EMDR and The Brain's Networks: A Conversation About Modern Neruoscience

[ Music ] Welcome to Notice That, an EMDR podcast. Here you will find discussion on all things EMDR, from Emdria-proof trainers and consultants, as well as some co-hosts. EMDR is an approach to the entire therapeutic journey, not just reprocessing trauma. This podcast will feature discussion on the therapeutic relationship, understanding and using the original eight-phase protocol, and what to do to bring deeper understanding to the why behind EMDR, and what to do in your step. This podcast is an invitation to connect and learn together about EMDR and the process of psychotherapy. We are glad that you're here. [ Music ] Thanks for checking out this podcast. Notice that is a project of Think Beyond. A listener-funded media house focused on connecting humans through therapy and art. To keep this podcast going, we'd love for you to support us on Patreon by searching patreon.com/ Think Beyond Healing in your favorite web browser. And don't forget to check out our new merch by going to our website at connectbionhealing.com and clicking on the merchandise tab. [ Music ] Hey everyone. This is Bridger here from The Notice That podcast team. We're excited to introduce our second episode on the working memory theory in EMDR. If you've been following the podcast for any amount of time, you know that with different seasons, we will be more active on the podcast and then others will be less so. We're entering into the summer months, which means we're going to be all over the place. I also just had another child born, which is exciting. Willa, Jean Falkenstein, was born on June 13th. So at the time of this recording, she's just about two and a half weeks old and is doing great. Thank you to those who have reached out. We're very excited to have her here, healthy. Everybody's doing well and Goldie is adjusting well. But also in June, we completed or wrapped up our second or another EMDR basic training from this year. And honestly, it was incredible. Over five days, we got to work with therapists from all over the country, you know, people coming from every kind of setting imaginable, private practice, large agencies. And it's just so cool, truly, to watch clinicians engage so deeply with this work and step into their role as EMDR therapists. One thing that I loved personally about this training in particular was seeing full practice teams come together. Owners bringing their staff or agency directors, sending groups of clinicians and watching them. Just grow closer as they learned and find shared language in the breakout sessions and approaches. And even start weaving in that practice together, really bringing them as people, as therapists closer together in this work. And there were folks in those agencies or group practices that had been trained in EMDR already, who were taking it as refreshers. And it was really meaningful to see them discover new ways of thinking about the eight-phase protocol, alongside their colleagues who were maybe experiencing it for the first time. We have one more EMDR basic training this year coming up in October. And seats are already selling to that. So we do have to cap it at 60 participants. But whether you're planning to join us in person or virtually now is the time. Don't want to miss it if you're planning to get trained this year because we won't have another one until 2026. Yeah, so this episode for today is the second in our series on the Working Memory Theory. And if you caught episode one, you know we open the door to some big questions about how EMDR works. How it really works beneath the surface. We explored working memory theory and its role in disrupting trauma loops. In this episode, episode two, we're going one layer deeper. We're talking about the brain's networks, how they communicate, how trauma disrupts that flow, and how EMDR helps restore balance. It's a conversation about moving beyond the older modular view, which will break that language down. But the modular view of the brain into a more dynamic systems-based perspective that modern neuroscience is showing us has always been the case, but our technology is finally catching up to show us what might be a little bit more of an accurate perspective of how information and sensation and experience move through. We know neuroscience can sound intimidating, but we promise this isn't just a technical lecture. This is about connecting what's happening in your clients' physiology to the choices you make in session as the therapist and the client together. Finding more confidence and creativity, hopefully in you as the therapist because of it. So whether you're listening on your commute or with a notebook in hand, we hope you feel inspired to lean in with us. Alright, let's jump into EMDR and the brain's networks, a conversation about modern neuroscience. Enjoy. Hey everyone, welcome back to notice that in the EMDR podcast. Jen and I are back for episode two. Yeah, what's going on with EMDR? Yeah, about to go deep. Yes, into some neuroscience. One I'm curious, Jen, what, how was the first episode for you? Well, we just recorded it. Sorry to break it to you. This isn't actually a week apart or whatever. We don't actually wear the same clothes just for playing it out. Yeah, I'm energized. I'm excited. I, we have this outline. It's a page as well to cover and what we thought was like what 30 minutes. Yeah, never going to happen. Full hour is great though. It was an hour on the dot. And actually, our bodies are tuned probably solid third of it. I said check out the show notes because it's going to be more of it. Oh, that's what that was mean. Yeah. So in thinking of this episode, this one's even more in depth and new. I don't, yeah, I think we'll see how much we cover. But yeah, it's exciting. And I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I think I named it in the last one. My brain is still integrating this. I still call it new, even though you introduced it to me a long time ago. It's still integrating of like, what, how does that actually connect with my clinical experience? What I see in the room? How does it inform decisions I might make with clients or what I'm doing? Yeah. And I think that's, it is a really important element because I've, I've faced that. I didn't, I don't think you were trying to critique me there, but I have faced this critique in different academic settings. That espouse some version of why do therapists need to know any neuroscience? Yeah. Why don't we just talk about these experiences and focus on the ones that create, that predictably create transformative reactions and clients and just train those. Like, don't worry about the neuroscience. Let that's a totally different field. But then why do you hate that? I just in my own experience, I did not come at this field with the neuroscience. Not at all. But it has transformed so much of like how I show up and what I do and how I understand what I do. It's built my confidence in what I do, not just for the flashiness of being able to talk about it or name it. But when you first introduce me to the information we're going to talk about today, it's held in like a separate file in my mind. It's like, okay, I could memorize that stuff. And I could regurgitate it and like, you know, teach this is what that is. But it's not until it links for me into lived experiences and cases and ways of like making sense of what I'm seeing and what I'm doing. Does it really like sink