137. Stage 2 Series: From Summary to Scene: Doing Real Stage 2 Injury Repair

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy — Episode 137 Stage 2 Series: From Summary to Scene: Doing Real Stage 2 Injury Repair
Release Date: April 9, 2026 | Hosts: Dr. James Hawkins & Dr. Ryan Raina

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the heart of Stage Two in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT): how therapists can transition from summarizing attachment injuries to creating evocative, transformative "scene" work that enables true healing and repair. Drs. Hawkins and Raina explore when and how to approach injury repair, the challenges and rewards of revisiting attachment injuries, and techniques to facilitate powerful experiential moments for both injured and injuring partners. The conversation is rich with personal stories, practical guidance, and encouragement for therapists striving to transform client pain into relational growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why Stage Two Injury Repair Matters (01:28–05:16)

• Bottleneck at Stage One: Many EFT therapists get “stuck” in Stage One, cautiously avoiding full injury work until couples are stabilized.
• The Attunement Challenge: There is no “clear answer” for when to address attachment injuries—it’s about sensitive timing and attunement. Dr. Raina describes his own learning journey and how injury work taught him to truly do Stage Two:
  • “Until I could do really good stage two attachment injury work, I would say I really wasn’t doing stage two... I was just sort of doing stage two concepts.” (04:19, Dr. Ryan Raina)

From Surface Emotions to Scene Work (05:16–07:04)

• Moving beyond just deeper questions: Instead, therapists open vivid, evocative “scenes” that draw out the physical, sensory, and emotional reality of the injury—engaging memory and body, not just summary.
• “You cannot change what you cannot open.” (07:04, Dr. James Hawkins)

Therapist Vulnerability & Evoking Pain (07:05–10:21)

• Therapist Experience: Sharing personal vulnerability as therapists who must “open up those scenes” and invite clients to vivid pain, rather than shield them from it.
• Purpose: Not to make clients hurt, but to allow pain that already lives inside to come into the “scene,” giving it a chance for relational healing.
• “We are trying to give the pain that already lives within them a chance to be explicitly on the scene.” (07:45, Dr. James Hawkins)
• Leanne Campbell’s quote on change:
  • “We have to be able to invite our clients to have new emotional experiences that are matched with new relational events in order to have change.” (08:44, Dr. James Hawkins quoting Leanne Campbell)

Metaphors for Deep Work (12:22–16:25)

• Gruesome Medical Story Metaphor: Dr. Raina uses the story of a field medic performing life-saving, invasive surgery as a metaphor for therapists’ willingness to “drill into the pain,” even when it seems risky or overwhelming.
• “Whatever has most hurt my client, I gotta have, I gotta develop or have a part of me that wants to go there.” (15:27, Dr. Ryan Raina)

Timing & Dosage of Injury Work (16:25–17:24)

• The right dose at the right time: Stage Two is the moment for “surgery” (repair work), but only after stabilization. Stage One is for treating, not operating, on the injury.
• “You have to have the right dose at the right time... notice we’re not saying do this in Stage One.” (16:40, Dr. James Hawkins)
• Firefighter Metaphor: Preparation and training help therapists develop “instincts” and courage to face difficult relational moments (17:23, Dr. James Hawkins).

Challenging the Fragility Myth (18:50–19:56)

• Clients are not fragile but actually “too strong”—stuck in woundedness. Effective therapists hold both tenderness and relentless willingness to enter dark places:
  • “Your clients are not fragile. They’re too stable.” (18:50, Dr. Ryan Raina)
  • “Go be relentless going after these dark places.” (19:36, Dr. Ryan Raina paraphrasing Sue Johnson)

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Practical Techniques: How to Do Stage Two Injury Repair

The Two Goals of Attachment Injury Repair (21:51–22:51)

1. Pain Mirrored Back: The injured partner must see their pain “reflected” in the eyes of the offending partner.
2. Confidence for the Future: The injured partner must feel certain that given the same circumstances, the injury won’t be repeated.

Setting the Platform for Scene Work (23:14–26:01)

• “Platform” Conversation: Explicitly state the intention to focus on the injury, reset consent, and orient both partners. Address the “offender” first to reduce shame and defensiveness, then the injured partner.
• Sample scripting (see 24:23–25:25):
  • “You deserve to not have this event be the story of you... There’s so much more to you than this.” (24:27, Dr. Ryan Raina)
  • “With your permission, I want to spend a few sessions on this because I get the clear sense that in one way, a part of you is still in that place...” (24:40, Dr. Ryan Raina)

Scene-Setting: Vivid Experiential Work (27:30–33:33)

• Use evocative imagery and sensory cues to bring the memory alive:
  • Visuals, textures, temperature, smells.
  • Invite the injured partner to "return" to the scene, while the partner witnesses.
  • Assume both partners may not understand the full extent of the pain—be thorough and slow.
• “I want to queue up about seven physical cues to get us out of summary and make sure we’re in the experience.” (29:11, Dr. Ryan Raina)
• Emphasis on micro-process and repeated enactments—don't rush to closure.

