in a conversation with my wife, it didn't go very well. , She's probably also used it on me, didn't go very well either. Right, right. Because also what that communicates is like you're being ridiculous.
Debra Wesselman: Yes. Right? Yes.
John Clarke: Irrational
And again, that's how kids hear it too, is like, you're, you're being unacceptable.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah, it's the opposite of attunement.
John Clarke: Or better yet, like you, you, you're being unlovable, you know? Yeah. And then kids and adults alike. We experienced this loss of connection, right?
Yeah. That, oh my gosh. And that reminds me of like the greatest loss of connection in my life, or the big T trauma or the whatever it is, right? So, , yeah. Has many ripples.
Debra Wesselman: And it moves me then into more dysregulation, more feelings of despair or, , overwhelm and [00:22:00] yeah, it's, it's, but, but it's a common interaction between two individuals of, of, you know.
Whether they're both, uh, adults or you have an adult and a child.
John Clarke: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the irony is a lot of times when we can just slow down and attune to our kids and, uh, resonate with these big feelings and let them have them, then paradoxically they tend to move through them. Quicker.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah. Yes. And when we
John Clarke: do that, but there's also this fear among parents of like, I'm gonna kind of like, , you know, reinforce it, quote unquote, if I like, validate the feeling or validate the big anger, which might be different than, like, you can validate the anger and also comment on the behavior piece, which is like throwing stuff at your brother or whatever.
Debra Wesselman: Right. Yeah, we, in our, in the parent accompanying parent book, we have a, a whole thing on meltdowns. We have, and, and my colleague Ann Potter, really helped, helped me develop this, the three stages of a meltdown [00:23:00] and the first stage of these, these are the big meltdowns, not the tantrums.
You know, like, oh, I want some candy. You gotta give it meltdowns. First stage is like a panic attack. It's. You know they are, they are so frightened. . Deep down inside. They're, and, and the control is not there. And if you move too close. They, they get more dysregulated. They get threatened, and if you move too far away, they feel threatened because you're, you're, you're rejecting them or abandoning them.
So you have to find like the sweet spot where you can kind of hang out, be like, I'm here. I'm right here.
John Clarke: Which is so confusing
because the kid might also be going, I hate you, get away from me. But they're also looking at you like, but oh dear God, also don't leave the room. Don't go far.
Debra Wesselman: Exactly.
Exactly.
John Clarke: And the parents eventually go, I don't know what you want from me. Fine. Just figure it out. Or just be alone. Shut your door until you figure it out, you know?
Debra Wesselman: Yeah. [00:24:00] And of course that taps into things that parents carry. Yeah. In terms of rejection and hurt, and, you know, well, okay, then I'll just, .
I'll just leave. Fine. .
John Clarke: Figure it out yourself. Right. Yeah. Because the parents are feeling that as like, I'm, I'm no longer useful. Right. Or I'm being useless by my kid. Right. They're having these huge feelings and re rejecting my help, or whatever, you know? .
Debra Wesselman: . . And the second stage, you can start to move closer and be, you know, reassuring and.
A little, little more connecting. And then in the third stage, that's usually their, they've come through it and now they're in shame. And oftentimes they're sobbing or they're just so ashamed or they're hiding and that's where they really need the embrace and just, you know, it's okay, we'll figure this out.
. , And we'll take this in the therapy. I always tell them, just, you know, you don't have to figure it all out. You can, yeah. Just reassure them. We can. In therapy, we can figure out what was the trigger and we can work on, you [00:25:00] know, how they can manage it and so on. Yeah.
John Clarke: Well, kids and adults alike.
When we're dysregulated, we're no longer learning. Right. Like, you're not gonna have a teaching moment. Right. You know? Right. About the candy or the hitting when your kid's completely dysregulated. Right. And I see a lot of parents trying to like, also make it a teaching moment and it's like, I, I get that and there's a time in place.
. , Again, and I, for my parent clients, it's like as an adult or when you're talking to your boss at work and you're getting some difficult feedback and getting super dysregulated, right? And just like white knuckling that conversation, it's like, , your brain is no longer in a state where it can learn, right?
Or . Creative and compassionate and all these things that we need as, as parents, right? Um, so , gotta really kind of. Choose your moments as a parent every day.
Debra Wesselman: That's
That is so true. That is such a good point. Yeah. And we're off it. Parents often, you know, the natural thing Yeah. Is you need to do this and next time you remember [00:26:00] child's dysregulated and it's just, nothing is integrating.
