The Preferred Emotion and the Use of Assessment Questions in the History and Preparation Phases of Standard EMDR.

This paper has appeared in various forms for over five years. Earlier versions failed to find a home in professional journals. The current version is a hybrid of those earlier attempts but contains some informalities, since there is no longer any expectation of such publication.

The Preferred Emotion and the Use of Assessment Questions in the History and Preparation Phases of Standard EMDR.

(8.25.17 draft)

Abstract

This paper proposes two modifications in the standard EMDR eight phase protocol: (1) the establishment of a preferred emotion with the question, “When you think of this event what emotion would you prefer to be experiencing?” (2) the use of this, and most other “Assessment” phase questions in the “History” phase. The clinical and theoretical rationale for, and implications of, these modifications are discussed.

Preferred Emotion for Blogsite2