in? And I think when we can connect it in that way, it can really shine a lot of light on what we're doing and support us in our confidence and our efficiency and our capacity of what we're able to do rather than just hoping and trusting blindly that this protocol is going to like magically do something. I agree. Yeah, I think that often and that's that's the space for me of. I mean, it feels similar to the teach just teach someone to fish idea then just give them a fish. Um, and I understand that, well, we don't need to, it doesn't matter. We don't need to go into that whole thing. You're not critiquing me. Like, I think it's important that every mental health provider understand the neuroscience behind what they're doing. Do I think that every mental health clinician needs to be able to like read raw neuroscience? I don't never read research articles. No, that's a weird thing. That's what evidence-based therapists just for. Exactly. Yeah. And that takes a special kind of person, I think, that, yeah, that, that is interested in that. But, um, for those of us that are, I think it's our responsibility to help our field understand why we do the things we do, why we could do different things, why we could stop doing other things. Um, and these, I'm going to slow down because I feel like this is an important thing to say. The three networks that we're going to talk about today are the simplest answer I can give about what is EMD or doing and how can we make it better? Why should we do anything in session instead of something else? And it's by looking at the integration or disintegration of these three networks that we're going to talk about today, um, that inform my clinical conceptualization and make their way into what I'm trying to help the client do. Yeah. This to me is the shift from feeling dependent on the memorization and perfectionism of a protocol or certain training or certain trainer or consultant into, there's a deep enough understanding that I can have my own creativity in exploring what is the struggle here and how do we approach it in a meaningful way? Right. Um, and that's wild, but, you know, we can, neuroscience can translate into something so creative, so relational, so meaningful. Yeah. But it does. And I think that is the art of what we want to support clinicians with. Right. Yes. I 100% agree. And I think that that's where the, when the foundation is so solid, it really does makes face for a lot of play. I think then if you understand why we, what we're going for in the first place, this integration that we talk about, what does that actually mean? Then you can imagine a million ways to get there through a million different avenues with a million different techniques that all of them can, uh, inform, uh, the process of getting the client into that integrative reality. So I'm going to say a phrase. I'm going to watch you get excited. And then you can just go with it. Okay. But Bridget, what's the difference in modular neuroscience? I didn't know that's where you were working. That's where you were working. Right. Uh, yeah. I just want to say for this moment, I feel like that's a really cool question. Yeah. Man, not enough, honestly. But I want to reiterate what you said, because this to me is, uh, I didn't write down specific language I should have, of, of how does succinctly express the difference. Um, you asked the question of what's the difference between a modular perspective and a complex or network perspective of neuroscience. And there are so many different ways to get into this conversation. And if you're tuning out right now, please like just give us, give me 10 more minutes of your focus, attention, um, because the modular perspective is what dominated, um, I would say everybody listening to this podcast right now, even if you didn't know it, anything you learned about the brain is likely modular in how it was taught to you. Uh, and I give a couple examples frequently. It's that memory, what, what thing in the brain do you think of with memory? The hippocampus. How about fear? Uh, the amygdala. I'm cheating on it. I outlining what about attention? Yeah. But it's the idea that there are specific structures in the brain that have a job, right. And they do that job. And when there's an air like trauma, right, comes in and gives this overwhelming activation that it's going to have an influence on a specific structure in the brain that's responsible for that job, right. Right. And that, um, the, the sneaky part about a modular perspective is that it's not inherently wrong. Yeah. The amygdala is in a many, many ways, uh, an essential and crucial module in the brain in our experience of fear. But the interpretation, I think is where it starts to get really fuzzy. And then the clinical implication is where you start to get into what are we doing? Like, if we think that we need a migdala focus treatment interventions, it's worth like, good luck with that. You can't directly outside of surgery or electro like magnetic kind of stimulation of some kind directly influence someone's amygdala, your, this is the goose bumps level stuff. Like, this is where you're dependent on accessing and regulating the amygdala through the network. It is connected to. And the networks that that network is connected to. So to get to totally hear you, the amygdala, we can watch it change in size in different clinical presentations and symptomologies. So clearly the amygdala is responsible for fear and a major source of distress in these chronic and pervasive presentations like PTSD, for example, that you see, uh, different shape and size of the hippocampus, the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Yes, 100% the olemic system very much involved there. But to actually create change, you're going to have to access it through the different networks that are linking that single module, the amygdala, to the rest of the brain. This is where all of the brain is going all of the time. This is one of the fallacies, I think of, you know, you only use 10% of your brain, like, there's that. And then the idea that we, uh, different parts can go offline. This is another thing that is really hard. Outside of, uh, traumatic brain injury, some lesion, some physical manipulation, all of the brain is on all the time. It's just where attention goes and energy flows. That's what's going to change is that different areas may be specialized. Different areas may be used more intensely and for heavier tasks than other areas, but all of the brain is going all of the time. So I think to me, the major reason why a modular perspective needs to be explicitly articulated, like that we need to name a lot of our neuroscience understanding in the field right now. Four AMDR clinicians right now is still modular. The problem with that is that we lose interpretive power in trying to account for why EMDR is effective. If we're still using a modular perspective, because our, our protocol isn't a megalophocused. It's not hippocampus focused. It's not prefrontal cortex focused. It's not limbic system focused. It's trying to activate a balance of neural network processing to bring a person from triggered and disintegrated to balanced and reintegrated. That is a complex neuroscience, complex as a now, not an adjective, like a type of neuroscience effort that is going to be once we can really get on the same page about that, I think we can really understand why EMDR is effective and what happens when it's not effective, like different