If you’ve read my article on attachment-focused EMDR, you’ll already know that EMDR can be adapted to work with relational trauma, the kind that grows out of early relationships rather than one identifiable event. This article looks at a further development of that approach, sometimes called attachment-informed EMDR.
This describes a way of working with EMDR that prioritises curiosity about a client’s attachment experiences, particularly with parents, and above all with the mother. It was developed by EMDR consultant Mark Brayne, building on the attachment-focused model developed by Dr Laurel Parnell. The two approaches share the same foundation. What follows describes how this particular development extends it, and what it may offer if you’re exploring EMDR for relational or attachment-related difficulties.
What is attachment-informed EMDR?
The core idea is straightforward, even if the name sounds technical. Standard EMDR is very effective for processing specific, identifiable traumatic memories. But for many people, especially those with complex or relational trauma, the picture is more tangled than a single memory. Difficulties in the present often connect back to how a person’s nervous system first learned to feel safe (or unsafe) in early relationships with caregivers, above all the mother, always well before conscious memory begins. This attachment-informed development is one attempt to bring that relational, developmental thread more deliberately into EMDR work, alongside the processing of specific traumatic events.
Brayne’s approach adds his own emphases and techniques on top of both Francine Shapiro’s original eight-phase EMDR protocol and Parnell’s model. It’s worth knowing upfront that this is best understood as a particular way of practising EMDR, taught through Brayne’s own training community, rather than a separately regulated therapy in its own right.
A qualitative study by researchers Safa Kemal Kaptan and Mark Brayne, published in 2022 in Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, explored how EMDR therapists experience this attachment-focused way of working. The clinicians involved generally found the approach valuable, and the researchers suggested that core EMDR training could allow more explicit room for attending to clients’ early-childhood attachment histories, in both how cases are understood and how they’re treated.
How it builds on standard EMDR
It helps to know the basic shape of standard EMDR first. Shapiro’s model has eight phases: history-taking, preparation, assessment of the target memory, desensitisation (the phase most people mean when they picture bilateral eye movements or tapping), installation of a more helpful belief, a body scan, closure, and re-evaluation at the next session.
This attachment-informed development doesn’t replace any of this. It sits on top of the same structure, with particular attention paid to a few specific places within it.
A fuller resourcing team
Standard EMDR training typically introduces a single calming resource, often called a safe or calm place, before any difficult material is processed. Brayne’s approach, drawing directly on Parnell’s earlier work, encourages building a fuller set of imagined supportive figures: three nurturing figures, three protective figures (with at least one being a real person from the client’s own life), one wise figure, and a special place. Figures are deliberately chosen for a good mix of qualities and characters, and a client’s own parents or children aren’t used in this role.
It’s worth being clear about why this fuller team is built. It isn’t there to fortify a client before they’re “allowed” near their material, and it isn’t a stabilisation step in the sense of protecting someone from attachment work that would otherwise be too destabilising to approach. Rather, the team tests and exercises a client’s imaginal capacity and provides scaffolding for the work that follows. The safety in the room comes from the therapeutic relationship itself, and from the therapist sitting with the client in the present moment, not from the resourcing exercise alone.
Bridging: how the target is found
In standard EMDR, a therapist and client usually agree on a target memory to process from a history already discussed. In this approach, bridging works differently: it’s the method by which the target is found in the first place, before processing begins, rather than something used afterwards to trace a reaction back to its roots.
The starting point can be a present-day trigger, a feared future situation, or a pervasive feeling. From there, the therapist and client identify the image, the emotion, where it’s felt in the body, and the negative belief attached to it. The client is then invited to let their mind drop back in time to the very first place it lands, often a split-second, freeze-frame moment from early life where a similar feeling first took hold. Brayne describes this as an “old friend” reaction, a formative pattern the nervous system laid down long ago and still recognises. This process most often bypasses more obvious or dramatic memories that might otherwise sit higher on a list of difficult events, landing instead on quieter, earlier moments that turn out to be more formative.
