EMDR for Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Neglect: Advanced Treatment Techniques for Insecure Attachment and Complex Trauma
- Speaker:
- Sarah Freeze, LCSW
- Duration:
- 6 Hours 09 Minutes
- Language:
- Presented in EN, subtitles in EN and FR, handouts in EN and FR
- Copyright:
-
Mar 28, 2025
- Product Code:
- POS059248
- Media Type:
- Digital Seminar
Description
Plagued with trauma, low self-esteem, relationship problems, and difficulty regulating their emotions, adult clients who’ve experienced childhood emotional abuse and neglect can be some of your toughest cases.
Not only are you facing therapeutic challenges like fragmented self-identity, dissociation and difficulty forming healthy attachments – you’re often left trying to identify and reprocess what may be unrealised, absent, or lacking…
…all while trying to attune to experiences for which the client struggles to have words.
Fortunately EMDR is up to the challenge, giving you the tools you need to successfully treat these clients so they can move past their traumatic childhoods to achieve lasting healing.
Now in this advanced training, you’ll join Sarah Freeze, LCSW, a certified EMDR therapist and consultant who has been working with clients who have experienced childhood emotional abuse and neglect for over a decade.
Through a combination of lecture, discussion, and insight building case studies, Sarah will teach you how to build your clinical expertise with EMDR so you can:
- Apply adult attachment principles for a fuller understanding of your client’s presentation and history
- Develop skills to better address your client’s defences for gentler and more effective trauma reprocessing
- Identify and address adaptations to unavailable and dysfunctional caregivers
- Use creative techniques to process unseen wounds that clients may have trouble verbalising
- Help clients feel in control by working with them to stay in their window of tolerance during trauma reprocessing
- And much more!
With ample opportunity for questions and discussion, you’ll leave this training with the tools you need to identify targets specific to complex childhood experiences and guide clients toward the trauma resolution and relief they need.
Purchase now!
This course is not affiliated with EMDRIA and does not qualify toward EMDRIA credits or training.
Credit
Program Information
Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationshipsAll members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners. For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.
NOTE: Tuition includes one free CE Certificate (participant will be able to print the certificate of completion after passing the online post-test (80% passing score) and completing the evaluation). Instructional methods will include PowerPoint, didactic lecture, and others.
Continuing Education Information: Listed below are the continuing education credit(s) currently available for this non-interactive self-study package. Program content is reviewed periodically per accrediting board rules for currency and appropriateness for credit. Credit approvals are subject to change. Please note, your licensing board dictates whether self-study is an acceptable form of continuing education, as well as which credit types are acceptable for continuing education hours. Please refer to your licensing board's rules and regulations. If your profession is not listed, please contact your licensing board to determine your continuing education requirements and check for reciprocal approval.
For other credit inquiries not specified below, please contact info@pesi.com or 800-844-8260 before purchase.
Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of your profession. As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your profession's standards.
For Planning Committee disclosures, please see the statement above. For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.
Earn up to 6.0 CE hours. Please see below, for more details, as credit amounts vary by jurisdiction and profession.
PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association to offer continuing education for counsellors and psychotherapists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This self-study activity is approved for 6.0 credit hours.
PESI, Inc. is approved by the Canadian Psychological Association to offer continuing education for psychologists. PESI, Inc. maintains responsibility for the program. This program is approved for 6.0 self-study continuing education hours. Full credit statement at: www.pesi.com/cpa-statement
PESI, Inc., #1062, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: January 27, 2026 - January 27, 2029. Social workers completing this course receive 6.25 Clinical continuing education credits.
Course Level: Intermediate Format: Recorded asynchronous distance. Full attendance is required; no partial credits will be offered for partial attendance.
Canadian Social Workers: Canadian provinces may accept activities offered by providers approved by the ASWB ACE program for ongoing professional development.
This self-study activity qualifies for 6.0 continuing education clock hours as required by many national and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Save your activity advertisement and certificate of completion, and contact your own board or organization for specific requirements.
This self-study course has been approved by PESI, Inc., as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #77553. PESI, Inc. is responsible for all aspects of their programming.
This self-study course offers 6.0 continuing education contact hours in the Counseling Services skill group. Full attendance is required; no partial credit will be awarded for partial attendance.
PESI, Inc. is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. Nurses completing these self-study materials will earn 6.0 contact hours. Expires: 08/27/2026.
