Rotem Brayer interviews Mariah Rooney about integrating EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS). Mariah explains her passion for interweaving EMDR with parts work and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and how to work with adult and child parts. Toward the end of the interview Mariah talks about parts EMDR therapists need to pay attention to in order to avoid blocked reprocessing. To learn more about EMDR, parts work, structural dissociation and attachment theory, check out Rachel Walker’s parts mapping video.
Mariah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and practicing psychotherapist who has practiced in outpatient, community, hospital and specialty care settings an faculty member in the graduate School of Social Work at Winona State University; a consultant for the NCTSN’s Center for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma Disorders; and was previously a fellow at the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute. She has extensive experience in clinical work with children and adults treating the complex challenges that arise as a result of traumatic stress, attachment trauma, intergenerational trauma, and dissociation. Additionally, her research, consultation, and writing has focused on areas such as gender-related violence, military trauma, trauma-informed embodiment practices, developmental trauma, and systems-level interventions to prevent and address the impacts of trauma. Mariah is a senior consultant at the American Institutes for Research. Her primary responsibilities include supporting capacity-building to prevent and address the effects of violence and trauma within individual agencies and schools, national and state agencies, state-wide coalitions, and multi-agency collaboratives. Additionally, she is the Co-Founder of Trauma Informed Weight Lifting, a program of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment.