Completing the Mission: Steps for Effective Repair

• Affirm and guide the “offender’s” empathy and attunement:
  • Caregiver must move beyond mere understanding to ARE: Accessibility, Responsiveness, Engagement.
• Multiple enactments: Go back and forth, deepening mutual recognition and support.
• Don’t rush to meta-processing: Stay in the present experience until the emotional shift is consolidated.

“You have to have deep limbic experience to have deep limbic revision.” (37:13, Dr. James Hawkins quoting Kathryn Rheem)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On facing pain for healing:
  • “If I don’t get co-regulation, if I don’t build those experiential bridges into that deepest pain, I’m sending them out of my office... really vulnerable in a bad way.” (15:17, Dr. Ryan Raina)
• On client resilience:
  • “You cannot change what you cannot open.” (07:04, Dr. James Hawkins)
• On transformational potential:
  • “What about the good things we lose if we don’t do that?” (18:40, Dr. James Hawkins)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:28 – Introducing the problem: Attachment injuries in Stage Two
• 04:19 – Dr. Raina’s personal journey with injury repair
• 07:04 – “You cannot change what you cannot open.”
• 08:44 – Leanne Campbell quote on the nature of transformative change
• 12:22–16:25 – Medical metaphor for going into pain
• 18:50 – The “not fragile, too strong” client paradox
• 21:51–22:51 – The two goals of attachment injury repair
• 24:23–25:25 – The “platform” conversation sample scripting
• 29:11 – The importance of sensory cues: “queue up... seven physical cues”
• 33:33–34:17 – Summary of key steps and why the order matters
• 37:13 – “Deep limbic experience to have deep limbic revision.”
• 40:40 – The therapist’s own disorientation as a sign of deep process

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Takeaways and Closing Reflections

• Being a ‘scene-setter’ matters: The more therapists can move from summary into evoked, sensory experience, the more profound and lasting the repair.
• Use yourself: Therapists are encouraged to step fully into the experience—not as distant guides, but as co-experiencers.
  • “This is not something you’re doing to people. You’re really in that memory with them.” (37:37, Dr. Ryan Raina)
• Disorientation is healthy: If you feel lost in the process, you’re probably entering the true depth of healing work. Just don’t forget the map.
• Client gratitude: End sessions with gratitude for client courage and teaching moments—these relationships are reciprocal and transformative for therapists, too.

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Recommended Listening:
Go back to [24:23]–[34:17] for a masterclass on building platforms, scene-work, and repairing attachment injuries.

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For More EFT Resources:

• Ryan Raina Training
• Doc Hawk LPC
• IS-EFT and World Summit information in episode.

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Hosts’ Farewell: “Thank you for being people who go there, being willing to go to dark places. You’re making a difference.” (41:26, Dr. Ryan Raina)

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This summary is intended for therapists at any stage who seek to deepen their confidence and skillfulness in the transformative work of Stage Two EFT injury repair.

Transcript

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Hey, welcome back. I'd love to invite you and ask you to invite other colleagues. I have three externships coming up in August and September of 2026. The first one is in Arkansas the very first week of August. This is the Mothership. Come join us, the place that we develop a lot of our materials. Hang out with me, George James, many other great supervisors in the Arkansas community. And then I'll be in Scottsdale, Arizona the first week of September. I would love to see you there. It's going to be an intensive externship which is a different model than I've practiced before. And last but not least, I'm excited about the Hampton Roads EFT community in September, mid September in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The first externship I've ever heard of that's actually done in view of the beach. So we would love you to have you join us. The details of that are on my website, ryanrainatraining.com all right, I have three

[Dr. James Hawkins]

externships coming up as well. Ryan. These now I probably didn't do my schedule the best. They are all in the month of August. I will be with a great community of Alaska, eft, Ohio, eft and I'll also be co doing an externship with Lisa Palmer Olson in Fort Carson, Colorado. You can find more about those on my website or on social media. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

All right, here we go. We're going to go right back into our stage two series and talk about attachment injuries fully going into the injury.

[Podcast Narrator]

Welcome to the Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy with your hosts, Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Raina. EFT is a dynamic model that humbles even the most seasoned therapists. Together we want to come alongside you as you continually push the leading edge of the of your understanding and application of this wonderful model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

All right, that's right. We're getting into attachment injuries with stage two. Stay tuned. We're hoping we're going to have some special guests on here. We're still trying to get schedules lined up, but we want to talk about it. We talk a lot about building safety and caution and helping de escalate injuries in stage one. But now like as Ryan we were talking about, but now, so what now here we are. We're at the moment we've got to go to the heart of the injury if we're going to create change.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

