What is DUO?
The mybestme logo represents the fundamentals of wellbeing: physical (tinana), social (whānau), mental/emotional (hinengaro), and spiritual (wairua) health. DUO represents the intertwining of two people, and two therapies in one.
DUO focuses on relieving you of the trauma that has likely been caused in a past relationship (with caregivers, siblings, partners), and which is still triggering you in your current relationship. This trauma leaves you feeling at a stuck point or in a power struggle with your partner, and often the desire to return to the old days of romance of and excitement when you first met. Although DUO couldn't promise a return to the honeymoon period, it can help you grow into a mature love kind of space instead.
How do EMDR and IMAGO combine?
EMDR is considered an effective treatment for a range of issues that you may be experiencing individually and in your relationship.
All of us have the innate cabability to fight, flee, or freeze - however sometimes we overuse these reactions because we are triggered by something that may remind us of our past, usually in childhood. This especially happens in relationships - because that's where the triggers often are! These reactions may not serve us as an adult so the responses themselves start causing us problems too! This creates a cyclical loop of symptoms, and effects, due to unresolved causes.
What is important to remember is that we also have an innate propensity for healing. So while we cannot change what happened to us, we can change how we think and feel about it, which in turn helps us respond better in life. This is essentially processing, which EMDR helps facilitate.
EMDR Therapy targets the disturbing material (negative thoughts, yucky imagery, unpleasant body sensations, intense emotions) by using bilateral stimulation of the brain (normally by using the eyes). This is called de-sensitisation and reprocessing, and it helps you feel calmer. This in turn enables you to respond differently in real life.
IMAGO is a Relationships Therapy which uses special dialogues to help you learn to communicate better with your partner so issues are resolved more readily and thoroughly. You will learn to communicate your frustrations, your biggest desires, your most fond life experiences, and your unmet needs and deepest wounds.
Talking about your wounds has a dual benefit: it helps you uncover and discover more about you, and it also helps create empathy in your relationship, which along with commitment, are essential components of a deep love relationship.
The premise of IMAGO is that in a couple we have similar wounds, but different tendencies for coping and different skills for functioning. This means we do have the capability to empathise because we know how it feels to have a similar wound, and we can also learn from our partner's differing skills to our own. Likewise our partner can learn from our differing skills, adaptations, and needs.
In summary, we learn to meet in the middle, and become a better Duo. You will learn the dialogues during the completing of your workbook.
Combining EMDR techniques with IMAGO techniques add even more benefit to you and your relationship.
How does DUO work?
DUO IMAGO EMDR therapy is a unique approach to working together as a couple to resolve both individual and couple issues.
The DUO objective is to prepare you as a couple to practice good communication at home. DUO is a combination of couples therapy, and individual therapy, bringing together the best of both worlds.
DUO incorporates two types of EMDR - individual and group-based. The latter is where both of you undertake EMDR at the same time using the DUO workbook. These particular worksheets facilitate the EMDR processing, although you are together in the room your processing is done on your own.
The DUO Workbook includes visual representations of couple's therapy theory, as well as practical forms for you to complete in session or at home. The Workbook is yours to take away so you get a record o the work you have done as well as scripts to practice at home. Here are some example worksheets below.
The DUO motto
Come together. Support together. Process together. Practice together.
Come together.
Ideally you come to each session together. Your plan will likely include individual EMDR sessions for each of you at a time, prior to beginning the DUO programme. This helps bonding, understanding, and empathy between you as a couple.
Support togetherWhether you are initially undertaking some individual sessions or you have started the DUO workbook - you will usually both be present in the room. It is your choice about how you want your partner to support you, which may simply be their presence. This way you learn about each other's deepest fears and wounds and this brings understanding and empathy.
Process together.
With the Workbook you can do EMDR processing both at the same time. This depends on the stage of readiness you are at.
Practice togetherThe objective of the programme is to come to a place where you feel confident to continue the IMAGO communication dialogues at home. This is facilitated by shifting the stuckness that was flaring up in your relationship to begin with.
What next?
If you like the sound of DUO, then just get in touch and we can have a brief phone chat to see if we can make something work. DUO isn't suitable for everyone, you need to be 'warmed up' for therapy i.e. having done some EMDR or IMAGO or couples work before would make things smoother for you. If you have a current crisis happening or are struggling with behavioural issues such as addictions, then this may need addressing first through your own private therapy.
