Notice That

Intersectionality in EMDR: Complexity, Curiosity, and Clinical Humility with Anastasia Soroka

In this episode, Bridger welcomes Anastasia Soroka to Notice That for a one-on-one conversation about intersectionality, invisible identities, power, and complexity in the therapy room. Anastasia introduces herself as a trauma therapist specializing in complex trauma, relational dynamics, and interpersonal systems. She is also the host of the Insights with Us podcast and an author whose work explores stigma, sexuality, communication, and the human experience.The conversation begins with Anastasia’s metaphor for intersectionality: each identity as a street or intersection that adds complexity to the road of a person’s life. Rather than viewing identity as a single category, Anastasia describes intersectionality as the layered interaction of race, sexuality, socioeconomic status, culture, disability, chronic pain, geography, and lived experience. Bridger and Anastasia explore how this matters clinically because simplified assumptions about identity can prevent therapists from truly meeting the client in front of them.Anastasia shares about growing up across multiple countries, including Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, and how her early life shaped her understanding of culture, belonging, and difference. Having spent much of her childhood outside the United States, she reflects on the question “Where are you from?” and how difficult it can be to answer when identity is shaped by movement, cultural immersion, and many overlapping homes.The conversation then turns toward invisible identities and the difference between what is chosen, what is given, and what is allowed to be. Anastasia reflects on queerness, sexuality, chronic pain, perfectionism, and the ways some identities become difficult to name when the surrounding environment does not make enough room for them. Bridger and Anastasia discuss how therapy can become a space where clients begin to recognize, name, and reclaim parts of themselves that may have been minimized, hidden, or disallowed.Anastasia also shares the story of becoming a therapist, beginning with her original desire to pursue research and academia, her work in crisis services, and her eventual movement into trauma therapy and EMDR. She describes her crisis work as a place where she learned the power of slowing down, sitting with another human being, and offering safety without rushing toward solutions.A major portion of the episode explores EMDR therapy with complex trauma. Anastasia reflects on her experience of EMDR basic training, the usefulness of the Adaptive Information Processing model, and the realization that standard protocol alone is often insufficient for clients with developmental trauma, dissociation, chronic shame, and complex relational histories. Bridger and Anastasia discuss the importance of extended resourcing, building adaptive networks, and honoring the pace required for complex trauma work.Anastasia describes how she integrates parts work into EMDR, especially by attending to protectors and allowing those parts to help shape the pace and sequence of trauma processing. Rather than forcing the client into a rigid treatment structure, she emphasizes the need to “go with” the client’s system — honoring imagery, sensation, color, thought, dissociation, and the unique ways trauma communicates through the body and imagination.The episode also includes a powerful reflection on chronic pain as an invisible identity. Anastasia shares her experience of living for over a decade with debilitating headaches and migraines before finally being believed by a provider who recognized the source of her pain. She and Bridger discuss how chronic pain shapes identity, self-understanding, relational life, and the ability to show up authentically. This leads into a broader reflection on the clinical importance of believing clients when they describe their own experience.Toward the end of the conversation, Bridger and Anastasia explore how therapists can begin practicing intersectional humility. Anastasia suggests that trauma-informed care means entering the room with awareness that something important may be present even when it has not yet been named. This includes trauma, but it also includes invisible identities, minority identities, shame, pain, and meanings the client may not yet feel safe enough to disclose.The conversation closes with a discussion of meaning-making, assumptions, monogamy, polyamory, relational expectations, diversity education, and the need for therapists to deconstruct their own definitions. Anastasia invites clinicians to ask clients what their words, values, identities, and relationships mean to them rather than assuming shared definitions. Bridger connects this with the therapeutic need to create an authentic meeting place where client and therapist can build meaning together.Key ThemesIntersectionality in therapyIdentity is not singular. Each client and therapist enters the room with overlapping experiences of culture, privilege, marginalization, history, body, pain, sexuality, belonging, and relational meaning.Invisible identitiesAnastasia highlights how identities such as chronic pain, queerness, cultural displacement, and internalized shame may deeply shape a person’s life even when they are not immediately visible.Power in the therapy roomPower is not something therapists can opt out of. It is present in the room through language, assumptions, clinical models, cultural norms, and the therapist’s posture toward the client.EMDR and complex traumaThe episode explores why complex trauma often requires more flexibility, resourcing, pacing, and clinical humility than a rigid application of the standard protocol can provide.Resourcing and adaptive networksFor clients with developmental or complex trauma, resourcing is not a quick preliminary step. It may be the core work of building new regulatory capacity over time.Parts work and EMDRAnastasia discusses using parts work to honor protectors, barriers, and internal systems before moving into trauma processing.Chronic pain and identityThe conversation frames chronic pain not only as a physical experience, but as an identity-shaping reality that can affect selfhood, relationships, work, and embodiment.Clinical curiosity and humilityTherapists are invited to ask, “What does that mean to you?” rather than assuming that words like family, healing, power, safety, or love mean the same thing for every client.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Attachment-Focused EMDR with Deb Wesselmann: Children, Families & Trauma Recovery

