About the Session
Session Description:
The research on social drift up to this point focuses on the hypothesis that illnesses, both physical and mental, can cause one to have a downward mobility within society. We hypothesize that illnesses can cause the descent of individuals into lower socioeconomic classes, resulting in a disenfranchisement that further exacerbates mental health symptoms and dysfunction. Our presentation seeks to encourage insights into how non-hetero-normative identifying individuals can experience downward social drift as trauma. It is our belief that EMDR therapy can be utilized as an effective intervention to resolve these traumas, leading to upward mobility and increased mental well-being.
Learning Objective 1
Participants will be able to provide psychoeducation to clients regarding how identifying and expressing non-hetero-normative gender, sexual identity, and intimate partnering models can lead to the traumas of having attachments severed and the experience of downward social drift. This normalization of triggered symptoms up to and including psychosis will help the development of insights into how these behaviors were originally adaptive responses to traumatic experiences. Participants will be able to then partner with clients in identifying negative cognitions (NC) and emotions triggered by these experiences in order to process them with EMDR protocols.
Learning Objective 2
Participants will gain insights and develop skills in regards to how to keep individuals within the window of tolerance, while processing the roots of these experienced traumas – i.e. how identifying and expressing non-hetero-normative gender, sexual identity, and intimate partnering models can lead to the traumas of having attachments severed and the experience of downward social drift. Participants will be able to utilize these insights to create an effective therapeutic alliance; develop rapport and attune to individual client’s experiences, enhancing the clinical relationship which is a core requirement for effective EMDR interventions.
Learning Objective 3
Participants will be able to understand and explore the impact of downward social drift; to clarify and respond to LGBTQ+ phobia both external and internal equipping themselves with an interpersonal understanding of the relational imperatives, operating during EMDR therapy with this client group.