Welcome to another episode from the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. For those of you that are able to see this recording live, you may recognize the beautiful individual that is sitting next to me right now. For those of you that cannot see who I’m referring to, everyone, we have Anna Gomez with us.
And if you’re not familiar with who she is, you are definitely going to be familiar with who she is by the end of this episode. Anna, I am so beyond grateful that you are joining me in this conversation today. Thank you so very well.
I’m really, really excited. And Lisa, thank you so much for inviting me. I know this is going to be a lot of fun, and I know that probably we’re going to need 2 hours to talk and chat.
I imagine that, like we said before we even hit record, we could probably have a really long conversation. Yes. So for those of you that are not familiar with Anna, her accolades are vast.
I’m going to share a couple things with all of you. She’s the founder and the director of the oh, my gosh. Thank you.
The Agate Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, which is the Anna Gomez attachment and trauma. What does the E stand for? The Institute. The Institute.
Okay, beautiful. She’s a psychotherapist author, international speaker, and she is, in my opinion, the most world renowned EMDR expert that is on our planet right now. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about today is EMDR, specifically with children.
You also work with adolescents as well as the littles you specialize in complex and developmental trauma, generational wounds, dissociation. I know some of the areas that a lot of play therapists find themselves confused about and how can they be most helpful. I mean, you lead keynotes presentations, trainings around the world in multiple languages.
You do so many things. I remember I want to share this with you. I remember when I first did my EMDR training and I was also training to be a play therapist, and I found myself wanting so badly to figure out how to use EMDR with children.
And I remember hearing this know Anna Gomez, anna Gomez, have you heard of I’m like, who is this woman. And then you came out with your book and I just want to personally say thank you because your book, which was really the first introduction in our field to really how to apply EMDR with kids, was such a grounding experience for me. And I just want to say thank you.
It’s hugely impactful for me personally as a clinician and an EMDR practitioner. So thank you so very much for getting us on the journey. Like I said, she’s won so many different accolades.
Is there anything else that you would love to share with our listeners? I think that I’m taking everything that you’re giving me. What a beautiful mirroring experience. I’m taking it in.
So thank you. Yeah, I think that’s a great introduction. Thank you, Lisa.
Yeah. Thank you so much for what you are doing. Let’s just start with I’m saying EMDR as if everyone knows what I’m talking about.
And maybe some of our listeners don’t know what EMDR is, maybe they don’t know what it’s about. I also know that you personally studied and worked directly with Francine Shapiro, so maybe you could bring us a little bit into what it is and a little bit about your journey as an EMDR practitioner just to help orient us. Yeah, so let me start with my journey.
But it’s a long journey, Lisa, because it’s so connected to my own journey as a helper, as a therapist, as a companion. And I can’t pinpoint just one event in my life, but I just feel like, first of all, I came here to do this. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
And second, I think my life experiences really led me to where I am right now. Even my experiences as a child, even my own wounds have been an asset in this process. My own exploration, my own struggles, my own challenges.
And so very early in my life I was extremely curious. I was a very curious child that drove adults crazy. And I remember I told Francine that because I kept asking her questions and I said, look, I drove a lot of adults, including my mother, crazy with questions and I’m doing that with you, I’m realizing.
And she said, no worries, I did the same to my mother, so keep bringing your questions. But anyway, so I was extremely curious as a child and I actually wanted to be a philosopher. So I fell in love with philosophy very early in my life.
And something funny, a funny story is that when I was twelve years old, I started to organize kind of discussion groups and discussion groups to discuss about the mysteries of the universe. Oh my gosh, I know why I love you now. Beyond just EMDR, you know, it’s funny, I would have wanted to be your friend.
Growing up, you were in know that’s something that we share. But the first topic was the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. What’s going on? In the Bermuda Triangle.
Oh, there is life in other planets. Those were our discussion topics. And then as I became an older teenager in Colombia, growing up in Colombia, the last two years of high school, we had philosophy.