things are going on. So I want to just give a brief overview of network neuroscience just to kind of give us some context here. For the EMDR community, Dr. Eric Chamberlain has been a champion and kind of trailblazer of bringing network neuroscience into the EMDR meaning-making world. I think without Eric Chamberlain, I don't know if there would be a voice in the EMDR community that's not modular. So huge shout out to them. We're planning to have them on the podcast at some point. I have made contact. We're still in scheduling things. So that is hopefully happening. But in the predictive processing model and then the balance perspective, Dr. Eric Chamberlain talks about these three core networks, which is in part why I'm going to talk about it. But if you look into the Journal of Network neuroscience, if you're curious at all, Network neuroscience, you'll see these three networks show up over and over and over again in trying to understand the neurophysiology behind our classic DSM disorders. These are the three core networks that are typically investigated as being responsible for the inhibitions or the impairments, the maladaptive dysfunction, whatever. These three core networks are what are being investigated or explored. I know. this is jumping ahead just a bit and we may come back to it. But three of many others, they're not the only three networks. - Yeah, depending on what discipline of neuroscience you're looking at, you're looking at either seven or 10 large scale branch networks. - Okay, so knowing that we're just, we're focusing in based on the research on these three because of the correlation that has been found to disorder or however, when it will be that. - Right, and because of where we are, I'm gonna jump ahead to, I think a lot of people are familiar with Dan Seagal's hand model of the brain. So if you're not placing your thumb inside the palm of your hand and closing your four fingers over the top, Dan Seagal talks about this as the hand model of the brain, where you have the wrist and forearm representing the base of the brain into the spinal cord, then kind of the palm area being the base of the brain, where your sub-cortical processes are, your cerebellum, various other systems, the thumb then representing the limbic system and the four fingers representing the neocortex or the thing that's seen on top of the brain. I use this to layer on these three core networks because I think it's helpful to give like a tangible grounding for it. So same hand model, same physiology, all of the same. But I want you to take your four finger of your other hand and trace from where your thumb meets your four finger down to around your thumb joint. And that in general is going to be your salience network. Meet your salience network. Yay! And then I want you to take that same finger and from the knuckle of your thumb up around the top of your four finger that in general is your central executive network. And you see that's then overlap between the salience network and the central executive network. And then all round the entire thing. So four fingers to back of hand down to your wrist up through the palm back over again is in general your default mode network. So large amounts of terrain covered by these three, which is in part why they're an excellent three to explore of the 10, 7 to 10, because they're getting the lateralization of the brain left and right. They're getting the dorsal versus ventral, top and down. They're getting the kind of top to bottom left to right, back to front, kind of full encompassing activation of these neural systems. But also these are three that are responsible for some really important things that I want to get into. But I want to hear kind of where you're at with this. I think the an important takeaway and that is we're not talking about these individual or again, modular structures or processes. Right. We're talking about something that is there's overlap. There's interconnectionness in this and we'll get later into like what? System structures of the brain are within each network, but there's overlap. We're not individually naming them as these separate processes, but they're very connected. They have overlap with each other even just structurally like in when we're looking at the brain itself. Absolutely. And that is such an important point because there's reason. Well, let's just get in a little bit to some of these things. So I want to go kind of one by one and stick to the script just to go off of what these are and what their kind of attributed functions are and then maybe we could have maybe some conversation about them. So from bottom to top, the salience network in general, the functions are to detect and filter salient stimuli and switch between the default node network and the central executive network. So this is in many ways your extra receptive and interoceptive, proprioceptive, all of the ceptions, your salience network is helping regulate the central executive network and the default mode network in attuning to various stimuli. So if you have a dysregulated salience network, not only is your or your section is going to be messed up, but the regulation of your central executive network and your default mode network are going to be messed up, which is in part, and I'm sorry to use messed up. I just heard neuroscience friends being like, what the hell is that word? But functionally, you're going to have challenges in experiencing the balanced functions of these other systems that we're getting ready to talk about. So the central executive network in general, you're looking at working memory, decision-making, cognitive control, kind of the, I think what many people think of as like, this is what the executive center does. That's the central executive network of planning, your working memory is there, your conscious awareness is there a lot of times. And then your default mode network, this is the self-referential thought, mentalization, episodic memory, and internal attention. So again, when you start to think about disintegration of these large scale brain systems and their associated modules, you're really dealing with a vast majority of the mental life and the physiological regulation of human beings when you talk about these three core networks. And it's no surprise then that these three core networks through FMRI studies are shown to be disintegrated. They're misfiring. They're not responding to each other appropriately as you would see in a control example in cases of PTSD schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, kind of all of these major heavy hitting diagnoses. There are characteristic patterns of dysregulation in the interconnection of these three systems. So that I think provides us a neurophysiological way of talking about trauma and dysregulation and also a neurophysiological way of talking about healing because it's reintegration and balance of these systems that would actually create healing. Could you walk through so the salience network experiencing or like the words detecting the stimulation internally and externally and that then moving back and forth between the default mode network and the central executive network and as that's, could you talk through that from a perspective of like something that's just an unnormative experience and not maybe a more neutralized experience versus like a traumatic experience and how those networks would work together when it's threatening versus non-threatening. Yeah, I mean, they