And we were saying before we came on, the conversation probably most of the time gets stuck and what are we going to do with these injuries in Stage one. And that makes sense because, you know, the vast majority of our cases, you know, are in stage one. And that's, there's so much nuance and complexity of what are you going to do when there's an injury that's pretty pervasive early on. You know, how to do surgery when there's not stability. Right. Medically, you don't do that. Therapy, you want to be careful doing that also. But sometimes we get so stuck in talking about what we're going to do when, when people are unstable that we don't do enough talking about what to do once they are stable. What do you do with attachment injuries in stage two? I know just my, my history with this, this is part of how I got involved with George is after sue introduced George and I in New York, she had some sense that we should have a connection. I mean, how cool is that? That's pretty amazing that she was able to read something like that at an externship. Bizarre. She had a unique, really unique ability to read people and identify, you know, like potential and talent. So anyway, but, but following that, I came across George and I made some contact. I came across that he was launching a community in New Orleans. So there had never been EFT there before. And that's when I started reaching out to him and saying, hey, I'll come down there on my dime, which I did like a dozen times or something and help help you facilitate or whatever you're going to do. He's like, that'd be great. But on the behind the scenes thing is I was disoriented on working with attachment injuries. I couldn't figure out when, what's the timing of when to address these. So I spent I don't even know how much money and time thinking I was just going to help launch an EFT community, not knowing that I had a lot more training to do to really get this model. EFT's deceptive. You think you got it 500 times before you realize, I don't know if you ever really got it.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

But anyway, normalize that for a lot of people out there.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. So anyway. But my, my real agenda was I was going to go down there and spend time with George and Karen Junta and get more clear on when to do injuries. And that was my, that was, that's part of what got me so into eft and that there's not a clear answer to that, by the way. It's an attunement thing. But secondly, doing attachment injury work in stage two, for me, this is Ryan's journey is actually how I learned to do stage two, period. Oh, yeah. So obviously the structure and the. And the concepts, you know, are from sue and externship and the core skills and training, which is important. But in terms of experientially, until I could do really good stage two attachment injury work, I would say I really wasn't doing stage two. I was just sort of doing stage two concepts. So that's. This is a big thing for me.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I'm interested here. I want to hear, like, so what were you doing before and what has changed now?

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, well, a couple would stabilize, or so I thought early on. And so I would just try to drop them one more level, you know, from fear into feeling unlovable. Right. And that is good. That's. That's on map. But with injuries in stage two, post, post de escalation, that concept of opening a scene where you slow it all the way down. And we're going to stay here in this one concept for 27 minutes or whatever and work on one side mostly, you know, focusing on one person's deep experience. We're going to really, really queue up physical cues from the scene. I'm going to go massive evoking. We're going to walk circles and circles and circles and circles. Go deep, stay deep, to make sure we have the synaptic memory system of the injury fully open, because you can't revise what you can't open. And so it was doing that work that I started going, why am I not doing this all the time? Why am I getting stuck just, you know, at peppering clients with questions and trying to go a little deeper? Why am I not doing this all the time? And the answer is, you probably should. So, you know, over the years, that developed into how I really do all my stage two work. I'm doing, I would say 85% of the time I'm in a scene, you know, set a platform, open a scene, spend a lot of time saying, what do you see? What do you smell? What's the textures around you to really get that limbic place open. But I learned that backwards from doing injuries back into all of stage two.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Wow. Ryan. I want to make sure we catch that line. You cannot change what you cannot open. That's a big deal, you all. And I think if I'm going to confess my learning edge with stage two, Ryan, and I'll say attachment injuries is, you know, just based upon, you know, some of my own attachment. I. It can be hard to open up a place where People are hurt. You know, I was a nurse before I was a medic, and now I'm a therapist. And so to open up those scenes sometimes and watch their vivid pain come alive in session, my nervous system like, oh, no. Oh no. I don't want to make you feel this. I don't want you to feel this way. Now let me say this. This is something I want people to understand. We are not saying we're trying to make them hurt. We are trying to give the pain that already lives within them a chance to be explicitly on the scene. Because if you let it stay in the background, this is what we were talking about before. It will. It feels like it's just like a boogeyman that just comes out unexpectedly and haunts them and scares them and hurts them in a controlled environment with the therapist as a. As a wise process facilitator with a partner. Now, particularly here, we're talking about stage two. Their partner has now de escalated and is showing a propensity to be there for them if the pain comes alive. We're trying to invite the pain that lives within them to come on stage. I'm give a Leanne quote that she said when we were at the Networker that I'm like, Leigh Ann, that was another brilliant line. She says we have to have new experiences matched with new relational events to have changed. So let me say that again. That was a great line. We have to be able to invite our clients to have new emotional experiences that are matched with new relational events in order to have change. And that's exactly what Ryan just said about we need to invite the client to one to be able to fully embody the pain of their injury. 1. Right. We don't want a client to be always trying to stay out of it. Trying to be like, well, you know, that was so long ago. I guess I'm okay. I don't want them to feel bad. These are, you know, because if they do that, they're keeping that emotional experience at bay. And then if they. They don't allow the pain and the fear to come alive, how can their body ever get a new experience that their partner can be with them and hold it with them? If we don't invite that part of them onto the stage and then even setting the scene. What I love about. And I want you to share, I love when you used to teach us at externship about how you would set the scene and then. And then, yeah, and we'll do that after the break. And then you would set the scene but also, I think the scene is important for the person who did the injury, because you know what it's saying. You're giving their body a redo to go back to the place where they probably feel a lot of shame. I can't believe I was that kind of person and there's nothing I could do about it. And so I do want to. I want to be able to one, to see how you show that scene, set that scene up and just talk about what we're going to be doing with that in stage two. But we'll do more of that after we come back from this break. All right, so let's talk about it, y'. All. The EFT World Summit coming up in May. And I just, I gosh, here we go with the commercial. And I don't have the dates in