John Clarke: Right. . Nothing's getting in. Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: No.
Yeah. So yeah, we started this conversation talking about that. You know, readiness and how fast to move . Move kids, um, or adults. And, and definitely when it comes to kids, the, the environment is really that first piece of work with the parents and getting them on board.
And then the beauty of is. Of it is you can bring them into the sessions, even into those readiness sessions. We have a lot of activities we do with kids and parents to help them and they're, and we tell parents, you are gonna learn along with your child, you know, you. And this way you and your child also have a language you can share, that you can speak at home, you know, as they learn about belly breaths and, , the cooked Noodle exercise where we [00:27:00] relax our bodies like a cooked noodle, you know, different things that they can do even together at home.
And this is building trust, building connection, building that shared language and that sense of collaboration. And then we have our EMDR resource. Uh, methods that we, we've developed where we create experiences of closeness and connection in the session through, , we call it like the messages of love exercise, where we prompt the parent with some questions to bring out these loving.
Messages and loving memories and that sort of thing, and create this feeling of closeness and connection. And then we add the slow BLS to deepen that good feeling. We're building good feelings initially. And the other, the other piece I think that's really critical is. These kids with this complex trauma, [00:28:00] just like the adults, they have littler parts inside.
They may be five, but they may have a 2-year-old part that is. Is traumatized that they care. They carry those old hurt feelings. And so we are often talking with kiddos about the littler part of them on, on the inside or inside their hearts. And we, but the beauty of it with kids is they still have parents, so it's not too late.
To meet the unmet needs of the littler parts inside of the child. Not only the the 10-year-old sitting in your office or the 13-year-old, but the the 2-year-old and the 5-year-old parts on the inside. So we do a lot of. Kids have imagination. So we do a lot of, you know, imagination exercises where the parents go into safe nurturing [00:29:00] worm spaces with the littler ones on the inside and care for them and talk about what they're gonna do for them.
And then we add this slow B ls again to deepen and help them integrate. That, that positive affect, and we can do a lot of healing sort of preliminary work that helps move that child into a space where they can then reprocess their traumatic memories with little parts sort of tucked in and feeling safe and using their big kid brain.
Which allows access to the adaptive information. That they care that, that we've provided and the adaptive information that they know. And so the processing then goes so much easier. And it's easier to. Recall and think and talk about your past trauma when you're feeling [00:30:00] surrounded by connection.
. And support. And you feel a sense that those littler parts are safe on the inside and cared for and nurtured. Now it's a safer. Time to venture into some of those more difficult memories. So it's all about doing the preliminary work. Creating the right environment and the timing and that, that makes a huge difference.
But it, but like you say, there's still this sort of balance that we're always trying to manage. Yeah. Are we going too slow or are we going too fast?
John Clarke: Yeah. ,
Well, that, that's also like the art of, again, you implementing or using a protocol. And so at, you know, at, at my. Group practice that I own.
It's a training practice and everyone is trained in EMDR or gets trained through us. And, [00:31:00] they're developing as trauma therapists, you know, during their residency with us for a couple years. And, um, a lot of times when trying to start using EMDR, they kind of forget that they're also a therapist.
You know, they forget that they're a practitioner. There's a person in the room that also needs. Attunement and resonance and, , sometimes you're missing cues because you're looking down at the protocol or worried about skipping a step or whatever it is. So, , yeah, I often really encourage them to, uh.
Also remember to be in the moment with their client, even though yes, they're also doing this protocol. , But there's also, yeah, there's a part of them that's afraid to like skip a step or whatever it is. Right. And yeah, sometimes that can, uh, make that, that can be, you know, counterproductive for the, the work.
Debra Wesselman: That's hard, isn't it? Especially when EMDR is still new. Yeah. Because it's sort of taking all of your, all of your focus, all of your. [00:32:00] Is going into just remembering the protocol and what are the steps? Yeah. What is the script and , yeah. I think it's, it's, it's hard for folks to bring their actual therapist presence into the room .
And be who they really are and do the things they know already and instinctively as a therapist. Yeah. It's hard what we do, John.
John Clarke: Yeah,
it's hard. It's,
Debra Wesselman: it's not easy.
John Clarke: It's not easy. There's a lot of ambiguity, right? And yeah, but we also are desperate for things that kind of reduce the ambiguity. So again, whether it's like a protocol or like DBT of, like, we go through these modules, right?
