FREE Handouts

Free handouts for you and your family

and friends, coworkers and other associates!

Please feel free to download these handouts and share them with others.

This Time-Out Handout has been tested on hundreds of clients and has benefitted those clients and family members who have used it. Could it help you and your family, as well?  To find out for free click to download the Time-Out Handout in .pdf form.

The idea of the Time-Out is to return to the stuck spot later and address it in a way you can both agree upon, for now, as a good start.

How can you set it up to talk without upsetting yourself or another again? Consider using the teaser list of customizable Do’s-and-Don’t below, when you want to promote results and a more peaceful way though with those you love and even those you don’t! This could be your starting point:

Click here for the NonViolent Conflict Resolution Skills Worksheet (NVCRS).

Temple Grandin reminds us that observation is science. You can be scientific about your results, yourself! You can make a few copies of the NVCRS and track your results each day or week. You may discover that you’re glad you did!

Dear Colleagues:  Thank you for your interest in my handouts! These handouts have been downloaded in countries across the globe by fellow therapists, hospitals, VA’s, universities, and other state and county government agencies.

I’d love to hear from you about  your results when offering these resources to  your clients – (805) 544-2273. Thank you!

Should you use my copyrighted work, you may do so long as you do not alter these two free .pdf’s in any way at all. Instead, please share these documents just as they are. I really appreciate that, thank you.

Four published book chapters have been written for clinicians and clients. One chapter is about treating domestic violence with a couple – individually, as a couple, and with their children. The other three chapters are the treatment of substance abuse – both subject chapters integrate other established treatment modalities into the powerful EMDR therapy model.

EMDR and Family Therapy in the Treatment of Domestic Violence is in The Handbook of EMDR and Family Therapy Processes (2007) edited by Francine Shapiro, Frances Kaslow, and Louise Maxfield. This chapter is for those who have been affected by domestic violence. You’ll read about “Rick and Jenny” who now enjoy an abuse free life – together.

Some reviewer’s comments about this book:

“It has it all—theory and practice descriptions, and appropriate research citations—blended into a beautiful mosaic . . . If some books can be described as a “gold mine,” this one qualifies as ‘platinum.’ “

William C. Nichols, EdD, ABPP  Former president of the International Family Therapy Association and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

“An impressive and needed piece of work.”

David Servan-Schreiber, M.D. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; founding board member of Doctors Without Borders.
To read more about this book, click here.

Brown, S., Stowasser, J., & Shapiro, F.  (2016). EMDR Therapy and the Treatment 3 of Substance Abuse and  AddictionIn A.L.M. Andrade & D. De Micheli (Eds.), Innovations in the Treatment of Substance Addiction (pp. 69­–102). Switzerland: Springer.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): mental health-substance use. Intervention in Mental Health-Substance Use, edited by D.B. Cooper. Oxon/USA: Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.; 2011.  This chapter was co-written by Susan Brown and Francine Shapiro (EMDR therapy’s discoverer), and was updated in 2014 for our Brazilian EMDR colleagues – check back for the Brazilian version citation for those who read Portugease.

These collaborative chapters are dedicated to those who misuse, abuse, or are addicted to alcohol and other substances because they almost always have unresolved trauma that helps hold the addiction in place.  These substance abuse chapters outline a three-phase trauma treatment approach, integrated with EMDR therapy, to alleviate the suffering caused by unresolved trauma.

We believe this approach interrupts the misuse and abuse of substances and the addiction to them, that is used to distract from, and provide temporary relief from, trauma’s physical and emotional pain. This approach also seems to work with behavioral habits and patterns which often dovetail and support addiction, or that stand alone without them.