About Me

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Tempe, Arizona, United States
Dr Robbie Adler-Tapia is a licensed psychologist who specializes in working with clients who have experienced trauma. Even though she works with clients of all ages Dr Robbie specializes in working with young children. Dr Robbie provides therapy for clients with attachment and adoptions issues, child abuse histories, and for law enforcement. She is an EMDR Institute Facilitator and EMDR/HAP Trainer. With the EMDR HAPKIDS Program, Dr. Adler-Tapia volunteers to assist with coordinating research, consultation, and training for therapists working with children internationally. She has also provided specialty trainings on treating attachment and the dissociative sequelae, working with young children in the child welfare system and on EMDR with children. Along with her co-author, Carolyn Settle, Dr. Adler-Tapia is co-author of the book, EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy With Children and accompanying treatment manual, and a chapter on EMDR with Children in the soon to be released book edited by Allen Rubin and David Springer, The Clinician's Guide to Evidence-Based Practice Series, Volume 2, Treatment of Traumatized Adults and Children.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

What is EMDR? EMDR is a integrative psychotherapy created by Dr. Francine Shapiro. After more than 20 years of practicing psychotherapy, I began training in EMDR and found that with EMDR I had a comprehensive psychotherapy approach with which to assist clients in dealing with the stress and traumas with which clients presented in my office. Since learning EMDR and using the 8-phase protocol, I find that I am more effective at assisting clients in dealing with the symptoms that initially brought clients to my office. You can learn more about EMDR at the EMDR Institute website at http://www.emdr.com/ or the the EMDR International Association website at http://www.emdria.org/ or at the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Program (HAP) at http://www.emdrhap.org/.

Along with my colleague, Carolyn Settle, I have also written a book EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy With Children (Springer Publishing, 2008). Carolyn and I have provided presentations on using EMDR with children and have two chapters that are included in several other soon to be published books. Our work has been focused on advancing the use of EMDR with children in order to gain support for EMDR with children as evidence based practice. We have undertaken this work so that EMDR will some day be available to the poorest and most vulnerable children around the world. In this quest, I have collaborated with EMDR HAP to begin the development of an EMDR HAP project entitled HAPKIDS. This project is being developed by EMDR HAP in order to promote training, research, and treatment of EMDR for children on an international basis.



If you have interest in learning more about EMDR, seeking EMDR treatment, and/or getting training or volunteering to help with any EMDR HAP Projects, I would be happy to assist you with additional information.



I intend to include many future posts on EMDR so feel free to ask questions that I will attempt to answer or at least assist you in finding links to others who might have the answers.
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownAugust 2, 2009 at 7:55 AM

    Robbie, I look forward to your blog.

    As we both know, with kids what has hurt them just keeps getting replayed over and over, like it's happening now. That's the way the brain and body react when faced with overwhelming events when the natural coping mechanisms fail to work. A big part of that replay, I've seen again and again, is behavior shaped by the trauma.

    EMDR can act as a "magic bullet" that puts the overwhelming events in the past. They're bad, they're horrible, but they are in the past.

    The truly horrifying thing about the world I've come to feel is not just that humans experience unfathomable acts of horror, but that those acts can live on, replayed by the mind and body, throughout a persons natural life. We're talking decades here, rolling on until death releases them.

    So what negative things an event and/or person does to someone, in a very literal sense often lives on past the lifetime of the 'offender'. That acts of horror live on throughout someones life is really hard to wrap ones brain around.

    Imagine a horror movie, that keeps on rolling once you leave the theatre. Imagine one that keeps on rolling once you,re not, say two anymore. You're not little, you're an adult, you're strong, you've got a job, you have your own home, and it still goes on.
    Trauma is the gift that keeps on giving in so many bad ways.... I've lived it, I know firsthand.

    EMDR can flip switch and put it in the past. When you do that for children, you give them the future. Where the God in their hearts can come out, live with joy and make them strong.

    If you can imagine the children in the world who have been, or will be hurt in ways that live on, (and unfortunately statistically that will be many or most of them)and putting that hurt in the past so they can live... You are talking about real hope for a different world. Where bad things don't live on, but more and more people can connect from the heart.

    HAPKIDS, in my humble opinion, will be a strong force for children, the adults they grow to be, and the world they shape.

    All The Best,

    Gary Scarborough, MEd, LPC

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