are these three, I'm going to work my way into this. So these three networks are just as the rest of the brain is like going all the time and their regulation versus dysregulation is kind of fluctuating depending on your window of tolerance as an example. The difficulty of the tasks that you're performing, the amount of time you've had invested on task, time on task and then what your kind of rest and digest relationship looks like. How are you being fed? Are you sleeping well? Are you sick? A lot of those things can affect the regulation of these systems as well. So in a kind of example of just normal processing of these systems in a regulated environment, this would be I think kind of going through like as an example, just a good day at work. This is where you come in, you're successfully navigating to the office that you're at. So you're planning appropriately, you've got your central executive network is kind of well humming, you're paying your on time. You've got all the things that you need, you feel prepared. That's meshing well with the default mode network of your self-reference, your self-concept of like I'm living my life in the purpose that I have. I'm going to my place of work that I've chosen and worked toward. I've showed up and become competent enough to be here and all of your, you know, your salience network is looking at those two large systems and saying like, "We're down." Like, got it. Yep. And incorporating the external stimuli, the internal stimuli to feed and reference both of those. Right. Yes, exactly right. So in that same example, let's say you meet a car accident on your way to the office. Salience network says to the default mode network and the central executive network, you've got problems. Not quite sure on how extensive the problems are or what this will mean for the rest of our day. I'm just letting you know there's big problems. Central executive, again, we're humanizing these systems. We're giving story to these things that are working all together to make one. We're using them right now to make this story actually, which is pretty incredible. Rapidly. Yes. But the central executive network says like, "This is a problem. I've got a 10 a.m. and it's, you know, 9.30. So if this is a big diversion, whatever, we may not be able to work." Default mode network says like, "I was just thinking about something else. Like, what are you guys talking about? I was thinking. about my plans for vacation and also this book that I'm interested in writing and these other things like all of all was well so I was kind of free to kind of go into whatever else I was thinking about. What are we talking about? Oh there's like a car accident. Oh my gosh what is my client going to think? What does the you know what does this mean about me? Did I not plan well enough? Central executives starts to become more distracted like oh can I check it different route. Sales networks says like no we're kind of all in one traffic jam. This is a bottleneck like you're starting to get more intensity. If you follow number probably references if I am late what would that mean about me? Well exactly. It's a bit irresponsible like that's where we're grasping at this to previous templates to say what meaning do I make of self in this context? So this is for a sudden experience that's right around like a three or four. Now I want to take it even a step farther that let's say as you approach that car accident you see something that reminds you of a car accident that you've experienced yourself and maybe it was one that you had lost somebody. You're triggered now because of this. This is now where you see these three core networks really start to disintegrate and go into overdrive in their process. The salience network kicks into overdrive and completely separates functionally the central executive network and the default mode network and says like guys we got to slow down. I'm freaked out like my heart is racing. I'm starting to notice so many different stimuli. I'm overstimulated. I can't pay attention. I can't like even breathe anymore. Like the central executive network is imploding as it starts to recognize like all of the separation from the present moment. We're sucked away into the past. The default mode networks the self is obliterated into this like who am I? What's the purpose of all of this? Like am I going to survive? You start to break down from that regulated well prepared competent person who left the house that morning on time and you get to see in the different examples there different stages of disintegration again. Is it accurate? It's a reciprocal influence of the networks. So taking in that example the salience network witnesses the car accident and has the visual stimuli of that and maybe a sound there's noise associated with it that then moves into the default mode network to reference. What does this mean? Like what are the previous interpretations of this moment which then further activates the internal like oh my gosh the heart salience network recognizes heart rate is increased associated with that or blood pressure or heat or this is a great moment with what you just said to spot modular thinking because I think our language is linear and that's already going to make it really hard for us to understand complex systems. Yeah. Because it's not linear. It's not the salience network says to the default mode network which says to the sale to the central executive it's at the same time which I know is really hard to understand because our brains like our our conscious mind even sometimes moves linearly like what do you mean it's not central executive talks to default mode talks to salience like it's really hard to understand that our brain is not three individuals having a conversation is one entity having a lot of complex functions and systems operating simultaneously. There's there's reciprocal conditioning yes but it's not linearly initiated. Okay. What do you think about that? I know that's like a weird thought. It just in the example it's it's harder than connect it in the example because the example we're looking at like conversation back and forth of how we've depicted that but recognizing that they do have influence but it's not in order of like this happens and that it influences and a influences be and then be. The example to me would be better that there's three individuals in the car each responsible for all happening at the same time. That's all happening at the same time. Yeah. That one of the individuals is responsible for the salience one individual is responsible for the planning of the executive one individual is responsible for the self-referential thinking and that are all three orienting to the same experience and then the activation of each other. Okay. So coming from that and we'll see where the example goes as we continue by coming from that is just starting to depict and get a sense of what each network is like doing and contributing to in the system in a moment of activation. