Integrating Compassion into EMDR for PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often involves feeling-states of shame and self-loathing. Traditional exposure-based treatments, which are effective for fear-based PTSD, are sometimes limited in effectiveness when working with these emotional experiences: clients with high levels of shame, guilt, or disgust may experience ‘blocks’ in processing when attempting eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Developed to help people who suffer from pervasive shame and self-attack, compassion focused therapy (CFT) is based upon an evolutionary framework, and draws on research from human neurobiology and attachment theory to understand how humans respond to different types of threat. This paper describes a protocol for integrating compassion focused techniques into EMDR therapy with the aim of facilitating adaptive information processing. Two case examples outline the use of the protocol and describe clients’ reflections on the process. We suggest that CFT approaches can be successfully integrated with EMDR when working with experiences of shame and self-blame.