Finally! A Way to Treat Very Early Trauma

Standard EMDR therapy presupposes the existence of language and explicit memory. We require a target, often a memory, with a high level of disturbance so that we can process through traumatic experiences that are stuck in the nervous system and the brain.

But what about the time before we have language and pictures held in memory? What about the first three years of life or even earlier - preconception, conception, our time in the womb, and our birth experience itself? This very early experience devoid of language and explicit memory has been inaccessible to EMDR processing up till now. As a result, we have been unable to address infant and toddler abuse and neglect, as well as the baby's stored experience of adoption.

Think about it. We don't build a house from the top down. We built it from the foundation up. And the early years of our lives are precisely that foundation upon which subsequent development is based. So it makes sense that a method that can address this foundational experience offers critical information about the formation of the personality and the origin of problems that shape who we become going forward in life. It is the time when we develop core beliefs about ourselves and our capacity to form healthy relationships - for better and for worse.

The work of Dr Sandra Paulsen entitled "When There Are No Words" addresses this early pre-conceptual and pre-linguistic experience. Having utilized her Early Trauma Protocol in my practice, I can report that it has a profound impact on those who missed out on secure attachment in their young lives due to emotional, physical or sexual abuse as well as the less dramatic but no less impactful experience of early neglect. Even when adoptive parents have been nurturing, the underlying experience of abandonment by birth parents can be repaired using this approach.

The ET Protocol fills the gap that has been needed to bring a new level of peace and contentment to those whole beginnings were less than ideal.