And so of course, I was like the first right there listening to the teacher and started to invite the teacher to this groups. We continued to do those groups, discussing things. And everything was about the mysteries of life.
And I wanted to study philosophy, but people said to me, what are you going to do as a philosopher? I said, I want to be a thinker. What’s the problem with that? But how are you going to make a living? So then I went for psychology. And the second thing, I wanted to be a pilot, because at the time I always thought that why is it that we were not given wings? We will be so perfect if we could fly.
And so I wanted to fly, I wanted to be a pilot. But we didn’t have the financial means and it was very expensive to take flying lessons. So I had to kind of give up on that.
And so I went for psychology. I couldn’t be a philosopher, so I went for psychology. And then later on, years later, I also dance.
I love dancing. And I know you were in Colombia, so you know, in Colombia we dance because of a birthday party or Christmas or New Year’s for any reason. Yeah, the sun came up.
So I joined a ballet company. I was dancing and I loved it. And I didn’t really know at that time, and now I understand know how it completed my experience.
It was an embodied experience and just the love that I had for dancing. And so I ended up coming then to the US. And then later on I started my master’s degree here in the United States.
That was 27 years ago. And then I was introduced to EMDR therapy. And I was already using play therapy or Santre and other therapeutic approaches.
And then I was introduced to EMDR therapy. I remember I went to the training and in the EMDR training in the afternoon, you practice. And so I went for it because I am my biggest lab.
So basically, whatever I do therapeutically, I try with myself as I dive into the deeper corners and shadows of my own self. So I went for it, to experience it. I figure, let me see what this is about.
And it was very powerful because five minutes later I was like, wow, this took me to a place that I never expected to go to. And from that point on, I was sold. And then I started to dive into what is this EMDR therapy? 22 years ago when I learned it is a technique that could be incorporated into any other therapeutic approach.
And then later on, it became a much larger, comprehensive therapeutic approach. And so that’s kind of my journey. And there’s another piece.
In one of my first jobs as a clinician. I was not a child therapist, really. And I remember I had a dream.
I have a very rich dream life. And so I had a dream, and in that dream I was in front of this big, like, waterfalls and there was a boy that asked me to jump. And I was frightened.
I was very scared to do that, but I did. And this boy took me to this incredible place. It was like a huge lake full of children.
Wow. Children everywhere. So a few weeks later, there were five children that had history of sexual abuse.
And so my supervisor assigned those five cases to me. I was working with adults, so I didn’t even know that I had this passion in me. So I started to work with them.
And my supervisor said to me, you know, Anna, you got something here. You need to work with children. And I started to work with kids more and more and then at some point discover, this is my calling, basically, this is part of my journey.
And started to then that’s when I learned EMDR Therapy and really started to dive into utilizing it with children. Yeah. Beautiful.
So, EMDR, will you share what it stands for and really just the gist of it for our listeners that aren’t yet familiar with what exactly we’re referring to? Would you start there for us? Yeah, sure. So EMDR therapy stands for eye movement, desensitization and mean. The original name was actually EMD.
And then Shapiro started to notice that it was not just what she was seeing. As a result of using EMDR Therapy in dual attention stimulus, bilateral stimulation, what she was seeing was not just a reduction in the intensity of the emotions or the emotionality, but she was seeing something different. And that’s when she added the word reprocessing.
So she was seeing Insight Movement, Change Linkages, which she later on said linkages among memory systems. So it stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. However, Francine said it years ago, if I could name this therapy again and give it a different name, it will be a reprocessing therapy.
And for me, the way I see it really is a form of therapy that is about integration at multiple levels. Not just integration of memory, but there is integration of many levels, even when it comes to identity, our sense of self. And what I would say that the most important piece here is the relationship with ourselves.
Because I think trauma, the biggest tragedy of trauma is that that blocks that relationship with ourselves. And so this is about the reconnection to who we’re meant to be in this world. As we utilize EMDR Therapy more, as we experience it more deeply, then we see the depth of what this comprehensive approach can do.