And I think some therapists. Lean on that too much as a way to kind of escape the ambiguity and the uncertainty of like what we do. , . But that's also very human to want to try to reduce therapy into something that's, , you know, more understandable for us and for the client. Right? Yeah.
Right, right, right. We wanna know [00:33:00] what we're doing and again, like especially for therapists and our own histories, , and with a, a core piece of trauma being. Loss of agency, loss of control, feeling outta control. Like we don't wanna feel outta control in the therapy room. You know? Certainly not. No, certainly not.
Or feeling uncertainness like where this is going or is this helping? . Or Oh my gosh, my client or this kid is getting worse as treatment progresses. Right.
Debra Wesselman: But we do have those feelings because we're human, right? . We, and we don't, we don't want to. But I think, I think the key is being. Attuned to what we are feeling.
. So that we're, we're managing those feelings that we're having at the same time that we're attuning to what's going on inside the client. Because if we only attune one way or the other. We're, we're gonna lose. We're gonna lose the connection.
John Clarke: That's right. Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah.
John Clarke: Well, you know, I [00:34:00] think, , something that sounds like it really works for your model is you have a process that you walk people through and that builds a lot of trust that is in itself a container, right?
Of like, we're in this stage one piece of working with the parents and doing this resourcing stuff. , And. Showing them like, this is where we're at in the process. Yeah, it's like we need that for anything. You know, it's like I, I bought a car recently and like the guy was really good at showing me where I was in that process.
'cause it's like not something I do every day and it really stinks to feel uncertain or new at something or like I. Hey, are we like at the end of this process or at the beginning, or what happens next? Right. . And so that's a big piece of building this container, even though there is also lots of, uh, you know, fluidity and ambiguity inside of the, the stages.
Right,
Debra Wesselman: right. I think you're very right. I think that we all do better when we sort of. Have a path and we see what's [00:35:00] coming up. We have at least a sense of it. I think that's very true. It is a, a sort of container. I hadn't thought of it that way, but That's
right.
Yeah.
John Clarke: So that being said, and yeah, we got maybe 10 more minutes left.
What else is, um, included in your model and what else is in the book? Mm-hmm. Um, that helps to set all of this up and help. You know, clinicians use it.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah. So, yeah, so the stage two involves those family therapy and EMDR activities that build trust and connection and, you know, take care of the little parts and all that.
, Stage three is where we, we move in a very gentle way. Into the trauma material, um, tri the triggers and the traumas, and one, one of the things we often do is target and reprocess some triggers early on because the child is getting, , a sense of how the reprocessing [00:36:00] works with something that's a little easier.
, And we might contain it. They're not just, you know, associating to traumas during the session. A lot of traumas that maybe, maybe one, and we may use an interweave, like, and how is it different today? Bring it back to the trigger. , Do future templates. And the thing about kids too is you can, and, and especially kids with some neurodivergence or.
Fetal alcohol exposures. We can do a lot of role plays. We can use sand tray or puppets, , whether we're working with traumas or triggers or future templates. And, and they love that stuff that engages them and feels, feels fun and playful for them. , But then as we move into the trauma piece, we like to begin.
with a timeline and a therapeutic story and , Joan. [00:37:00] I love her stuff. She helped us early on, develop a little outline specifically for kids who, you know, came from hard places and we write this little therapeutic story. Well, we start with a timeline just. First, putting on the timeline things that were positive in their lives or where they lived, when kind of neutral and maybe some positive events.
And what were the good things you learned when you went on that vacation or you moved in with grandma and then put in, you know, some of the, what are some of the hard things? And then we add, just briefly add those to the timeline. You know, of course we've already done history taking with the parents. I know everything.
The child has a whole world of stuff in their brains that they've never shared and it comes out, I find that it just comes out piece by piece gradually. So we start with a very simple timeline and they [00:38:00] usually will add some things there. And then we start writing a story Ala Jones, , outline, and it starts with grounding them in the present.
And then we, . Talk about the first hard thing? No, the first good thing, usually we, we say here's these are, this is Joan's, , little sentence. She inserted like, all kids, this little child had some good things in their life and they say had some hard things. So we start with a good thing. And one good thing is always just that they were bored.
They were. Open to learning and curious and a good heart, you know? And then maybe the hard thing, and we just touch on it, like a hard thing was, oh, their mom had a problem with these, these bad kinds of drugs that made her brain foggy and she didn't know how to take care of her baby. And then we put in.
