What does EMDR for grief feel like from the other chair?
Danielle Crittenden is a journalist and the author of Dispatches from Grief: A Mother's Journey Through the Unthinkable. Her eldest daughter, Miranda, died suddenly at 32. Weeks later, with grief centers full and waiting lists everywhere, Danielle found an EMDR therapist who could see her right away.
In the first Notice That interview from the client's side of EMDR, Danielle tells Bridger and Jen what that work did for her and what it did not do. She describes the question she asked in the second or third session ("What is this really going to do for me?"), the answer that made her stay, the imagined jeweled box that held the dread of her daughter's apartment until she was ready, and why she calls EMDR the path, not to recovery, but to functioning. Bridger and Jen listen as clinicians, slowing down on the small relational moments that made the work possible and on what it means that her therapist was not afraid to begin.
This is one mother's account, not a protocol. It is also the kind of feedback most therapists never get to hear.
Content note: this episode includes the sudden death of an adult child and a mother's thoughts of not wanting to go on living. Please take care as you listen. If you are in the US and need support, call or text 988.
For therapists: EMDR for Grief: When the Target Is a Person, Not a Memory. A half-day workshop with Bridger and Jen on Wednesday, January 6, 2027, in Springfield, MO or live on Zoom. https://institute.connectbeyondhealing.com/emdr-for-grief?utm_source=nt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=NT_CrittendenGrief_EMDRforGrief_Fall_2026
Dispatches from Grief: https://infinitebooks.com/products/dispatches-from-grief
Danielle Crittenden: https://daniellecrittenden.com/?utm_source=nt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=NT_CrittendenGrief_Therapists_Fall_2026
The Relational Thread: https://connectbeyondhealing.com/the-relational-thread/?utm_source=nt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=relational_thread
Notice That is an EMDR podcast for therapists, hosted by Bridger Falkenstien and Jen Savage.
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