Absolutely. Anna, as you’re talking, you’re highlighting a piece that I think is I hear this when I listen to clinicians talk about EMDR, where they really just focus on it as this protocol to achieve this particular outcome. And it’s this very rigid experience, but I’m hearing you talk about it as something so much deeper.
And I think about the children that I’ve used EMDR with, and I can’t think of an experience that a child is bringing into the room where there hasn’t been some rupture with the self. Even if it’s a child that’s having nightmares or a child that is struggling because they have anxiety to take the test that they’re about to take or because they’re upset because there’s a new sibling that just came into the family and they feel displaced in the system. And that’s creating dysregulation and creating different activation and symptoms.
And I’m just really appreciating how you’re talking about this right now, almost like AMDR as a way back. Yeah, and I just love what you’re saying. Absolutely.
The fluidity, it’s a journey where we become companions, we become witnesses that walk alongside the child, but see, trauma in itself ruptures the fabric in which the self is built upon. And so here is really about visiting those inner dragons that they carry and that all of us carry is just developing a relationship with our inner world, which sometimes can be challenging because many of these children, especially the ones with complex trauma and dissociative tendencies, these are children that may have trauma related phobias, especially phobia of their inner world. And they become phobic of the very things that they long for, like connection, for instance, that we biologically long for and need.
They don’t tolerate it because of the legacy of trauma. And so EMDR therapy is really about that. It’s about restoring that balance.
Homeostasis is helping the child be internally organized for connection, for core regulation. For all the know that many of us teach about and believe in, it is true that when people are initially trained in EMDR therapy, it may seem very technical because there are technicalities to it. There are procedural steps, there are faces.
But what I always emphasize in my trainings is that it’s just we’re dancing. It’s like a dancer. I used to dance and I love dancing.
But when I dance professionally, there is a structure. 123456 turn right. But your audience doesn’t see the technique.
The audience sees a piece of art, the fluidity, the dance, the movement. And that’s how I feel about EMDR therapy. Certainly I know the procedural steps.
I’ve studied them for many years. But in those moments where we’re working together with the child or the system, we are dancing with them. See, there is fluidity and there is a dance that is founded in synchronicity and connection and all those wonderful things that you also teach about.
So the technicalities, yes, we know them, we have them, but they’re not really in that moment of doing EMDR therapy, the child doesn’t even notice, right? That okay. There is a procedural step, number one, number two, number three. Right.
In addition to that, I do think that if we utilize therapy just like as a technique, it won’t have the same impact because it’s still carried forward through an embodied mind that is capable of mentalization, that we’re able to hold the child’s mind in mind in those moments of resonance as we do EMDR therapy. Right. And for that, we also have to do our own work, which I have received a lot of EMDR therapy.
So I need to experience it. I need to know what it feels to visit those shadows within me. And I have to say that this inner visits are the ones that really have helped me take theory to a different level, because otherwise it stays just theory.
But then when you experience it, when you dance with it, when you embrace your own wounds, when you embrace the winters within you, then it’s moved to a very different place where you can truly accompany these children. And I know you do that as well, Lisa. So when I have thought about my own experience with EMDR, what’s often landed for me is this idea of I have a protocol and it’s up to me to bring it to life.
That’s how I talk about it for myself. The protocol is just a protocol. It’s a protocol.
It’s an architectural drawing of a house. Yes. Someone has to build it, right? Someone has to bring life to it.
Someone has to bring it forth. And I have often thought that that’s where so much of the magic and the healing takes place is the way in which the therapist brings it to life in an attuned way with the client. I love that you’re using the language around dancing.
It’s such a beautiful reminder of our role in the healing process and our responsibility in the healing process. Also. One of the things that I often tell my students is that we can’t facilitate change unless we can see something that our clients can know they’re not able to see.
Right. We have to be willing and able to see something that they can’t quite yet. And when I hear you talking about we have to go into our own winters, I even love that language you’re using.