In this episode of Notice That: An EMDR Podcast, we sit down with internationally respected clinician, trainer, and author Deb Wesselmann to explore the powerful intersection of EMDR therapy, attachment wounds, childhood trauma, parenting, and relational healing.Deb shares her decades of experience integrating attachment theory with EMDR therapy, including practical ways therapists can work with children, parents, families, and adults carrying unresolved developmental trauma.We discuss:Why attachment trauma often lives beneath symptomsHow EMDR can help heal early relational woundsWorking with children using EMDRFamily therapy + EMDR integrationResourcing trust, safety, and connectionParents as part of the healing processParts work / ego states in EMDRHow therapists become corrective emotional experiencesWhy the therapeutic relationship still matters deeply in trauma workDeb also shares stories from training with Francine Shapiro in the early days of EMDR and how the field has evolved over time.If you're an EMDR therapist, trauma therapist, counselor, psychologist, or simply fascinated by healing relationships, this conversation is packed with wisdom.Learn more about Deb Wesselmann through her website: https://debrawesselmann.com/Learn more about training and professional development opportunities with Beyond Healing through our website: connectbeyondhealing.comDETAILED SHOW NOTESIntroductionBridger and Jen open the episode by discussing their upcoming EMDR Basic Trainings, hybrid learning model, consultation opportunities, and their emphasis on relationship-centered EMDR training.Meet Deb WesselmannDeb shares her background as:Former school teacherTherapist for 35+ yearsEMDR clinician since the mid-1990sCo-founder of the Attachment and Trauma Center in NebraskaLongtime specialist in attachment, trauma, adoption, children, and family healingHer journey into therapy began through witnessing the unmet emotional needs of children in school settings.Early EMDR with Francine ShapiroDeb reflects on training directly with Francine Shapiro when EMDR was still considered “experimental.”She discusses:Why she was initially skepticalHer powerful practicum experienceHow EMDR differed from hypnosisWhy EMDR felt safer, gentler, and more effective for trauma treatmentWhy Attachment and EMDR Fit So WellDeb explains how EMDR naturally supports attachment healing because it helps process:mistrustabandonment woundsrelational fearunresolved griefabuse memoriesdevelopmental traumaShe emphasizes that attachment styles are shaped through experience—not fixed identity.What Didn’t Happen Matters TooOne of the most powerful moments of the episode:Healing is not only about processing what happened to clients...It is also about grieving and repairing what never happened:protectionsoothingattunementnurturesafetyemotional co-regulationParts Work / Ego States in EMDRDeb and the hosts discuss:ego statesparts languagemultiplicity of selfinternalized child partswounded protector partsThey explore how parts work deepens EMDR treatment, especially with complex trauma.Deb’s Integrative Family EMDR ModelDeb outlines her step-by-step model for working with children and families:Phase 1:Parent psychoeducation and case conceptualizationHelping parents understand:“This is not a bad child.”“This is a wounded child in survival mode.”Phase 2:Family preparation and regulation workIncluding:body regulation exerciseswindow of tolerance educationplayful nervous system workemotional literacyPhase 3:Attachment-focused EMDR resourcingExamples:parent-child connection exercisesmessages of lovesoothing touchbilateral stimulation paired with relational safetyhealing the “little one inside”When Parents Are the BarrierDeb speaks honestly about difficult cases where caregivers are emotionally unsafe, resistant, or abusive.The hosts discuss how therapists may need to pivot toward:supporting the child directlygrief workcoping strategiesbecoming a safe relational templateThe Therapist as Attachment ResourceA major theme of the conversation:The therapeutic relationship itself becomes healing data.Bridger discusses inviting clients to:“Take my voice with you.”Meaning:internalize compassionremember safetyborrow regulationcarry supportive relational memory into distressThis is a beautiful section for therapists working with complex trauma.Why This Episode MattersThis conversation reminds us that EMDR is not merely protocol.It is also:relationaldevelopmentalembodiedattachment-informeddeeply humanSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Cognitive" Interweaves in EMDR: From Scripts to Relational Process

