MODALITIES

Sarah Jenkins provides intensives, training, consultations, and various treatment modalities to support therapists and their clients.

EMDR Therapy

The past can be tricky. It can create what our clients are going through now, even if there is not a conscious awareness of it. Our unhealed past can create fear, sadness, anxiety, depression, PTSD; you name it. Even if our clients do not think that the past influences them, the past is still present and can contribute to symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and a myriad of other symptoms.

When disturbing life experiences and traumas are “stuck” and frozen in time, there can even be a sense of hopelessness that “it will never get better” despite the healing work they have already done. Unhealed traumas and disturbing life events will wreak havoc on their lives and impact their ability to feel successful in therapy years later, even with our best efforts.

EMDR therapy helps the brain to be able to process and heal the unprocessed images, emotions, sensations, and beliefs that have been “locked in” and contribute to symptoms. The goal of EMDR therapy is to process the unhealed disturbing experiences, as well as what triggers them, to help clients find a greater sense of peace in their day-to-day lives.

Equine-Assisted EMDR

I premiered the EquiLateral: The Equine-Assisted EMDR (EA-EMDR) Protocol™ and EA-EMDR training (approved for 15 EMDR International Association Credits) in 2011. Equine-Assisted EMDR is an animal-assisted approach to EMDR therapy.
Through the protocol, clients are offered an experiential approach to EMDR therapy that is especially helpful for clients with complex trauma. EA-EMDR is still EMDR therapy but includes the integration of equine-assisted interactions (what some practitioners might also call Equine-Assisted Therapy or Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy) with EMDR to become EA-EMDR. EA-EMDR does not require clients to ride horses, nor is it necessary.

Structural Dissociation Theory

Whether a seasoned EMDR therapist or one who is recently trained, we all know that clients with complex trauma don’t necessarily “fit the mold.” Maybe we become unsure as to why our use of standard EMDR protocol doesn’t seem to be “enough.” Perhaps we find ourselves feeling “stuck” with challenging cases, baffled by why a client destabilizes. It can be challenging when the traumatic material does not move as we learned it “should.”
With complex developmental trauma, an extensive dissociative process can block stabilization and our client’s ability to process unhealed material from the past, even via EMDR therapy. EMDR therapists are invited to consider utilizing parts work via Structural Dissociation Theory, to increase readiness, address blocks to EMDR processing, and increase stabilization for clients with complex trauma and dissociation.

Deep Brain Reorienting

Clients may have unhealed shock and horror that can also impact their ability to fully process what has and hasn’t happened for them. Many have found that they still have a deeper sense of unhealed aloneness pain that can be challenging to treat. Such attachment-related shock can be elusive and unidentified in treatment but still create distress.
Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) is a new and innovative trauma therapy emerging from Glasgow, Scotland. Created by Psychiatrist Dr. Frank Corrigan, DBR is a brainstem-focused treatment modality utilized to treat the shock that precedes our emotions, defense responses, and the dissociation associated with traumatic experiences and attachment breaches.
DBR utilizes the brainstem’s initial registering of traumatic experiences and interpersonal interactions, that moment when we first “clue in ” that something is wrong,” “off,” that “oh no” experience of shock that comes even before our emotions and defenses kick in. Shock can be missed with more cortical-focused treatment modalities. With DBR, our focus is on healing this shock, thus enabling trauma processing to be experienced as more “gentle” and less overwhelming to clients.

Yoga

Don’t worry, it’s not just the poses. You don’t have to be flexible. 

Yoga is in fact way more just than the physical shapes that we may think of. Yoga is a mind, spirit, and body practice and can be a “home base” when needing additional grounding in between therapy sessions, or even as part of the work.