What the [00:39:00] little child may have believed at the time, like that little baby may have thought. , Maybe I can't trust anyone and, and maybe I'm not lovable enough. And then we put in what we all want that would want that baby to know. We all would want that baby to know. The truth is that baby was lovable and special and , mom was doing the best they could.
Um, although this was, this was a sad thing, and then we move into maybe something good, like somebody stepped in who saw that hard things were happening. And so then we talk about the good thing and how they were cared for in a good way. , And we make it short. It's just a short little story. It's just a beginning, but it's a first sort of, you know, venturing into that hard.
Really hard story. I mean, we've got kids with such hard stories, parents who've, you know, been in prison or murdered [00:40:00] somebody or you know, just all kinds of stuff. So they need to, they need an adult to make sense of it for them first. We cannot expect them to just go process that when they have no adaptive information in their brain to make sense of it.
So the story makes sense of it, and we do it, we read it through with the fast BLS. And then we go back and just target individual events. . And now they've got, they've got some, you know, language that makes sense and. The processing goes so much better because also they have this support and the parents are right there.
Even if it's the parent who had the addiction and they've reunified. , I have found that to be an amazing opportunity for that parent to make repairs and, you know, as an interweave to say, you know, mom, if you could go back in time, what would you do? And, and oh, [00:41:00] they, you know. They love being able to
talk about what they would do if they'd been sober and how they would, how they're so sorry for what happened. It's a very healing thing for parents and kids. . Um, if they're adoptive parents, they can talk about what they would do if they would be able to fly back in time and be there with that little baby and, you know, what they would do then.
So there's, there's all kinds of healing opportunities through little interweaves when you have parents in the room. Yeah.
John Clarke: Yeah. In our practice, we, some of us see kids and teens, um, although mostly adults and a lot of times in working with adults, you know, I'm working with folks who have that story piece having been locked in for decades..
It's like really,
it's like really rooted in there, right? Yeah. Like, it, it feels like truth. Um for instance, like that I was, uh, you know. Sexually abused, and it was my fault, you know, when I was seven and it's [00:42:00] decades later. Right.
Debra Wesselman: You've lived with that
your whole life.
John Clarke: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like that.
That must be the truth, because the familiar familiarity is so great. Right? And it's locked in. Uh, at least for now. And one thing that EMDR is really good at is, um, helping to uproot some of that piece, right? That, that cognition, that core belief piece that is often attached to the trauma. Like, what, what does this mean?
Or what do I fear this means about me? This thing will happen to me. Right. And usually it's just, it's right there. Like, you know, that that cognition is readily available, it's there to be worked with.
Debra Wesselman: And, and one of the things that I love about working with kids. Now, you know, they don't have to live with that for decades.
Exactly. They don't have to, you know, it won't shape their life. . You know, that belief that there was something wrong with me and I'm not lovable. Um, they have an opportunity for a new future when we can intervene. Early. . Um,
John Clarke: that, [00:43:00] that was the point I was trying to make, but I forgot to bring it home.
Debra Wesselman: You forgot the point
John Clarke: for bringing it home. Yeah. Like working with that. What you said is so the time of injury. Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: What you said is so true though, that thank, thank goodness we have EMDR. Yeah. Because that can unlock those, those old beliefs that have been set in stone forever.
John Clarke: Exactly. Yeah. , Deborah, the, this has been, uh, yeah, really great to hear about your work and how you got here and, , and of course the book.
So congrats on the new book. , this episode will be released a few weeks from now, which will then be, I think. A few weeks from the release date of the book. So that being said, how can people find out more about the book and how can they get their hands on it?
Debra Wesselman: Yeah. Well, it's, it's, of course all books are on Amazon and, and WW Norton is the publisher.
Um, uh, they can learn more also on my website, which is debrawesselmann.com. So [00:44:00] that's a good place to go.
John Clarke: Great. Yeah.
Debra Wesselman: Thank you so much for having me, John. This was a lot of fun.
John Clarke: Pleasure.
Yeah. Yeah. We'll be sure to put links to that. Um, and I also, I was looking at your website and it looks like you also have lots of different trainings for clinicians that Yeah.
Are, are offered. Yeah. So there's lots to check out and it seems like a lot of different ways people can, uh, can learn from you. That's great. Yeah. Well, thank you again, Deborah. , All the best with your work and with the book, and as you continue to evolve, um, this, uh, this, this model. So, , yeah.
Thanks again for being here.
Debra Wesselman: Yeah, take care, John.
John Clarke: Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching, and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at John Clarke Therapy and apply to work with me one-on-one at johnclarketherapy.com
See you next time.