What is IFS-informed EMDR?

Hopefully you arrive at this blog with a basic understanding of Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapies, separately. If not, I warmly invite you to read both prior blog articles to access these individual introductions.

These two powerful, evidence-based trauma-focussed therapeutic modalities have contributed significantly to the field of traumatology over the past few decades. So great has been the impact of both independently, that a number of highly specialist academics, researchers and clinicians have begun to integrate them. There are in fact now several frameworks which guide therapists to weave the principles and techniques of IFS/ Ego state theory and EMDR together, so that a client gets to experience the rich understanding and healing benefit of both.

The Syzygy Model

The framework I have been trained to use to integrate IFS with EMDR is called The Syzygy Model, which was developed by Bruce Hersey, who himself has been teaching both EMDR and IFS Therapy since 2007, now via the Syzygy Institute which he founded with Michelle Richardson. This integrated approach to trauma healing incorporates IFS & principles of coherence therapy, into EMDR therapy with adherence to EMDR standards. Since my own training with Syzygy, I have had the privilege of further deepening my skills by working as a “guide” for new therapists in IFS-informed EMDR training with The Syzygy Institute.

The confluence of EMDR and IFS, honed by the knowledge of the memory reconsolidation sequence (as illuminated by Coherence Therapy) is a holistic methodology that creates paths for deep healing.

Bruce Hersey

The Syzygy model in particular is known for its comprehensive approach to working with Protector Parts (psychological defenses) and offers tools for assessing and measuring Protector Energy; processes to increase “Self-Energy”, and interweaves to strengthen the Self to Part relationship throughout therapy.

For Whom, When and Why might IFS-Informed EMDR offer more than either model alone?

Who?

This way of working can actually suit anyone who is interested in and open to an experiential style of therapy. Experiential therapies emphasize the client’s lived experience, encouraging them to engage with and process emotions and situations rather than just talk about them. So, IFS-informed EMDR could theoretically suit a client, curious to explore their internal world without focussed therapy goals, while also being excellently suited to those who are significantly impacted by distressing symptoms and experiences associated with complex trauma.

When?

A critique of standalone EMDR is that the traumatic memories identified as “targets” for treatment are often distressing and painful by nature, and have therefore been avoided for many years, to prevent overwhelm. Whilst theoretically, clients often understand the need to revisit such memories, the reality of exposing such raw experience can be overwhelming, and be a barrier to engaging in the work. Conversely, occasionally a client can be so determined to “get past their past”, they rush towards reprocessing with EMDR, and find that it makes them feel worse.

EMDR can sometimes override managers and access exiles before the system is ready to handle them. This results in what IFS calls “backlash,” in which managers or firefighters’ parts (defensive ego states) punish the client or the relationship with the therapist for violating their rules.

– Richard Schwartz & Joanne Twombly.

IFS-informed EMDR greatly reduces the risk of this, by following IFS principles of working only where, and at the speed that parts consent to, and no further.

Because of the structure of standalone EMDR, a traditional EMDR therapy session may feel quite different in quality to other talking therapies. EMDR, especially at the point of processing traumatic memory, follows a protocol which discourages too much talking, in favour of tracking internal experience and ultimately, working to connect traumatic memory with new, adaptive information. Under time-limited conditions, your EMDR therapist will likely focus the session, guiding you towards and away from ideal conditions for the work. For some clients and therapists, this structure can feel ridged and formal. IFS-informed EMDR maintains adherence to the EMDR protocol, whilst at the same time, allowing sessions to flow at the pace and speed dictated by the client and their internal system. Sessions generally look less scripted, and flow around a “roadmap” rather than a manual, with flexibility and choice about how to respond to what comes up.

Why?

As you may have gathered by now – you might just choose IFS-informed EMDR because you are interested in the healing potential of both models, and like an experiential style of therapy. However, there are also some situations when IFS-informed EMDR might be a preferable modality:

The re-processing component of EMDR is contraindicated or delayed in some circumstances, such as for clients who find it difficult to connect to feelings, memories or body sensations, or for those who do not have the emotional resources available to tolerate what might come up. Even for those whom the model appears to fit well, re-processing can occasionally get “blocked” or stuck, leaving a client unable to benefit from the positive effects of trauma processing. Here, the IFS-informed EMDR approach offers a way to meet and understand these “blocks”, by befriending them as protective strategies (or parts), and uses expanding Self-energy to build confidence to access what was once defended in order for processing to continue with consent from the whole system.

Ego state techniques may make the conditions of many clients more accessible and the treatment safer for EMDR therapists.

John G. Watkins.

So what might a session look like?

In IFS, we understand symptoms as “parts”, and we seek to understand why it once made sense for this part of you to act in the way it does. Our early work is to create a map of your current symptoms and experiences, and how they might be connected to relationships and experiences from the past. We will set our “GPS” towards relevant past experiences or parts, and from EMDR, we might use Bilateral Stimulation to help to expose “Self-energy” as an alternative (or compliment to) resourcing, in traditional EMDR. When Self to part connection develops, and with full consent, we invite protective parts to share their story or soften back. When the system allows, we might then slip seamlessly into processing a Protectors’ Urge to Protect, or the painful experiences of a hurt or exiled part using EMDR protocol.

A note to acknowledge that this blog is a little more technical than some of my previous, and may even be of relevance to interested therapists and clinicians as well as interested clients.

As a client of IFS-informed EMDR the best way to really understand how these principles work in practice is to experience them.

You can learn more about IFS-informed EMDR here: Syzygy Institute and you can get in touch with me if you would like to discuss whether this way of working might be a good fit for you.