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where what trauma does in the brain when these when these different networks are diff are are dysregulated from one another. The experience of them is kind of a an overrunning and overflowing and overwhelming of their kind of responsible areas. So like the default network disintegrated is loops and ruminations of shame, frozen identity and dissociation. And in that disintegrative experience, they start to implode in their normal attributable functions like I'm naturally default mode network speaking like I'm naturally going to be focused on the self-concept. Naturally going to be focused on how I am who I am where I came from what my consciousness is made of like all these thoughts. And then in the face of disintegration, I'm going to start leaning towards collapse, social isolation, shame, I am imploding. And there's like a almost like we're moving too fast in the conversation right now to really even like feel the default mode network disintegrated from balanced functioning is a black hole. I think of the salience network then disintegrated hyper vigilant emotional flooding or shut down. But just a broken apart super anxious hyper vigilant everything is a threat. And then the central executive network offline, as in not planning, not thinking, not anticipating just stuck in the present, unable to regulate or reflect just shocked. I imagine in that example, or the metaphor that we were using the difference of a very collaborative team approach. We each have a job we're doing in a non-threatening, overwhelming circumstance or communicating well. And where our strong relationship and strong communication or, you know, therapeutically named our integration is creating a nice synergy amongst us that there's flow, there's communication and that positive state is influencing each other well. In the activation, we become disintegrated and we each start to not neurologically separate, but we start to function more independently and get into increased activation. Right. Our jobs aren't supporting each other well. It almost becomes it's more activating and disintegrating. Yeah. And that's where like I painted just a brief picture of a client recalling abuse may feel like it's happening now, default mode network, not functioning. It's not orienting time and self to events at all. Overwhelmed with panic salience network, just flooded and overwhelmed. To be unable to speak or think clearly central executive network shutting down, collapsing into dissociation. So we're disintegrated and we're meant to be together. So we can't do what we're supposed to do and my not doing means you can't do and you not doing means I can't do. So it's that internal disintegration and collapse that to me paints a picture of what our clients are really living with when they come in with what this like this is a redefinition of what a 10 out of 10 trauma means to me on a sud scale. Like it's not just I don't talk about that. It's like this is the most concentrated disintegrative experience you've ever had. The most broken apart you've been. Yeah. It does feel like being able to name these networks and the way that they function together and looking at like a activation of a 10. How little I'm going to keep with my language with the metaphor of how little collaboration is happening. In fact, we're actually now kind of working against each other. There's there's so much franticness around like, And I'm doing your part and this isn't working that there's like that build up and franticness of different things. integration, how little collaboration is happening to actually process through this experience in a adaptive meaningful way. It becomes kind of a frantic, desperate attempt of just surviving that moment. Absolutely. And one element to consider is that the reciprocally conditioned nature of these systems assumes then that in one instance of disintegration, you now develop vulnerability and sensitivity for another. This is where panic attacks are a great example. That with one panic attack, you now, your body knows what a panic attack feels like and can freak itself out into having another panic attack free from the stimuli that caused the first one. That's a perfect example of how that first panic attack disintegrated these large scale systems in such a way that it installed fear of that separation, fear of that disintegration. So that now, even at the slightest sense of, are we approaching that same thing? The saline cell work just sends right through the roof. Central executive default motor like, what's going on? Like they're back into this place of like, we just had another one and then another one and then another one and then another one that with this triggering phenomenon that we experience in the aftermath of a traumatic experience, that that's where we see a compulsion in the body to replay that narrative, replay that scenario as if we're back there again. The body's trying to figure out what happened. It's trying to reorganize. It's trying to restart the system to say like, what if we just went through it again and we could find the missing piece or we could find the integrative moment that we just missed? Like yes, I think Francine is absolutely correct that we have an adaptive potential inside of us that just naturally wants to heal. These systems want to work together. But I think the problem with trauma is that it fixates our yearning and longing and almost like dependence on balance in such a way that we become obsessed with it. And so our body highlights one element of that traumatic experience. This is like as soon as this one piece comes along, we're just going to snap into the original reaction that we had because we survived it. I can't waste any time with this. If I see one element of it, we might as well just act as if they're all here. So if this perspective is looking at just like what is happening in these brain networks that's creating symptoms that's creating disorder or pathology, whatever we want to call it, we're looking at EMDR as a tool for how do we come in what is healing look like then? Is that the reorientation of each network? Is that the integration and the kind of flow of communication and energy amongst all of the networks? I feel like that's where from episode one, the interference and optimal overload is really important to keep in mind because left alone without these interference are optimal overloads, you're just going to play through it the way your body knows to play through it. A loop is going to play back just because it was created the first time. The avalanches one you can't stop like once it starts to happen, good luck in the front of that. But if we can prepare to activate the material in a way that says like actually we're going to pre-dig some channels to give us more time to choose a different way down the mountain than the one that's avalanches always taken. We're going to prepare with resourcing, we're going to prepare with dual attention and practicing of pendulations, slow down, be here, then be there, then be here, then be there. You're building in opportunities for the system to find a different way to organize the experience that actually have choice and voice and I don't want to go down the mountain that way. I'm tired of that. I feel stuck in it. I feel like I don't have a self at the bottom of that. I want to go a different way. Well then once we build that preparation in and we actually then start a new reprocessing effort on top of that foundation, we can organize that interference stimuli, we can build in ways of bringing down that distress that are asking the client to focus on different material and then go back to the trauma, then different material, then back to the trauma. You're actually unpacking the avalanche or taking pieces out of it. So that by the time that it gets there, you have an organized mountain, you don't have just a pile of rubble at the bottom. So with that over time and especially