We have to go into our own winters. What comes to mind is this idea of if I don’t know that my winter can turn into summer, then I’m not going to have certainty when I’m with my client that their winter can turn into summer. Beautiful, right.
And I won’t be able to hold a new possibility for my client because I haven’t been through it, to be able to say it’s possible, the integration, the transformation is possible because I don’t know. I would love for you to speak more of that around therapists, maybe even getting stuck in the story with the clients or I don’t know. I just think this is a rich piece of conversation here that’s helpful for us to be considering even more.
As therapists is our own responsibility to know what it feels like to move through something and what that can bring to our clients. Yeah, I love that the analogy and how went from winters to you took it to the next level. As we experience also the spring and the summer, but we also learn about the fall, right.
The power of letting go. As we navigate and dance with the different stages of life. I think that we’re better equipped to accompany another human mind, embodied mind, to do know to go through that journey.
There is an author, Sarah just forgot her last name. And she speaks about mythology, which I’m fascinated by, that I just love stories. And she speaks about the underworld not as the place where mean evil people go, but a place that in our human existence we’ll visit from time to time.
But as we go through the underworld, then she said, which I love, this, the false self is going to start to change and then the authentic self emerges. And so through those travels, death and rebirth, then we find who we are and eventually the ones of us that travel back and forth, then we learn to accompany others. Through that, we become then companions.
And then we can now see in the underworld. We can see through the shadows and then we can guide others, right. To embrace that because that’s part of the healing.
And so in EMDR therapy, we embrace those shadows. We embrace it’s not just a memory as a cognitive verbal narrative, but we embrace the experiences from an embodied perspective. So the emotions, the reactions that our bodies are still having as a result of those experiences.
We don’t just visit a memory from ten years ago, we visit that experience now. Right now. It’s not ten years ago, it’s right now.
How my body is reacting to it, how my heart is reacting to, how my mind is reacting to those cognitive, emotional and somatic schemas. So as you really accompany another human being, it’s transformational. I mean, there are moments, even with my adult clients, where I feel like so honored to be in that moment and to be able to accompany another human being, to go to those deep levels, those deep places of our human existence, right.
Those layers that are so deep, where you know that in that moment something was transformed. And not only for this generation, but you know that it’s been transformed for generations to come. Those are deep moments that you get goosebumps and you know, wow, something happened here.
Right? Yeah. I mean, I’m even having emotion, listening and reflecting on what you’re saying. I’m feeling the power of what you’re talking about in my own remembrance of those moments.
And I know for me, it’s why I decided to become a therapist, because I wanted to be of service to someone. Right. I wanted to support.
So thank you for the reminder of why we do what we do at a really deep level. I’m curious. There’s so many modalities that the end result is integration.
What do you think that’s so unique about EMDR? What’s really special about that? Yeah, let me speak briefly about the other therapeutic approaches, because they have there are many that have significantly influenced my work and how I utilize EMDR therapy. And then we’ll go into what’s special about EMDR therapy. So after EMDR, then I was trained in sensory motor.
And that was a moment of understanding why after I studied psychology, I said, you know, I’m not going to practice now. I want to dance. And my whole family was like, what? You spent six years and five years in Colombia.
Now you want to dance? I say yeah, I want to dance. So when I was training sensory motorcycle therapy and I understood what I was so much implicitly and procedurally I was looking for, see, because the psychology I was trained in was more of behaviorism, and so it didn’t nurture my soul. I didn’t feel like that’s where I belong.
So then I was training MDR, then sensory motor, and I said, oh, this is why I wanted to work with the body. This is why I wanted to dance. And of course, play therapy, sand trays, and just every cell of my body that I absolutely love, and expressive art.
Right. So then I started to put all those pieces together. It’s like a house.
My house is certainly the structure of EMDR Therapy, but I’m bringing fancy furniture. I love that from other approaches. Right.
There are several things I absolutely love about EMDR therapy. The first one is the structure, the guidance that it provides for me. So I know where I am.
