One of the biggest questions I get both during and after EMDR Basic Trainings is about how to offer effective interweaves with clients. Here, I will break down the what, when, and how so you can effectively restart stuck reprocessing and have better results with your EMDR clients.
What Is an Interweave?
An EMDR Interweave is a question or statement offered by the EMDR Therapist that is designed to stimulate accessing of adaptive networks so that EMDR Therapy reprocessing that is stalled or excessively strained, will resume and proceed with greater ease and access to needed information.
One of the amazing things about the way that trauma is healed in the human brain is that adaptive experiences, resources or perspectives can be accessed when doing EMDR around a trauma. If this is not happening organically, an interweave can be used to elicit a calmer more balanced, empowered or relieved state of mind, putting the trauma into a different increasingly manageable perspective. The client then may move much more quickly through the reprocessing to reach an adaptive resolution.
How To Find a Good Interweave
I always say that the best interweaves start in the History Taking phase. The more we understand our clients’ mental models of the world, the better we will be able to offer an interweave that will be helpful. During the History Taking (and Preparation) phases, in addition to mapping out their trauma history, I am listening to determine some of the following themes in addition to basic resources:
- What successes have they had in life?
- How do they perceive their challenges?
- Are there any existential beliefs that shape their world?
- Do they have a framework for conceptualizing purpose, trauma,
- and life’s challenges?
- Who or what are their primary resources?
- What were some of their happiest moments in life? What brings them joy?
- What is it they want out of life? What gives them a sense of meaning?
- How is their internal system constructed? Are there parts of their internal system that they can identify?
When I know these contexts, I can step into the client’s world and better see what might be missing so they can reach a resolution in their reprocessing when they are stuck. Maybe they are simply missing some important information that can lead to relief, or maybe they have a more existential dilemma that is keeping them stuck.
While the client is reprocessing, I am occasionally considering what a healthy resolution may look like for them. Do they feel stuck due to something they never were able to say to a lost loved one, or something they wish they could have said to a perpetrator of trauma?
Ultimately, is their healing going to come from the re-establishment of a sense of empowerment or confidence? Maybe it will resolve with an internal feeling of healthy independence or a present sense of safety. Understanding where your client needs to go for their healing to occur is the first step toward offering an effective interweave.
Factors That Influence Which Interweave To Offer
Once I determine what is missing for them or holding them back from a sense of resolution, I will consider a few factors that determine the best interweave to offer:
- Where are they right at this moment in the reprocessing? Offering an interweave that is too far ahead of them, or that ties into something that came up ten minutes ago is not going to be effective. The interweave must take place when they are in the moment in which they are stuck and address the need that they have at that moment.
- I consider options to offer a clear question or statement that will quickly stimulate the desired perspective or belief without taking them into a more cerebral place to ponder a complex question. The interweave should not be complex! It should be simple, short, and easily highlight the maladaptive thinking pattern—but not by pointing out the maladaptive thinking pattern. That is the catch! Rather, it should simply point them down a path whereby they find their own more adaptive thoughts.
Interweave Examples
Take for example a client that is reprocessing years of abuse by a sibling and cannot get past feelings of guilt for not having told their parents about it who then could have stopped the abuse.
Consider also if this client had parents that were extremely disengaged and disconnected from the child during their youth and that the child was in their early elementary years when the abuse was happening. My initial thoughts would be:
- The age of the child and the level of rational thinking a child has at that time. It is normal for a child that age to internalize feelings of responsibility for painful or scary things that happen to them in order to preserve a sense of safety in the world around them.
- To feel a sense of resolve, this client needs to be able to ultimately place the responsibility where it appropriately lies (with the perpetrator) and to give voice to healthier thoughts that they were not able to access during the age at which the trauma occurred.
- What are some ways I can help them to bridge the gap of present known safety or other knowledge into the past when they didn’t have that?
- I would also want to keep them in the reprocessing and not take them out of the flow of it.
To achieve the above, I would consider the following interweaves:
- “What would you like to say to the perpetrator?”
- “If you could step into that scene now, what would you want to say to that child version of yourself?”
- “What would that child want to say to adult you?”
- Then, the ultimate question: “If you could step into that scene now, who would you want to tell about the abuse?”
In each of these scenarios, you are bridging the gap between present and past, current knowledge and past knowledge, and making it easy to tie present perspectives into the way that past trauma is stored.
Through one or more of these interweaves, it is likely the client will realize there was no one available to tell (or that made it easy to tell) about the abuse. The parents were out of pocket and the child did the best she could with the perspective and tools she had at that time to manage the situation. Articulating the words she wishes to have said, drawn from her adult perspective, can then finally bring a sense of closure to the experience and rid the client of shame.
Example of How Not To Use Interweaves
Juxtaposed to the above example, if the therapist were to offer an interweave such as “Why didn’t you tell anyone about the abuse?” the client can become further entrenched in feelings of guilt, or can become too cerebral trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
Improve Your Interweaves To Help Your Clients Heal
For many complex clients, EMDR interweaves are going to be imperative to help them process the trauma. Knowing when and how to use an interweave is key, as poorly selected or poorly timed interweaves can create further stalls or increase an imbalance in their dual attention potentially resulting in difficulty tor them staying present.
There are countless creative interweaves that one could use as long as they are in keeping with the desired resolution, helping to connect to adaptive networks, and do not derail the client from the current theme of the reprocessing.
Learning to use EMDR interweaves effectively is, to a certain extent, an art form. It takes time to develop and it takes practice. Sometimes even the most seasoned clinicians will offer an interweave that is a fail, the client looks completely confused, and the clinician has to move on to resuming the reprocessing and thinking of a different more effective interweave to offer.
Every clinician has been there at one point or another, but the work to develop this intervention effectively is worth the process as it can be a beautiful way to aid the EMDR process, helping the client get to a meaningful resolution of the trauma.
New to EMDR? Consider one of our EMDRIA Approved EMDR Basic Trainings.
Interested in a refresher? Choose from one of our Advanced Trainings.