Handouts
| File type | File name | Number of pages | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual - EMDR for Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Neglect (6.5 MB) | 87 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Manual - EMDR for Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Neglect - French (6.5 MB) | 87 Pages | Available after Purchase | |
| Manual - EMDR for Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Neglect - Italian (6.5 MB) | 87 Pages | Available after Purchase |
Speaker
Sarah Freeze, LCSW Related seminars and products
Sarah Freeze, LCSW is a psychotherapist and licensed clinical social worker in private practice based out of Denver, CO. She is a certified EMDR therapist, and her practice includes psychotherapy, consultation, and teaching. She specializes in treating trauma/PTSD and utilizes EMDR, psychodynamic, relational, and Sandtray therapies. Her passion is working with adults who have experienced childhood abuse, neglect and emotional non-recognition, using a person-centered and culturally informed framework. Beyond her private practice, Sarah has clinical experience in community and agency settings, working with children and adults who have experienced sexual abuse, sexual assault, physical abuse, and domestic violence. With a strong background, she takes great care in applying clinical research into practice. Discover more at sarahfreezelcsw.com.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Sarah Freeze maintains a private practice. She is a consultant with Evergreen. Sarah Freeze receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Sarah Freeze American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work and EMDR International Association.
Additional Info
Program Information
Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)Access never expires for this product.
For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.
Questions?
Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.
Objectives
- Describe the link between childhood trauma and the development of Complex PTSD, insecure attachment, and emotional regulation.
- Analyse research on the feasibility and efficacy of using EMDR with childhood emotional abuse and neglect experiences.
- Identify clinical implications of childhood trauma.
- Develop individualised treatment plans for clients with differing attachment styles and experiences of childhood relational abuse.
- Incorporate attachment theory and polyvagal theory into current understanding of trauma an EMDR treatment.
- Use three resourcing skills to strengthen client’s adult self and relational functioning for gentler trauma reprocessing.
- Develop an understanding of how to track the body and use strategies to return to the window of tolerance during trauma reprocessing.
- Employ target mapping for EMDR informed by specialised knowledge of complex trauma.
- Recognise key components to an integrative treatment plan, incorporating EMDR with other treatment approaches.
Outline
Childhood Abuse and Neglect Experiences: The Latest Research and Relationship with Complex Trauma
- Newest Research on ACE Studies
- Relationship with Complex PTSD
- Impact on Attachment and the Therapeutic Relationship
- Lack of Care and the Loss of Words
- Polyvagal Theory and the Window of Tolerance
- EMDR Research, Risks and Limitations
Client History and Assessment: Assessing Attachment, the Body and More
- Understanding Adult Attachment
- Skill: Assessing Attachment Based on Client’s Conversational Style
- Skill: Five Adjectives to Describe Your Caregiver
- Assessing the Body and One’s Ability to Care for Oneself
- Online Sandtray as a Creative Technique for Self-Understanding
Case Conceptualisation: How Clients Adaptations to Dysfunctional Caregivers Informs Treatment
- Target Mapping Related to Unavailable Caregivers and Dissociation [vs focus]
- Skill: Identify Unspoken Agreements between Child and Parent
- Understanding how the Child Maintained Connection
- Adaptation and Defences
- Skill: Listening for the Split
- Idealisation of the Caregiver
- Skill: Targeting Idealisation Defences
Preparation and Assessment: Relational Resourcing to Strengthen Adult Self
- Understanding What Grounding Techniques Have Worked Historically
- Resourcing to Strengthen Adult Self
- Skill: Circle of Love
- Skill: Using an Online Sandtray for Relational Resourcing
- Resourcing the Body
- Skill: Somatic Container
- Caring For Oneself as an Act of Resistance
- Clinical Vignette of Peter: Identifying Loss of Appetite Related to Lack of Food in Childhood
Advanced Applications for Verbal and Non-Verbal Trauma Reprocessing
- Empowering Your Client to Foster a Sense of Control
- Physical Sensations and Associative Processing
- Skill: Pendulation
- Ideas on How to Target Affective Moments
- Addressing Shame and Avoidance
- Skill: Using an Online Sandtray for Nonverbal Trauma Reprocessing
- Clinical Vignette of Tina: Target Mother Being “Emotionally Vacant”
Target Audience
- Counsellors
- Social Workers
- Psychiatrists
- Psychologists
- Addiction Counsellors
- Art Therapists
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Therapists
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Other Professionals Who Work within the Mental Health Fields
Reviews
Satisfaction Guarantee
Your satisfaction is our goal and our guarantee. Concerns should be addressed to info@pesicanada.com.
Please wait ...