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

front of me of 2027.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

May of 20. Oh, there you go. Right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

I think it's May 10th or 11th, something like that.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah, we'll get that nailed down some more. But y', all, I just want to give a huge shout out. It is a great thing to see efters from around the world come together. And that's just. It's just a huge community connection. People you've seen online, maybe you've been in a supervision group with or whatever. It's just so great to see how EFT is moving around the world in other languages and cultural groups. And not to mention the head. The speakers. Speakers from various disciplines that are adjacent or parallel to what we're doing in eft. That gives us a different way to look at our model from the outside and other people's research. And. And then there's the breakout sessions. I'll be doing a particular. I'll be doing a breakout session on working with blocks in the caregiving system from an EFT perspective, really trying to hammer in on some of the things you've heard Ryan and I talking on this podcast. I really, to me, I think the emphasis is getting more juice out of Tango Move four.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Nice.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I think sometimes we rush through that too quickly and we focus only on the share and we don't give the caregiver enough attention to help also create change. So any. Anyway, we'll probably throw a link in the chat, but EFT World Summit, May 2027.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. If you're an EFT, first of all, you can do EFT and not do any of this. But if you're an EFT, or if you're like eft, if it's one of the main things you do you need to join Iseft? Join. Join as a part of us. And the summit is like EFT extraordinaire. It's like Mardi Gras parade of. That's the biggest, the biggest party every two or three years. So it's a, it's a networking dream. It's just fun to be around folks who are all sort of have a similar bend in terms of what we think about and how we approach things. So it's, it's just an incredible time to be together. So join US for the 2027, May 2027 summit in Vancouver, Canada.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

All right, Ryan, so back into that place about your scene work. Yeah, if you don't mind, could you.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Well, I want to, I want to start by. I'm going to give an elaborate story to make a simple point. I'm bad about that. But, but you talking about being a medic. I just finished another book on military. I don't know why. This is like my 500th book I've read in this topic. It's called inside SEAL Team 6 by Don Mann, who's an older Navy SEAL. And he tells an incredible story. Very typical of that community of like maybe they have brain damage just a hair. You know. He tells stories which I've heard hundreds of times now that as a kid he just kind of lacked some of his fear impulse. They just jump off stuff and just have this sort of wild edge that eventually can be trained into something useful. So anyway, but he was pretty cool story with his special Forces. He was a, he was a combat medic extensive. And got, got in a surgery thing and anyway was able to like assist in surgeries not knowing he was going to use that even though he wasn't a surgeon. He had to do things in crisis. And so I could tell several of his stories, but I want to tell one. It's a bit gruesome. So he's in a country, I think it was in South America. It was a country that was really struggling at the time. It's very impoverished, virtually no medical care. He's there on like a, a nice mission. Like he's helping with something. I forget what it was. Some kind of weather related recovery or something. And so there's just a 12 year old little boy who rode around like selling things on a bicycle and one day he got hit by a car and it was serious. And so Don man was the first one there. Even though he's a combat medic. He was just doing stabilization but they, they thought the boy wasn't going to make it, he had severe brain damage. So this is, I don't know why I laugh, it's just kind of crazy. But so Don actually goes with him to the local surgeon and there's not even a hospital. And this guy's just like the sort of the random village doctor guy. So he lays this kid down, they put him on anesthesia, something. This guy goes over to the corner while he's talking, like, how was your day? What'd you have for lunch? Did you had coffee? And he grabs a drill with a dirty drill bit like you would have in your garage. And Don goes, what is this guy about to do? And he drills into this kid's head in five places and removes his skull right in front of him, right? And this guy's like, what is happening? And so he takes like a knife and he starts removing the black part of his brain as he's just chatting about the day like it's no big deal. And finally he says that, you know, the black part of this brain is dead. And if we don't get this out of here, he'll be dead too. Just like matter of fact. But removes all that stuff, put some saline in there, drills his, his skull back on. Don man's going, this, there's no way this is going to work. Six months later he shows back up. The kids driving around the bicycle again. He's good to go. So I think that's a metaphor to me about drilling into painful places and making things sometimes even worse before they get better and doing really hard and scary things. Whatever has most hurt my client, I gotta have, I gotta develop or have a part of me that wants to go there. Because if I. If why? If I don't get co regulation, if I don't build those experiential bridges into that deepest pain, I'm sending them out of my office. Even if they're happy, really, really vulnerable in a bad way. Because life is probably going to trigger that deep wound again. And then if they go into some sort of auto regulatory process, whether it's over blame or over going away now, they're going to be alone. And so this is my opportunity. But I do want to agree with what you said. It does feel scary. We are going into deep things and in stage two, the clients are doing better. So why you join into my school, man? But we have from our attachment history, we have from our old cycle information, this knowledge that goes, this person's deeply wounded here and this person needs to get clear and co regulate in this deep place wow.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Thank you, Ryan, for that story. It is a gruesome story. So for those of you who listen to our podcast and the kids line, pre warning.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