Somewhat less emphasis on numeric ratings
Standard EMDR asks clients to regularly rate their distress on a numeric scale (0 to 10) during processing. Some practitioners of attachment-informed EMDR place less weight on this number-based tracking during certain phases, instead following emotional and bodily cues more directly. This is a stylistic and clinical judgement some therapists make, not a formal change to the EMDR protocol itself, and different practitioners vary in how much they use it.
A broader Phase Four
For some therapists trained in this approach, the desensitisation and reprocessing phase (Phase Four) may extend to exploring imagery, symbolism, or family patterns that surface during processing, particularly with clients whose presentations involve longstanding relational or intergenerational patterns. This is one of the more exploratory parts of the approach, and it’s worth knowing that not all EMDR therapists work this way, nor is there settled agreement on it within the profession.
How this compares with attachment-focused EMDR
The overlap with attachment-focused EMDR is real, and it isn’t a coincidence. This attachment-informed development builds directly and explicitly on Dr Parnell’s Attachment-Focused EMDR, particularly around targeting and session structure. Brayne has explained that his choice of “informed” over “focused” reflects something more substantive than a difference in style: attachment becomes the lens through which everything is viewed, a shift away from thinking primarily in terms of trauma and specific events, and towards understanding formative experience and how a client’s nervous system was originally shaped, or programmed, by their earliest relationships.
In practice, the distinction matters more to therapists than to clients. What matters for you is less which label your therapist uses, and more whether they can explain clearly how they work with your attachment history alongside any specific traumatic memories you bring to therapy.
Finding support in Australia
In Australia, EMDR practitioners can be found through the EMDR Association of Australia (EMDRAA), which maintains accreditation standards for EMDR therapy. It’s worth noting that attachment-informed EMDR, as described here, isn’t a separately accredited protocol in Australia; it’s an approach some practitioners incorporate into their broader EMDR practice, drawing on training from international sources such as EMDR Focus. You can verify any psychologist’s registration through the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) public register.
If you’re new to EMDR generally, my guide to EMDR therapy and what to expect in an EMDR session may be useful starting points before exploring more specialised variations like this one.
Frequently asked questions
What is attachment-informed EMDR?
Attachment-informed EMDR is an approach to EMDR therapy, developed by UK EMDR consultant Mark Brayne, that builds on Dr Laurel Parnell’s Attachment-Focused EMDR and Francine Shapiro’s original eight-phase EMDR model. It places extra emphasis on a person’s early attachment history alongside specific traumatic memories.
Is attachment-informed EMDR the same as attachment-focused EMDR?
They’re closely related but not identical. Attachment-focused EMDR is Dr Laurel Parnell’s original term and model. Attachment-informed EMDR is Mark Brayne’s further development, building directly on Parnell’s work with his own emphases around targeting and session structure. Brayne has described the shift to “informed” as reflecting attachment becoming the lens for understanding a client’s whole presentation, rather than one factor among others.
Is attachment-informed EMDR an officially recognised protocol?
Not as a separately accredited protocol in Australia or internationally. It’s best understood as a particular clinician’s approach to practising EMDR, developed and taught through EMDR Focus training, that some EMDR therapists choose to incorporate into their broader practice.
Does research support attachment-informed EMDR?
There’s a qualitative study exploring therapists’ experiences of this way of working, and a feasibility trial has reportedly been established, though outcome results weren’t available at the time of writing. The evidence base is still developing, and mostly reflects clinician-reported experience rather than large controlled trials.
How do I know if this approach is right for me?
This is worth discussing directly with a qualified EMDR therapist, who can help you think through whether your presentation seems more connected to specific traumatic events, longer-standing attachment patterns, or both, and pace treatment accordingly.
A final thought
Whatever the label, the underlying idea behind attachment-informed EMDR reflects something many trauma-informed clinicians have come to appreciate: that healing often needs to attend not only to what happened, but to how a person’s earliest relationships shaped their sense of safety in the world. If this article has helped make sense of a term you’ve encountered, that’s exactly what it was written to do.