It gives me like, a roadmap. So I know this is I’m in preparation phase, even though with complex trauma, it’s very circular. And so your preparation, you do some work with trauma and then you go back to more stabilization or core regulation, whatever work is it that you’re doing.
But it still gives me a roadmap that I can follow, and it allows me to see where I am at any given point. The second part of EMDR Therapy is what I have witnessed in other people and within myself, and how deep when it’s done. Well, I want to remind you of what Shapiro said.
EMDR Therapy is as good as the hands that do it. So it does. Who’s doing it is going to impact the outcome, I believe, of any therapeutic approach.
And so it can bring you to deep layers of the self. I’ve experienced that within myself, going to those core places and deep corners of the self. And so I appreciate that because it can take people when they’re ready or they’re not ready to dive that deep, they will go wherever they’re ready to go.
And so I appreciate that about EMDR therapy. And the third thing that I really appreciate about EMDR therapy is that it doesn’t stay right on the surface, whereas just let’s cope. Let’s just use state change strategies and stays just with coping.
So you learn to cope with anxiety. Good, you got it. Okay.
That was the treatment. So that’s actually the very first part of EMDR therapy work, which is more of the development of capacities. But the most important goal of EMDR therapy is to go deep into the mind, the embodied mind of the person as they are able to tolerate that.
So we do it in a way that is gradual or we titrate it. Right. We honor the rhythm of the embodied mind that we have in front of us.
And so those are things that I appreciate about EMDR. Yeah. I know that I mentioned earlier that I have profound gratitude for you when you wrote your book helping bridge the EMDR world into the world of children, because the original protocol was very adult focused.
And since our listeners are play therapists who may still hold the question around, okay, gosh. So is this a protocol that can be adapted for children? Is this a protocol that we have to stay in one linear fashion with? Will you just speak to the vast possibility of EMDR application with children for clinicians that are wondering, like, wait a this how does this that you’re referencing, how does this even work with kids? Yeah, Lisa, thanks for bringing that up. It is true.
EMDR therapy started as an adult psychotherapy. And over the years, as we utilize EMDR therapy, we learn more and more and more about how it can be implemented with children and adolescents and what are the most effective ways to use it with different populations. Right.
If you’re going to work with a three year old, may be different than if you do it. If you use it with a 17 year old. And if you’re working with a child with good history of very positive attachment, experiences of regulation, connection, shared coherence, all those wonderful things that nature has given us to experience, and then the child has a traumatic event versus the child that grew up in an environment that was traumatizing or traumatized or that was chaotic or that was rigid and that didn’t offer what the child needed.
And so we also need to learn, and we’re learning about how it’s different to use the aphasis of EMDR therapy with the first child that experienced a single traumatic event versus a child that experienced chronicity and that experienced trauma during critical periods of development. So one of the questions and challenges that I’ve brought up in my presentations is are we bringing EMDR therapy to the child or are we bringing the child to EMDR therapy? Are we making the child fit into procedural steps of EMDR therapy? Or are we bringing EMDR therapy to the child in a way that truly honors the uniqueness of the child that we have in front of us? So certainly initially a lot of the research studies in EMDR therapy focus on proving EMDR is effective because it was so weird for people to hear that you’re going to do eye movement or bilateral stimulation in a therapeutic approach. So Francine received a lot of attacks because, of course people thought this sounds really strange and weird.
So initially the focus was proving it is effective. And I think we’re moving now into a different era that is really connected to studying how is this more effective? Right? There is another piece also that I question, not just for the EMDR community, but the community in general. Are children’s issues, individual issues, or are they systemic? Because one of the things is that children come in with what we call symptoms that are really their best attempts to survive in an environment that is not providing what they have.
Right. The child, for example, that has to sleep with the parents at night, it’s clingy, right? And it’s anxious and it has nightmares. So we have some labels for this child.