But no, it has a good ending, though.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

He's driving around the bicycle, man. That's the point.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Exactly. And there's two good points I want to highlight with that, Ryan, before you go into, you know, the scene one just being at the networker, and I know I keep shouting them out, but thank you. But Dr. Bruce Perry, who does a lot of research with neuro research on children, he talks about, in therapy, you have to have the right dose at the right time. And so here I know some people might get nervous, say, wow, that just seems so vivid and like, wow, that's scary. But here it is. It's the right dosage at the right time. Notice we're not saying do this in stage one.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yes, definitely.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Right. Like that would be an overdosage upon the client in their bond, in their nervous system that they would not be ready to handle. That would not be responsible.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

We want to treat the injury in stage one, but we won't. We don't want to do surgery.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right. You have to stabilize.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

That's right.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's when I keep going to. And then the other one, it just reminds me of a story. I think I heard George tell it one time. He says he can't remember it, but I love it when he talks about firefighters. And part of what helps firefighters go into these scary moments is now they are. They do have a fear of, I could get hurt. This fire could be bad. But one, they've trained for it. So they trust their training, they trust the equipment that they've trained with, and they trust the people they've trained with. So you as EFT clinicians. So that's why I love that you're listening to this podcast. All the things you do, whether it's success and vulnerability, EFT CAFE refreshers, facilitating all the great things you do to keep training. So that way, as we talked about on one of our podcasts, you train your instincts so you can trust your instincts. And then the other part that motivates these firefighters from Georgia, story that he doesn't remember, but going back to what you're saying is they see the potential on the other side because people can be like, but what about if you bring them in and you can't bring them out? Or what if this thing happens and the partner can't respond? That's a fair response. That's a Fair thing to be concerned about, but you would. I also want people to be concerned about what if you don't do this, and they're left with it unchecked? No one helps them like, I want you to also. And I want you to see the good potential, because if they can do this, it sets them free, and it also helps their partner, and it helps their relationship. So while I want you to be afraid of the different cautions and things that could go wrong, I also want you to have an equal, healthy concern of. But what are the good things we lose if we don't do that?

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Absolutely. You know, and a point that I make at trainings that gets the most feedback of anything I ever say. Every time I teach this, people in the crowd go, ooh. They start writing it down or arguing, whatever it is. It's just a strong response. Your clients are not fragile. They're too stable. And as an experiential therapist, you can't treat your clients like they're fragile. And it seems like a contradiction, but it's not, because they are vulnerable, and it is tender, and I need to hold them well and have an alliance and create safety. Those things are still true, but they're not fragile. They're actually too strong. They're too stable in their woundedness. Right. So sue was big on both. She was huge on alliance and Tinder, and she got. She caught tons of criticism by saying, when someone's in a bad place, I want you to speak to them like a third grader or like a good mom speaks to a third grader is how she would say that. And then in the next sentence, she would say, and then go, be relentless. Going after these dark places. So if you can hold both of those, you understand eft.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's another good story.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. Yeah. So just. Just hacking on two things that you said before I get to the thing that you asked me to do. You know, I. So. So PTSD was. Was part of my dissertation. It was the main part of my dissertation. And so one thing we talked about is, you know, there's a phrase like, well, you can't change the past. And I want to say, yes, you can. You can absolutely change the past. In fact, you cannot not change the past every time you have a conversation, even if it's just me and you reminiscing about something here we're in our office right now seven years ago. That conversation has now changed the past effectively, because what we have in our memory system is not actually the past. What we have is a. Is A, you know, it's a distorted perspective all the times because we can only see from one angle. And it's, it's, there's reactivity in the brain, there's all kinds of stuff that goes on. So you are effectively changing the past by going into a memory. And it's so crucial, what you just said, it's not just for the, it's not just for the injured, it's also for the injurer. So we're going back into this place to have a corrective experience that effectively changes what happened. What a beautiful opportunity there that we have to do this. And just going back to the fundamental what is the target? You know, when you go to an AIRM training, sometimes that gets a little sophisticated for me. My brain can kind of blackout, but they're still just saying do eft to the injury. But the target is really clear. Target is to 2 points. 2 goals of attachment injury repair. Goal 1, the injured party can see their pain reflected back in the eyes of the injurer, signaling to their limbic system that corrective shift. They're not just trying to talk me out of the pain, they're joining me in the pain. So. And you can't ask people this directly. I do sometimes. Most of the times you can tell, but you can say to someone, hey, when you, when you share the pain of what happened this day to your partner, do you think they fully get it? And when they say things like, maybe not fully, but yeah, they've slowed down, they sit with me, I see that they literally hurt with me. There's your first goal met and then goal two of the attachment injury repair model is a felt sense of confidence that given the same circumstances that this would not happen again. So if you have one and two, in theory, the injury is healed and you can go back to wherever you were in the EFT process before. And that is not a one time visit, by the way. Injury work is often two, three, four, five sessions, maybe more, depending on, you know, all the variables. So to your point, setting a scene,