In this return to our Back to Basics series, we’re diving into one of the most misunderstood—and often over-scripted—parts of EMDR therapy: interweaves.If you were trained to think of interweaves as something you “pull out of a list” when a client gets stuck, you’re not alone. But what if interweaves aren’t about saying the right thing… and instead about understanding what the system needs next?In this episode, we explore:What interweaves are actually doing in the brain and nervous systemWhy “cognitive interweaves” are only part of the storyHow stuckness in EMDR often reflects deeper relational and developmental patternsThe difference between interrupting processing vs. supporting movementHow to move from rigid scripts to relational, somatic, and intuitive interweavesWhy some interweaves increase distress—and why that’s not a failureWe walk through core categories from Francine Shapiro's EMDR: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures (responsibility, safety, and choice), while also expanding into a more integrative framework that includes:Somatic interweavesAffective interweavesRelational and resource-based interweavesYou’ll also hear real clinical reflections on:Why “I’m confused…” doesn’t always landHow metaphor, imagery, and even humor can unlock stuck processingWhen to stay out of the way… and when your presence matters mostUltimately, this conversation reframes interweaves not as a technique—but as a relational intervention grounded in attunement, timing, and case conceptualization.If you’ve ever found yourself thinking:“What do I say right now?”This episode will help you shift toward:“What does my client’s system need right now?”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Can You Use EMDR During Pregnancy? Debunking the Biggest Myths with Beth Warren

What happens when one of the most meaningful seasons of life—pregnancy and early parenthood—collides with trauma, grief, and attachment wounds?In this episode of Notice That, we sit down with perinatal mental health specialist Bethany Warren to explore how EMDR therapy can be used safely and effectively with pregnant and postpartum clients—and why so many clinicians have been taught otherwise.Together, we unpack:The most common myths about EMDR in pregnancy (and what the research actually says)Why “just resourcing” may unintentionally limit healingHow attachment wounds, identity shifts, and grief show up in the perinatal periodThe difference between trauma and the deeper layers of lossHow EMDR helps untangle both present-day distress and long-standing relational patternsWe also explore the emotional reality of becoming a parent—the unexpected grief, the vulnerability of attachment, and the ways our own histories come alive in this stage of life.This conversation is both clinically rich and deeply human—an invitation to rethink how we approach trauma, healing, and development in one of the most transformative seasons of life.Whether you’re an EMDR clinician or simply someone navigating parenthood, this episode offers a powerful lens into what it means to heal while becoming.Connect with Bethany Warren:Website: https://bethanywarrenlcsw.com/Perinatal EMDR Training (HAP): https://www.traumarecoveryhap.org/course/warren-perinatal-clientsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Perinatal Window: Trauma, Matrescence, and EMDR with Dr. Nirit Gordon

Becoming a parent is often described as one of life’s most joyful milestones. But what happens psychologically, relationally, and neurologically during the transition into parenthood is far more complex — and far less discussed — than many clinicians realize. In this episode of Notice That: An EMDR Podcast, Bridger and Jen sit down with psychologist and EMDR consultant Dr. Nirit Gordon to explore the profound developmental, attachment-based, and trauma-related shifts that occur during the perinatal period. Drawing from feminist theory, attachment research, evolutionary anthropology, and clinical EMDR practice, this conversation reframes the transition to parenthood as a sensitive developmental stage comparable to adolescence — a time marked by identity reorganization, heightened emotional activation, relational stress, and the resurfacing of unresolved attachment wounds. Together, we explore: Why perinatal mental health is one of the most under-recognized areas in trauma treatment How attachment memories and developmental trauma networks reactivate during pregnancy and early parenting The concept of matrescence and its implications for case conceptualization Why fathers and partners undergo neurobiological and hormonal shifts during early parenting How modern parenting culture conflicts with evolutionary caregiving needs The myth of constant parental attunement and what attachment research actually shows Birth trauma and systemic gaps in trauma-informed obstetric care Using babies as resources in EMDR therapy The clinical importance of including perinatal experiences in Phase 1 history taking How therapists can support identity transformation during early parenthood This episode invites clinicians to expand their understanding of trauma, development, and relational memory — and to consider the perinatal period not simply as a life event, but as a critical neurobiological and psychological window for therapeutic intervention. Whether you work directly with parents or not, this conversation offers a powerful lens for understanding how attachment, trauma, and identity evolve across the lifespan.To follow Nirit's work, check out her website at niritgordonphd.com and her training offerings at touchstoneinstitute.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.