Rutti Counseling & Consultation

About the Course

EMDR's standard assumptions quietly break down when the client is chronically ill. Our protocols were built around a trauma that happened- an event with a before and after, a body that has returned to baseline, a nervous system we can help settle. Chronic illness offers none of that. The target isn't over; it's Tuesday. The threat isn't a memory; it's the next flare, the next appointment, the next dismissal by a provider. This training is for EMDR clinicians who have sat across from a medically complex client and felt the eight phases strain against a reality they weren't designed for.

We'll reframe chronic illness as active, ongoing trauma and work through what that changes at every phase: how you conceptualize targets when the "incident" is still happening, how you prepare a client whose baseline is dysregulation rather than safety, and how you reprocess without pathologizing an accurate fear or installing false comfort. Along the way you'll learn a preparation approach— grounded in resource development and a prepared-not-ready framework— that meets clients where their nervous systems actually are instead of at an external readiness bar. We'll cover accessibility and language, ethical considerations specific to medical trauma, and interweaves for grief, uncertainty, and loss that doesn't resolve. Drawn from the growing evidence base for EMDR in chronic pain and medically unexplained symptoms, and from the presenter's clinical and lived experience.

Objectives

1. Explain how chronic illness functions as active, ongoing trauma and how this differs from event-based trauma within the AIP model

2. Conduct case conceptualization and target identification for medically complex clients whose stressor is current rather than past

3. Apply a resourcing-based preparation approach that calibrates to each client's nervous system rather than an external readiness threshold

4. Utilize cognitive interweaves that address medical uncertainty, flare cycles, and non-resolving grief without pathologizing accurate fear

5. Identify accessbility, language, and ethical considerations specific to working with chronically ill disabled clients in EMDR

Pricing

$195 Generative Access

$175 Traditional/Sustaining Access

$150 Supported Access

For more about our tiered pricing model: visit this link

Access to continuing education can be a financial burden, and RCC feels passionate about making training accessible to all communities.  We also recognize the impact of systemic racism on accessibility to training and education specifically for individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and other traditionally underrepresented persons of color (BIPOC). We are proud to offer a discounted rate for training in an effort to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our training and larger EMDR therapy communities.  Please use the coupon code BIPOC at checkout. 

Please note that discounts and scholarships cannot exclude any person from applying.

Need a payment plan? Email us at [email protected]

Joining Live Sessions

Live lecture will be hosted by the video conferencing platform Zoom. In order to join the sessions, please click on the zoom weblink listed in the "Zoom Information and Closed Captioning" section of this course portal. The link will prompt you to download the Zoom software if you have not already done so, and will then connect you to the session. Please plan on joining a few minutes early for troubleshooting if you are not already familiar with the platform. For more information on how to join a Zoom meeting, please read through the following article.

Lecture Sessions: Lectures will be hosted live on Zoom. You can find the link to join the lectures by navigating through the course player on the left-hand side of your screen. 

If you are having a difficult time with sound and need to call in via telephone, please consult this help article.

Zoom links for lecture will be visible in the course player closer to the time of the training.

This training will be conducted by Erica Smith, MSW, LCSW, C-DBT.

 Email [email protected] with any questions or concerns.

Agenda

Day One: 

9am-9:20am Welcome, objectives, and framing: why standard EMDR assumptions strain with chronic illness

9:20am-10:35am Module 1: Chronic illness as active, ongoing trauma; the AIP reframe

10:35am-10:45am Break

10:45am-12pm Module 2: Assessment and case conceptualization with medically complex clients; identifying targets when the "event" isn't over

12pm-12:40pm Lunch

12:40pm-2pm Module 3: Preparation— resourcing, window of tolerance, and the prepared-not-ready approach; accessibility and language

2pm-2:10pm Break

2:10pm-3:30pm Module 4: Reprocessing and interweaves for ongoing targets; flares, medical uncertainty, and non-resolving grief; ethical considerations

3:30pm-4pm Q&A, integration, and evaluation