[Dr. James Hawkins]

can I make a quick plug? Do it. So I will say I will be doing an AIRM training with Leanne Campbell online in the South Nevada EFT community. Coming up April 23rd, 24th. You can go to South Nevada EFT.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Southern Nevada.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Yeah, Southern Nevada. There you go. Southern Nevada. Or you can go to my, you can go to my Instagram page and you can find out more information.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

That'd be great. You know, I'd love to hear what Leanne has to say about this because I, you know, she influenced this heavily. But you know, for me, if there is a, if there is a, I'm going to call it a governing injury, meaning it was such a big event, it is now warped the status of our bond. Then as soon as we have de escalation or really early on in stage two, I want to go get it. That's debatable and that's attunement based and you could frame that different ways. I'm just speaking for me there. And then I want to do a platform. So a platform would say, hey, I think this is a time and a place that you all have done such a great job. I want to spend a significant amount of time here for a few sessions on an event that happened and I look to the offender and I want to say, hey, I want you to know I'm not doing this to make you feel bad. The opposite. You deserve to not have this event be the story of you. There's so much more to you than this. And I think you're ready to go do the work to make this painful event just one part of the story that ends up being a beautiful story. But the only way out is through. And I think you're ready to do it and I'm ready to do it with you. And then I look to the person who's been offended and I say, you know, with your permission, I want to spend a few sessions on this because I get the clear sense that in one way, a part of you is still in that place, that delivery room or, or the closet where you found out there's been an affair or like wherever they most powerful emotional state of the injury is. I get a sense that a part of you is stuck there for good reason. That part of you is waiting for someone to come find her, him, they, whatever the person may be. And I want to do that with you right now. Both of you deserve to have this work done so that we can bring this back to a state of wholeness. Are we okay to do that? Like that's my platform. So I'm resetting consent. I'm kind of giving them hints of what, of what and why I want to do that.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I even love the order you did that in Ryan. Going to the partner who maybe. And I know we don't always like this language, but offender, just so you know who the person committed the injury to get them stabilized first. Because what in stage two, even though you've been here, the thing we've got to watch out for is, are they going to flood out in shame and defensiveness and not defending against their partner, but defending against, like, the way it's probably warped their working model of themselves. So the fact that you go stabilize them first is great. Which also sends. Probably start sending a message to the person who's been injured watching you stabilize and hold them before you even go ask them to open up. So I even like the direction of that.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah. And sometimes if I. If I feel like that, that the offender is hesitant, I'll use another thing that I think is true and motivational, which is, you know, you kind of sleep every night with an unpinned grenade under your mattress. You know, it's not blowing up, but it's like all it would take is just a little bit of movement and we blow up. And that's not cool, man. That's not fair to you because look at what you're doing. You just spent seven months with me pouring your heart out here, and, you know, the idea that you're going to wake up, whatever Thanksgiving Day as it may be, and one thing comes up and boom, you're right back in the doghouse. This sucks for you, too. So let's go do the work to sort of, in some ways, put this behind us or at least integrate this where it's not always so vulnerable to being triggered. And usually they're like, yes, please. What do I got to do three or four or five sessions? Absolutely. I've been suffering this for 15 years. I'm tired of the Scarlet Letter. I'm like, I'm tired of it for you. You're more than. Than a mistake. Right. So. So those kind of conversations in that platform are a big deal. And I used to do it without the platform, and people would just have a harder time understanding what and why I was doing it. So why not just tell them, Man, I love that.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Reminds me of a Bryan Stevenson quote. He's author of Just Mercy. He says, each a person is more than the worst thing they've ever done, but you do have to make it right.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, yeah. Telling everybody to get over it doesn't work either. Yeah. So we're trying to find that middle ground. Yeah. And I love. That's my favorite or second favorite part of EFT is it's redemptive and bigger than just a relationship. So these are one of those moments. So. But then I want to open the scene. So, as I said, I think it's a good frame to think that, you know, a part or a version of the offended is stuck in that Place waiting for someone to come find them. It's a pretty good image you can get of a little. A little girl or a little person that, you know, is kind of, you know, in, in the stall at school, in the bathroom, or I have a friend who, you know, horrible situation, parents divorced. Dad would say, I'm coming to get you Christmas afternoon. She goes and sits by the mailbox and sits there for hours, won't come back in. Dad never shows. Right. That kind of imaging is really perfect to open an injury. Right. So I'm going to come and sit by you on that curb and it's cold outside, you know, and your partner's going to sit on the other side. I say you have that backpack, you know, so can I get you to close your eyes? So wait a minute or so. So as you open up, describe for me what you see. You see the concrete? What's the temperature as you look around you? What's here? How's your skin feel as we go look back in that little girl's eyes? What are you seeing in her eyes? So we're trying to be very evocative, right? And that's why we don't do this as much in stage one, because I can't yet predict what the partner's going to do and I can't yet predict even what you're going to do in that kind of pain. And so now we want to. I really would like to queue up about seven physical cues to get us out of a summary and make sure we're in the experience. So. So temperature visuals, paying attention to their own skin, their own eyes. What does it smell like? What's the. What do you see around you? Tell me more about what you see. Are you in the grass or in the sidewalk? Right. Or whatever it may be. You know, five to seven cues before you then just go do eft. And then it's. To me, it's old school, step five. So as deep as we can possibly go into the pain alive right now in the body, sitting with that pain, holding this pain open. And at this point, I'm mostly doing it for the partner. Okay. Because I've already, I've already done a lot of affect assembly with the offended. By this point, what we haven't done is have the offending partner sit in the pain of just how devastating this was for this person. That's the piece that they probably weren't quite ready for. So I'm trying to hold this place open for a long time to get the offended to completely leave their Place of self preservation and even saying things like I'm sorry right into, oh, I didn't really understand the level of the pain that's here for you. Right. And so. And sometimes I want to maybe camp out in primary emotion for sure, deepest attachment fears and then maybe impacts on negative model of self. But I'm a little bit less structured in the injuries. I really just want to know what all the damage is. And my presupposition is that the offended party actually doesn't know either. So the offender for sure doesn't know all the types of pain, but the offended doesn't know either. Why? Because for them to survive, they shut down the pain, they cut off parts of self, they cut off needs because this injury is so painful. And so now we're going to try to redeem all that. And I need to assume that as I make circles, walk around in circles as my metaphor for the offended party, I need to assume that there's pain here that they also don't know. So I have to go slow enough and be curious enough and use myself enough where they go, oh yeah, the voice inside my head was saying or whatever it might be there finding all the devastation. To me, this feels like picking up wreckage and debris after a hurricane. Right. Don't hurry. You can't hurry. Right. So don't rush to the enactment. You can do enactments at any time. You can do 10 enactments or you can wait till a big one. I think that's art and attunement, but in the scene. And so then I want to make sure that we finish the mission here when we're this deep. So I want to get a really clear. I want to get a really clear alive pain in the body. I want to get an enactment, I want to affirm the enactor. Then I want to spend time just what you're going to focus on at the summit, seeing if I can get that caregiver to a green light where they are not only empathic but they can demonstrate the empathy with attuned responsiveness. A R E. And then I want to come back to the offended and I want to see and, or help them take in the love and care. And then I want to stay very present with my processes and have them enact several times back and forth. What do you see in their eyes? What do you notice on your skin as they reach for you? Right. Did you know you had that kind of power? So it's micro process where you're turning a quick present process into another enactment. Multiple Times be my preference before, before we then go meta, take that deep breath and be like, whoa. So that was different. You've had a thousand conversations about what happened that day, but something was different about today. What was that like for you? What was that like for you? So once you start doing that, just be aware that you've left the present place a little bit. So don't do that prematurely.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Wow, y'. All. That was a good nine minute segment on AR and on Airmont. That was a great segment. Like, literally you could go back to. I think I wrote it down. Go back to minute 24, 23, 30 or so, up to about minute right now, 34. That was a good segment, Ryan. And I guess I'll do the tango move five here. I love the platform. Going to the offender first, letting them know the good reason why you're going here. Not beating up on them, why this matters. You want to help them. So that way it's not constantly just beating up on them, get them set, going to the offended, being able to let them know, hey, I want to take a couple sessions. And while you're going there to find their pain and help them have a new experience, part of you stuck. Yeah, there you go.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

