CIPOS: addressing trauma without losing sight of the present
Some patients lose contact as soon as they approach a difficult memory: dissociation, overwhelm, loss of contact with the here and now. CIPOS helps them approach that memory in very brief doses, without losing their connection to the present.
Constant Installation of Present Orientation and Safety
Developed by Jim Knipe within EMDR therapy, CIPOS alternates between strengthening orientation to the present and very brief contact with the memory. The patient keeps one foot in the here and now throughout the work.
The CIPOS loop, step by step
By the end of this course, you will be able to
- Identify the patients for whom CIPOS is indicated
- Prepare a session: safe frame, consent, stop signal, target, ways of returning
- Measure orientation to the present with the BHS
- Guide the CIPOS loop, from strengthening the present to very brief contact and return
- Recognise when to continue, adapt or suspend the work
Understand, practise, keep the guide
Using CIPOS effectively, step by step
Indications and the detailed procedure, one step at a time, in three short videos.
A session with Camille (fictional case)
A role-play: at each step, you choose the most appropriate intervention.
An oral self-assessment with Nora
Nora, a virtual teaching assistant, reviews the key points of the procedure with you.
The CIPOS therapist guide
A 4-page PDF to keep close at hand during sessions.
For EMDR-trained practitioners and trauma clinicians
EMDR practitioners will find the step-by-step procedure; other trauma therapists, its stabilisation principles. Full implementation requires EMDR training. This is a learning resource: it complements training and supervision, but does not replace them.
The teaching team of the Association Psychoneurobiologie & EMDR, whose members all contribute on a voluntary basis.
Approach the memory without losing the present
35 to 45 minutes · three videos · an interactive clinical case · a 4-page guide