in the context of an attuned therapeutic relationship, I think that's where you can see these systems start to reorient and re-organize, rebalance themselves. And in general, the salient's network is going to be affected by, shaped by the various forms of your bilateral stimulation and also the kind of directing focus from pay attention to this. Now stop paying attention to that, pay attention to this. You're forcing the central executive network to begin re-regulating the salient's network. This is a really profound ability of a top down regulation. They're inviting the conscious mind to regulate sub-cortical processes that I think require a therapeutic relationship to be attuned to it because you can't just force it. You're going to freak out the system if you just start commanding the body to do something. It's probably not going to do it. You're probably going to force it into a shutdown sequence of some kind. But if you can build confidence in that phase one and two of what it's like to dig a new channel and start to say, you can do it. Actually, I know it feels like the trauma's coming up. Just let it come down and focus on this over here. Now let it come back up a little bit and then I want you to come back over here. You do this enough and you start incorporating some of these resources of, let's say, calm safe place or a protective nurturing figure or an empowering protective figure to come back into the target material. You're accessing conscious awareness. You're leaning on that central executive network to bring different parts hidden in the default mode network of the self to the regulation of the salient network hoping that when you're at the bottom of that process, once you're all the way done, the salient network can function unimpeded by the distractions of the traumatized material that are now triggering it or we're triggering it so that it can free up the central executive network and the default mode network to be as they were designed to be. So in the taxation technique, it's a almost a demanding central executive network to come back. With the salient network, you're prompting both of them, you're saying, again, I'm using, this is not neurobiologically. 100% of the interpretation of how to try and break this down because the default mode network is participating. It always is. Just as all the other. Maybe. Yeah, we're spiking up some new energy. Yeah. But yes, but you're trying to say, default mode network, take a seat. I'm going to do some work with the salient network and the central executive network really intentionally. And I want to slowly start incorporating you back in over over the course of these sessions. But the salient network, you're freaking out. You're feeling the distress through that activation and central executive, you're kind of like offline right now. You're not paying attention. I need you to come back. I need you to help bring in some of that focus, help shift the point of you. I think about it like digging the salient networks head out of the sand and saying, look over there. Okay, go back over there. Okay, go back in. Like you're trying to help bring that central top down regulation of those sub cortical processes to help the salient network realize like, oh, I was confused in time. I thought, yeah, I thought we were back in the threat. And I was just responding and telling us like, what's going on with this terrible awful thing that happened. But the central executive network, if we can distract it enough or interfere with it enough, we can help it show back up amidst the activation of the central or of the salient network and say, like, oh, I can actually be here. It's okay. And I have some helpful things to say. We're actually not dead. We're alive. This is incredible. And through opening a collaborative communication of those two networks, again, we can start re incorporating default mode network parts of self as ways of like reintegrating this back into like, what does this mean about my understanding of myself? Yeah, what does this mean about you? And the assessment phase, I think, when done really well, does this so beautifully? It starts with image and what is that? What's the worst part of it? What does that say about you? You're kind of naturally letting, you're assuming the central executive network is already kind of offline. You're just talking to the central or to the salient network and the default mode network saying salience, what are you paying attention to? What's the most the biggest part of this? And it brings it. And then you say like, okay, and negative cognition. you're asking that default network to throw in. some of that perspective of this means I'm a terrible person. This means I am, I am, I am. And you're trying to kind of check in with the central executive network of this positive cognition of the hoped for just why it's so hard to get to right. Where we're just like, could we just almost project a hope that we'll get there? The central executive network does not actually feel that in that moment. But it's like the acknowledge that will bring you back for me. I kind of want it to be almost laughable. I want the central executive to be honest of like, I wanted to be zero at a seven. Like laughable, ridiculous, would never happen because that's where I want that disconfirming experience to come into. I actually do kind of believe that. I noticed that now that I kind of believed it. I really believe it now. That's that. Oh, now we're really working with some, some different material. But as you get to that activation place of the body scan and then inviting them to hold all of those images, if we can bring those three channels all the way into that working memory taxation, what you then do in phases four through seven will start to naturally just by what you're doing. I call it implicit process conditioning. Just by what you're doing together, you're helping maintain the activation of those three core networks in the in the clients experience. You're regulating it very attuned. That's why the relationship matters so much. You're paying a deep attention to your client. You're helping them go in and out of working directly with that traumatic material and focus on these different points of stimuli. And then you're monitoring the Sud, maybe going back to target, maybe going to an interweave depending on what those three networks are telling you. When we talk about the intuition of when to enter weave or something like that, that to me is based in your awareness of what your clients networks are doing and what they need to kind of get back into a good alignment or those three channels are present again. And then you're weaving down the mountain, trying to organize various things and work towards that resolution of evidence by the positive cognition coming up, the distress on the negative cognition and the worst part of the image going down and the body telling you that I think I'm okay. Okay. I know I'm here now. I'm not back there. Some of the regulation. Where are we regulating the salient's network? Is that mean I guess to not be overly reductionistic about it, but is that what you say? That's kind of the focus of if we're to say, okay, central executive network, we need you here, salient's network. We need you here at default mode. Hold on just a little bit. We're going to come back. Yeah. We're really coming in almost trying to soothe and calm the the activation while also adding up, regularly and adding energy to the