And by the way, we're not saying you have to do this exact order. These are just sort of battle tested orders that we found helpful.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

Well, you know, and I thank you for that. That's good, that's good responsibility. But also it's like, I'm just glad that you're being clear here.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

I mean, this moment is loaded, you know, and so I. That's what I think. Also, just to remind people of what the heart of this podcast is, why we do success and vulnerability is. We know you as therapists, we didn't do our. Thank you. So I put it here. We know you're doing hard work. Right. And it makes me think about in the military, you know, as when you're a sergeant or you're an officer, your whole duty in life is about making sure the troops are equipped to go do a hard mission. You know, when you're the commander that stays back at command post, you can't go out and fight, but you better. Like, I want to make sure they have the best equipment, I want to make sure that they're trained, I want to make sure everything's clear. So that way when they go out to do the mission, they have everything they need. Because if they don't, that's my fault. Right. And I think as trainers, you and I definitely carry that burden to make sure. Are we equipping our EFT therapists to go do these hard missions? So that's why I thank you for this segment. So it's the platform, set the scene. And I even like that you said version of self, Ryan, because I think that's important for the offender, because there was something going on in their life where they maybe, maybe. And I want to be careful. I don't want to. But that is for those who are now in therapy at this point, they probably is like, I hate that I was that person. I was out of my mind. I was in a dark place. I wasn't making smart decisions. And in that place, it's one thing if I do that, but now I hurt the person I love. I hate seeing that version of me. So I love that.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

