EMDR and Dissociation: A Compassionate Guide to Individual Therapy

Dissociation can be understood as a protective response that helps a person cope when experiences feel overwhelming, threatening, or impossible to integrate. In individual EMDR therapy, recognising dissociation early is essential: safety, pacing, and collaboration come before processing traumatic memories.

What does dissociation mean in therapy?

Dissociation may involve feeling detached from the body, emotions, memories, surroundings, or sense of identity. It can be subtle—such as losing track of time or feeling emotionally numb—or more pronounced. These experiences are not a sign of failure; they often reflect the nervous system’s attempt to protect the person.

Learning from Roger Solomon

From 27 to 30 August 2026, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with Roger Solomon the "ART of EMDR at Manresa". The experience deepened my understanding of trauma, dissociation, and the importance of working respectfully with the different parts of a person’s inner experience. I found the workshop especially valuable because it highlighted how protective responses can be approached with curiosity, compassion, and respect rather than viewed as obstacles to therapy.

Working with parts does not mean imposing labels or assuming that every client experiences themselves in the same way. Instead, it can offer a gentle language for understanding conflicting feelings, beliefs, impulses, and protective strategies. One part may feel frightened, another may stay vigilant, while another may long to move forward. Each may have developed for a reason, even when its current strategies are painful or limiting.

In practice, this perspective encourages the therapist to listen carefully, honour the protective intention behind a response, and support communication and cooperation within the client’s internal system. The aim is not to force parts to disappear or to make the client reveal more than feels safe. The aim is greater understanding, choice, and integration at a pace guided by the client’s readiness.

Psychological perspectives on trauma and dissociation

Psychological research suggests that traumatic stress can affect memory, attention, emotional regulation, body awareness, and a person’s sense of continuity. Attachment-informed perspectives also highlight how safety and connection can support regulation and recovery. These ideas complement a careful EMDR assessment and help the therapist remain attentive to both present-moment experience and the client’s personal history.

The concept of parts can be used clinically as a compassionate, non-pathologising way to notice different states of mind and protective responses. It should remain flexible and collaborative: the client’s own language and experience take priority. The therapist should avoid treating parts as fixed identities or making assumptions without careful assessment.

Grounding as a foundation for safety

Grounding is a central part of working safely with dissociation. It helps a person orient to the present, notice the support of the body and environment, and distinguish what is happening now from what happened in the past. Grounding is not about suppressing feelings or avoiding meaningful therapeutic work; it is about creating enough present-time connection for feelings and memories to be approached without becoming overwhelming.

In individual EMDR, grounding may include orienting to the room, naming sensory details, noticing the feet on the floor, slowing the breath, using movement, or connecting with a supportive image or resource. These practices are chosen collaboratively and adapted to the person. The therapist can regularly check whether the client is present, oriented, and able to pause before continuing.

Understanding the internal system of parts

When we talk about parts, we are referring to different patterns of feeling, thought, body sensation, memory, and action that may become more prominent in different circumstances. A protective part may monitor for danger, keep emotions out of awareness, manage everyday responsibilities, or try to prevent further hurt. Another part may carry fear, grief, shame, anger, or a longing for connection.

Learning how a person’s internal system operates can guide case conceptualization. Rather than viewing symptoms only as problems to eliminate, the therapist can explore when a part appears, what it is trying to accomplish, what experiences shaped it, and what it needs in the present. This can clarify triggers, patterns of avoidance or activation, internal conflicts, resources, and the client’s current capacity for trauma processing.

A parts-informed case conceptualization remains tentative and collaborative. It is not a diagnosis of separate personalities, and the therapist should not impose a model that does not fit the client’s experience. The client’s language, consent, cultural context, goals, and safety remain central. Understanding the system can help the therapist decide whether to focus first on grounding, stabilization, strengthening cooperation, processing a specific memory, or building greater trust between protective and vulnerable experiences.

The therapeutic aim is not to force a part to disappear or to bypass protection. It is to approach each response with respect, understand its protective intention, and support more flexibility and communication within the person’s internal system. Over time, this may help the client experience more choice, continuity, and compassionate self-understanding.

Common Experiences of Dissociation

• Feeling disconnected from yourself

• Emotional numbness

• Memory gaps

• Feeling detached from your surroundings

• Difficulty identifying or expressing emotions

Why individual EMDR requires careful pacing

EMDR is an eight-phase, integrative psychotherapy. For clients who experience dissociation, the early phases are particularly important. Assessment, preparation, stabilization, and the development of reliable resources help establish enough internal and relational safety for later trauma work.

• Building a shared language for signs of activation, shutdown, and detachment.

• Strengthening grounding and orientation skills for use during and between sessions.

• Agreeing on signals, pauses, and ways to return to the present moment.

• Adjusting the pace and selecting targets collaboratively, according to readiness.

A guided structure for individual EMDR work

A useful clinical structure is to move slowly through preparation, maintain dual attention, and continually monitor the client’s window of tolerance. During processing, the therapist may notice changes in voice, posture, affect, orientation, or access to present-time information. These observations invite curiosity and care—not pressure to continue.

A parts-informed approach can be woven into this structure by asking what a reaction may be protecting, what it needs in the present, and whether the client can remain connected to the here and now while noticing it. These questions are invitations, not demands. They help preserve agency and make room for the client’s own meaning-making.

The therapist-client relationship matters

For many people with dissociative responses, trust develops through consistent, respectful experiences of choice and attunement. The therapist can help by explaining what is happening, validating protective responses, inviting—not demanding—awareness, and returning repeatedly to the client’s present safety and agency.

When additional support may be needed

Dissociation can occur alongside complex trauma, attachment injuries, anxiety, depression, self-harm risk, or other mental-health concerns. Assessment should be thorough, and treatment should remain within the therapist’s competence. Consultation, supervision, medical support, or referral may be appropriate when needs exceed the available setting.

A compassionate path forward

Individual EMDR for dissociation is not about forcing memories to emerge or moving quickly toward reprocessing. It is about helping the person build safety, choice, connection, and capacity at a sustainable pace. With careful preparation and collaborative guidance, therapy can create conditions in which difficult experiences may gradually become more understandable and integrated.

Selected psychological references

• American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.

• Brewin, C. R., Cloitre, M., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., Maercker, A., Bryant, R. A., Humayun, A., Jones, L. M., Kagee, A., Rousseau, C., Somasundaram, D. J., Suzuki, J., Wardenaar, K. J., Mott, F., Reed, G. M., & Reed, G. M. (2017). A review of current evidence regarding the ICD-11 proposals for diagnosing PTSD and complex PTSD. Clinical Psychology Review, 58, 1–15.

• Lanius, R. A., Vermetten, E., & Pain, C. (Eds.). (2010). The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic. Cambridge University Press.

• Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

• Solomon, R. M., & Shapiro, F. (2008). EMDR and the Adaptive Information Processing model: Potential mechanisms of change. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 2(4), 315–325.

• van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E. R. S., & Steele, K. (2006). The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization. W. W. Norton.

This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for assessment or therapy. EMDR should be delivered by an appropriately trained mental-health professional. My reflections on working with parts were informed by the workshop with Roger Solomon from 27 to 30 August 2026, alongside professional training, supervision, current guidance, and peer-reviewed research. This article does not reproduce workshop materials or proprietary protocol content.