Somewhere in the field right now, a therapist is finishing a session with the sense that something between them had moved; or refused to.
This publication is for that therapist.
The Relational Thread is a weekly essay on the layer of clinical work that modality alone does not fully account for: the intersubjective space, the person of the therapist, and the ways presence itself appears to participate in, and even facilitate change.
Some weeks, that means a close reading of the research on memory reconsolidation, written with the humility and hedging the science honestly requires. Some weeks, it means an adaptive reading of a “stuck” case. Most weeks, it means trying to name something you have already felt in the room but may not yet have trusted as clinically meaningful.
I’m Dr. Bridger Falkenstien — therapist, EMDR trainer, researcher, and Director of Training at Beyond Healing Institute. I co-authored EMDR and the Therapeutic Relationship: Reclaiming the Relational Thread (2027) with my long time friend and business partner Jen Savage. This publication grows from the questions at the heart of that book: What actually changes people? What happens between therapist and client when healing becomes possible? And what do we miss when we only look through the lens of protocol, technique, and adherence?
My own work centers on exploring intersubjectivity, and Somatic Integration & Processing, a case conceptualization frame that sits beneath modalities rather than on top of them. But you do not need that vocabulary to read here.
If you have sensed the thing, you are already fluent.
Subscribing is free. You’ll receive one essay each week, written for the clinician who came here to think, feel, and encounter.