I want to say that that's worth going now. We're going long, but there's really five people on the mission here. All right, you got your therapist. You got the adult offended and the adult offender. But in the memory are two older versions of them, too. And we're going after all those people. We're going after all of them. Right. In a good way to get them back together. Because there's just division everywhere to survive this injury. So I think that's a helpful image you just gave. That's what you just said, actually. So I just learned from you.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's good.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And now I see what you mean by how this helped you with stage two. I really. I get it now. Right. When you went into that place where you said, I want five to seven physical cues to get out of summary into experience. And this is one like, you know, that's a big one. I think you and I, when we talk about stage two certification tapes, that's what we're looking for, y'. All. That's. Sometimes it's hard to say it, but I think you just help me. We stage two needs to get out of summary, and it's got to get into present moment, deeper level of experience. If they're still talking in summary, I'm going to go with Kathryn Ream's great quote here. You have to have deep limbic experience to have deep limbic revision. Then you said you get your five to seven cues, and then it's back to old school. Step five work. I like that camp out in some primary emotion, but that's not the goal, by the way. Catch that. I think people misunderstand stage two, but they were deep in primary emotion. Yeah, but step five is intrapsychic yeah,

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

that's step three, actually.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

That's right, exactly. Ryan, thank you. And then go get that negative model of self. How is this. Not only. How does this make you feel? How has it changed how you view yourself, how you view your partner, how you view this relationship? Because those. That's part of. We're setting this up so we can have some revision here. I don't know. That was a great teaching segment.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Yeah, thanks. And you know, I'm thankful to my. The people that trained me and to my clients who are some of the ultimate trainers. They'll. They'll teach you. I just want to make one last point here for my contribute contribution to tango 5, and that is disorientation. The good and the bad. So for me, a late stage one session, occasionally stage two sessions, regularly stage two attachment injury sessions. Almost every time I am completely disoriented personally. And that's a good thing. So when I leave the session, walking down the hall, I'm like, where am I? What just happened? What day is it? Okay. Because that is. I'm losing myself completely into the memory in a good way. So that's. That's that. The point I'm trying to make is how important it is to use yourself. This is not something you're doing to people. You're really in that memory with them. Like, it takes me a minute to go use the bathroom or put water on my face to go, okay, I got a client coming in in three minutes. It's a good thing. It's like, that is exhausting. No, I don't think that's that exhausting. I think working blocks is a lot more exhausting, especially when you lose in stage one, and we all do at times, but it is disorienting. Like it should be. That otherworldly whatever you want to call that, if that's some kind of spiritual thing, I don't know what it is. Honestly. My limbic system is. Is in a different arousal state as I'm doing that kind of deep work, especially with injuries. So the other side of disorientation is I do have clients sometimes who that the injury work was so deep and so good, they think that they're done, which is totally their prerogative. But don't be afraid, or how should I say it? Trust the map enough to come back to where you were and finish if allowed. So a lot of times injury work for me is like second session of withdrawal re engagement. And then we spend three or four sessions there. And it kind of feels like we're done because it goes that well. But ideally speaking, we would come back and finish withdrawal, reengagement, make sure not just in the injury, but in underneath their cycle that withdrawer can sort of reconnect with self and own and share their deepest attachment fears and negative model of stuff and or needs. And then shifting to pursuer, softening to go ahead and finish that structural stage two, second order work. So don't be so disoriented that you forget the map. The map, as it's written, exists that way for a reason. That's where those steps and stages, although they can be hard to learn, that is where we have almost 40 years of outcome research that we know this works. This is the way couples restructure their bond. So use yourself so much that you're disoriented a little bit. Then afterwards catch your breath and find your footing and trust the map.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

And last statement I'll say is some people say that feels like a lot like to use yourself like that. You want to know what was burning me out in my career trying to work with these places outside of that kind of scene? Because it will kick your butt and you will feel like you're failing and you're moving nowhere. And none of us signed up and paid all the money to get our licenses to only keep showing up every day feeling like we're failing. Yeah. Thank you all so much for listening to this podcast. And thank, you know, maybe we also, I want to encourage you, thank your clients for what they're teaching you. I know it's hard, but sometimes say, hey, thank you for today. Thank you for helping me get sharper. Thank you for teaching me how to sit with people, even here. And it just reminded me of Sue. Even in Sue's kind of like final day, she would say, I'm so happy to go up the hill and see what my clients are going to teach me today.

[Dr. Ryan Raina]

Nice. And thank you for being people who go there, being willing to go to dark places. You're making a difference.

[Dr. James Hawkins]

All right, y' all take it easy.

[Podcast Narrator]

Thank you for listening. We hope this experience helps you push the leading edge in your work to help people connect with themselves and with each other. Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five star review. You can contact us at pushtheleadingedgemail.com and you can follow us on our Facebook page at pushtheleadingedge. You can follow Ryan on Facebook at Ryan Raina Professional Training and on his website, ryanrenatraining. Com. You can follow James on Facebook and Instagram at Doc Hawklpc. You can also check out his website, dochawklpc. Com.