central executive, like bringing in. I would say for me, like my focus is on you're regulating the relationship between the salient's network and the central executive network. And by that regulation, they will respond appropriately and get back in order where the salient's network can regulate the relationship between the central executive and the default mode network. That's the design. The salient network is built to be a regulator between the central executive network and the default mode network trying to tell you how to respond in authentic and congruent order with who you know yourself to be in the present moment as we now know it. So the regulation contribution of bilateral stimulation, we're regulating the relationship between central executive network and the salient's network with a physical stimuli, which is again, why I think BLS as a form of dual attention stimuli is really important because it's it's physiologically regulating. It's working from an interhemispheric perspective. So you're increasing the likelihood that your direction of focus to that dual attention stimulus will be effective because you're the way we talk about BLS in our trainings is like you're bringing more of you to the task at hand. You're going to enhance and, you know, deepen a client's experience of whatever you point that BLS focus at. And then some additional regulating invitations are the relationship. Yeah. So the attunement, the verbal, the nonverbal cues that are made, like the newness of that experience in the present moment compared to the lack of attunement regulation, validation, and the original experience. We're trying to add that in to kind of re bring re alignment to those networks. Yeah. I wrote down a few things just to be very specific here. This is a question that I wonder about in looking at network neuroscience and the proposed mechanisms of change in EMDR. What is the working memory approach to EMDR trying to do to the dysregulated and disintegrated core networks? And how does it propose to accomplish this? In general, the from a systemic perspective, working memory theory is attempting to interrupt the over dominance of emotionally loaded autobiographical content, the default mode network, trying to interrupt that kind of collapse that is doing. That's why we say take a seat for a second. You're already activated with a shame filled degenerative process going. So EMDR is that interruption in the slowing down of like, okay, calm down. Like reduce the salience tagging of threat cues in the salience network. Tell me what you're what you're aware of. What are you freaking out about? All right. We're going to slow that down, reduce the salience tagging of threat cues and then engage present moment executive control and orientation, invite the central executive to take a regulatory role in the process that it was previously shocked by. It was overwhelmed by saying like, I don't know what to do here. I have nothing to say. The salience network and the default mode network are pushing me out. I've got nothing. The process of EMDR when we calibrate our dual attention work to the person of the client ensuring or at least optimizing it in the hope of trying to get to a optimal overload and an interference that's tolerable to the client. I think we're setting ourselves up for some potentially transformative sessions in EMDR where we can disrupt that over dominance of the default mode network spiral. We can untag the salience cues, the stimuli cues of the salience network. We can invite the central executive network to come online to a task that it was previously shocked by. That brings me to one of the statements you had of having the outline that felt it was one of those aha moments for me where things clicked. It's a forced redistribution of resources aimed at breaking the brain out of its trauma locked loop. I think you just broke down the loop and what we're trying to break it out of. The redistribution of resources. Going through this process, we're in this trauma locked loop between these three networks. We're coming in and redirecting it. We're disrupting that and redirecting the resources, the focus, the energy. For me, the statement that the best I can say is essentially it's trying to rebalance the dynamic flow between these three networks by temporarily overloading one node, the working memory of the CEN, in order to dampen the signal of another, the trauma-loaded memory of the default mode network. I'm going to say that one more time. It's trying to rebalance the dynamic flow between these three networks by temporarily overloading one node in order to dampen the signal of another. You're trying to bring the central executive network into a regulatory role to reestablish functional connectivity between the salience network and its regulating role of the central executive and the default mode network. Nice. What was that? Simple as that. Yeah. Where. I know there's some pieces in the outlet. We haven't covered, but I'm curious where you want to go. Well, I think that I am more curious of your experience. Like, do you see the importance? Is that coming through to you? Or does it feel like I just talked about something that's like, "I don't know if that's relevant." I think there's still a. I definitely see the importance. I think there's more conversation in the gap of like, how would we now maybe shift change or how would this inform the decisions we have the capacity to make clinically in that role? Like even breaking down the assessment questions, I think is a fabulous integration of that to say, "This is kind of how these questions get at this process and why certain ones may feel difficult or certain ones we may end up making the decision to emphasize more or emphasize less." But that that to me is like my brain wants to go to that next place. It has so much relevance. And now how do we connect that in with decisions that we might make related to? Are we going to use bilateral stimulation for our dual attention? Are we using that for like what are the different options with this working memory theory that we have? Right. And how that comes into play? Yeah, and I think that for me, it there's a lot of playfulness, I hope, for clients and therapists in this and for therapists talking to each other because it we just broke them out of their existing integration. Like even if they're unbalanced, they're still activating together. You can't influence one without working with the others. But in general, what we're trying to do is look at the imbalances that are there and create opportunities. Like when we talk about disconfirming experiences, this is what we're talking about. Like we're trying to disrupt the existing interregulation and disregulation of these systems and work towards a more balanced and present functioning of them. Because you can hear inclient language, their disintegration. You can hear what they're paying attention to, what they're not paying attention to, what they're asleep to, and what they're really awake to, what they're forgetting, what they're remembering. Like you can hear if you're tuned to listen, you can hear their disintegration and integration of these three core networks. And that to me is genuinely like no BS, like what I'm using to justify my clinical decision making in session. