Tumbling around in my mind, as well as my therapist husband’s mind, is the change from Shapiro’s method of EMDR treatment to the Attachment Focused EMDR method of Laurel Parnell. It’s exciting to be thinking that we can incorporate more of a developmental focus in addressing early trauma.
The idea that caretakers can be THAT invalidating is hard to fathom sometimes. We begin to understand that, at best, dad wasn’t available, and mom just didn’t have what it takes to parent well. And the child was invalidated because s/he wasn’t seen, wasn’t met, wasn’t heard. And that’s if dad or mom wasn’t abusive, which they often were.
The idea of Complex PTSD, still unrecognized by the writers of the DSM, fits so well for so many. The network of people that have begun to extend help to those who have been invalidated by the parenting they received includes more and more practitioners.
Beginning to learn the attachment focus part of the EMDR method, my mate and I find ourselves waking in the middle of the night to talk about the tangled webs of parenting that have kept John or Jane from expecting the world – especially their own family or village – to be a user-friendly space. If you’re interested in addressing trauma with Attachment Focused EMDR, see Laurel Parnell’s website for available trainings and recommended readings. https://parnellemdr.com/