It’s a disorder. So we pathologize a lot of the reactions of a child, right? A normal reaction to an environment that is not providing what the child needs. So in EMDR therapy, are we going to use just an individual approach, or do we need to use a systemic approach where we see that maybe what the child is doing and what we see is pathological or problematic or a symptom is really the child’s best attempt to adapt to an environment that doesn’t have what the child needs? And so with that, we need to use a systemic approach within the EMDR.
A beautifully, beautifully said. Thank you so much. Anna.
Anna, my guess is that there are listeners that feel excited and want to go learn more, want to go study a bit more. Can you share with everyone the name of your book? Let’s just start there so that they can go ahead and get that as a resource if they’re curious. Can we start there with the name of your book? Sure.
Is EMDR therapy and adjunct approaches with children complex trauma attachment and dissociation. And it is in seven or eight I forgot, but I think in seven languages because I know you mentioned initially that you have people from multiple countries. So it is of course, in English.
It is in Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, Turkish, Italian? I don’t know. I forgot. Probably a few more and it’s going to be soon in Russian.
So for the people that are listening to us, it is available in multiple languages. Congratulations, first of all, on that and what a resource for us to have worldwide. And I know that you are doing trainings also.
Around the world and they’re all pretty much online these days. If individuals wanted to find where you are and join a training with you or hear you speak somewhere, where would you like them to come find you? So they can find me in many different places in this incredible universe. Think about me energetically.
You will bring me. Okay, so you can go to I have actually three websites, so the first one is Annagomez.org and the second one is WW Dot Agitinstitute.org, where you will find the information about upcoming trainings. And for the Spanish speakers, then the traumacolombia.com. I continue to have a very close relationship with my native country, Colombia, and we do a lot of trainings in Spanish also.
So that’s another place for our Spanish speakers that can find information there. And of course social media, Facebook, Instagram, so you will find me there as well. Amazing.
And listeners, I’m going to throw one more resource out there, which is I had the privilege of writing a chapter on EMDR and synergetic play therapy. So if you want another resource on different ideas of how to bring EMDR into the child world, EMDR with Children in the Playroom and Integrative Approach is another book that’s available on Amazon. So another resource for our listeners.
Anna, this was just beyond a pleasure and you were correct. We could have just continued this conversation on we just could have just kept talking. Thank you for I know we’re talking about EMDR, but thank you for even in that conversation reminding me and reminding us about why we’re doing what we’re doing and the power of our own work and showing up.
And you’ve brought some beautiful metaphors to my conscious awareness. I know you said that you wanted to be a pilot and you weren’t able to growing up. And as you were talking, I kept thinking, she’s a pilot.
She’s absolutely a pilot. Look at how many taking people on these amazing journeys and taking them to places within themselves and she’s giving others wings. I just saw you as a pilot as we were having our conversation.
Thank you for being you and for what you’re doing out in the world. Well, Lisa, thank you for holding this space to talk about EMDR therapy. And thank you very much.
My heart is full of gratitude for this moment of sharing and a moment of resonance. I felt such an ease and the conversation really resonated with me, your words, your smile, your energy. So thank you so much.
I’m really full of gratitude for this space that you provided. And thanks to the audience, to all the people that are listening to us, it’s just been a delight and a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
So and can I add one more resource because we have formed the Global Child EMDR Alliance and this is a group of clinicians and EMDR trainers from around the world and we have come together to support our children and adolescents and families. And so we create a lot of resources that are free for clinicians, so you can go to the WW Globalchildemdralliance.org. In fact, you know, many of the like Anne Beckley, Annie Monaco that you just mentioned, their book, they’re part of the alliance.
So we have a beautiful group and we all are working together with the same goal of helping children. Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that resource.
Listeners, wherever you are in the world, I invite you into a pause, invite you back into your own reflection and remembrance of why you’re doing what you’re doing out in the world. And a reminder that you are the most important toy in the playroom. So be gentle with yourselves and take care of yourselves until next time.
For more information on our courses and our classes, please go to our website@synergetictherapy.com and check out what we have available to you. And as always, remember that you’re the most important toy in that playroom.