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking about. Yes, SIP is going the whole time. But the reason I think about a client's story is because like this is where the provocative kind of take for me is I work not past present future, I work present past future because I want to get a sense of where their networks are in their interregulation to know what stories are going to be most relevant and how to sequence them to understand how do you get here? Where did you learn these ruts in the mountain of the default mode network imploding and the salience network becoming overstimulated, almost like covered in rashes? How did you get here? And I want to specifically go back to find the stories that shaped you, but not force you to do that by yourself or through some arbitrary list of what can you tell me that you think is a trauma that would fit on these 10 lines? No, I want to get a sense. I want to feel the integration or disintegration of your systems. Then we're collaboratively to learn the story of how you got to where you are. And if we can do that, I have full confidence in our ability to plan a path that can lead to authentic flourishing for you as an individual. It's going to be hard because your systems are going to respond to cues of threat along the way that make you afraid of the work that we're actually trying to do. That this is the reason why it's so hard for clients to go out from the session and continue applying the work that we're doing because their systems are attuned to their systems being these three core networks are attuned to their environment as a result of how they got to where they are. Like we surround ourselves with relics of the past, we surround ourselves with similar situations because we're used to them. Like our networks are used to anticipating the behavior of people that are of similar like and function and mind to those that we've been around. So if you're going to ask them to go challenge that ecosystem, challenge that economy and set a boundary, for instance, and maybe find one person who's safe enough to tell the story to what happened to you that you've never told anymore. To actually lean on somebody for co-regulation, that's a complex neuroscience challenge. Like you're really asking your body to do something pretty miraculous that yes, it's built to do, but it has a lot of reason not to try. I think you know, the again, asking the default mode network to like, can you step back for a moment when it's live and active in the chaos? There are so many millions of templates of other lived experiences that have formed and shaped the way the default mode network has determined like, who am I, what am I? And so just in naming that like slowing that down and working very precisely in this representative experience and needs two networks and then slowly bringing that back in has such an influence on even the possibility that a disconfirming experience could carry any weight at all. If you have the full like evidence file that we use like of all of the moments that say, I am bad or it is my responsibility, I am worthless. One moment of a disconfirming experience has a really hard time like holding any weight to that stack, but when we can slow that down enough and engage with that disconfirming experience like through this approach and then slowly bring that back in, it's like it's able to integrate and carry a greater impact for the generalization. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So next episode, we're going to be looking at, well, episode three and four of this mini series are going to be looking at some interesting applications of this. We're going to look at a platform called We Mind, next episode that's in powering therapists to incorporate more of this reality in AI-powered software for EMDR sessions. So the way I think about this is that it's letting AI become a therapist in the room with you that's paying attention to the regulation of these three core networks for your client so that you can just be attuned to them relationally. It's going to adjust the speed of the BLS. It's going to adjust the speed of the different random interval tasks that it asks the client to do based on the client's performance of them. So if that sounds wild to you, we're going to get into it. It's not as wild as it sounds when you say AI, but a lot of people are like, what? But I think the incorporation of technology, I mean, we've been incorporating technology with EMDR. We've got bilateral, we've got, you know, buzzers and light bars and we have different platforms that we're using. And so the continued development of incorporating technology at different levels to say, how can that actually help serve a less biased role than what we as a human therapist can serve in determining that optimal overload? Right. Our fourth episode is going to get into a more specific approach. So EMDR 2.0 of how could we intentionally structure this therapeutic approach in the phases to incorporate and really lean heavily on the working memory theory? Yeah. And we're going to get to talk with Suzy Matthiason, which will be really fun way to get kind of right up and close to what EMDR 2.0 is. And that is a model of EMDR that is in my perspective, the most hungry for the potential of working memory theory and EMDR that I want to see more aggressive and intentional overloading and interfering going on in the session to help bring that distress down as fast as we can. Because then you get to see that'll help contextualize I think some of these other protocols like flash and four blinks that are-- Wrap technique. Yeah. Yeah. That are using some really salient kind of bite-sized pieces of this, but that are trying to help EMDR clinician take more advantage of the power of inviting the central executive network to step in as a regulatory hub. Yeah. I think that's important to name that as we introduce Suzy with EMDR 2.0 we're not saying it's the only way to emphasize the working memory theory in our work. It is already a part of standard and it is a dial that can be turned up and turned down based on different interweaves that we use, different structures that we use or protocols that we use that are paired with standard in EMDRs maybe the most formulated way of doing that that we know of. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. So, um-- So sharing all that, Bridger, that was fun. I have a feeling it's going to show up in more episodes to come. I don't know. Now, I mean, now that my brain is running on it, it'll be fun to make those connections. Yeah. Because I think, you know, this is already so much a part of our case conceptualization trainings, not yet explicitly, but these are a part of the revision. that Caleb and I have been working on for the SIP-1 to get away from modular thinking as much as possible into a complex neuroscience. - It's so cool. - It will be cool to know that we offer a training that's not reinforcing the research to knowledge gap in our field. - Yeah. All right, thank you all for joining. See you in the next episode. - We hope that you have enjoyed this podcast episode and that it will help you help your clients in the process of EMDR therapy. If you are curious to learn more about something that you've heard today, check out our website at www.beyondhealingcenter.com and go to the trainings tab for more information on our upcoming EMDR and Case Conceptualization trainings. You can also contact us by emailing trainings at beyondhealingcenter.com. If you want to stay connected, please subscribe to this podcast for more episodes. Leave us a review and follow us on social media by searching, notice that podcast. [BLANK_AUDIO]