Written by Dee Keller, Licensed Professional Counselor
The first phase of EMDR is History-Taking and Treatment Planning. It lays the foundation for the entire therapeutic process. Thoughtful and engaging activities can foster a shared understanding of your client's experiences while also identifying meaningful targets for future EMDR work.
Through Teleo, you can creatively engage kids and their caregivers using art-based activities, flexible tools, and collaborative features to support them throughout this important first phase. Below are some practical tips and tools to help make history-taking both effective and engaging.
💡Pro Tip:
Your Roadmap activity is a versatile worksheet, located in the Activity Bank, that helps children and teens reflect on life experiences and can also be used to label EMDR targets in a playful and meaningful way.
Why This Phase Matters
In Phase 1, you are:
Gather emotional, developmental, and relational history
Begin identifying distressing memories and current concerns
Collaborate with the child (and parents) to build treatment goals
Assess readiness and determine if EMDR is the right approach
This foundation is especially important when working with kids, who may not always have the words to explain how they feel but often can show you through art, play, and creative expression.
It All Starts with Trust
While gathering information and creating a treatment plan is a core goal of Phase 1, there’s a parallel and equally important process happening: building trust and connection, especially critical when working with trauma. Kids need to feel seen, safe, and understood before they can begin to explore vulnerable experiences.
This connection is at the heart of what makes EMDR effective. Fortunately, Teleo’s tools support both structure and spontaneity, allowing therapists to build trust through shared creative moments, fun activities, and warm check-ins.
📌 Looking for more ideas on building early engagement in virtual therapy? Check out: Tips for Engaging New Clients in Teleo.
Activity Spotlight: Your Roadmap
Your Roadmap is an interactive timeline tool in Teleo’s Activity Bank that invites kids to draw, write, or use symbols to map out important events, experiences, or memories from their lives.
Therapists can use this activity to identify potential EMDR targets and start discussing themes like safety, attachment, and coping patterns, all while staying anchored in kid-friendly language.
This creative approach helps kids:
Share their lived experiences in a non-threatening, playful way
Create “named destinations” on their map for each target (e.g., “The Lonely Lunchroom,” “The Scary Night,” “The Big Move”)
Connect memories to ages or developmental stages
Begin externalizing difficult moments to prepare for future processing
⭐Quick Tip:
Save to the Client Album to return to during future sessions. This particular activity could be helpful in EMDR Phase 3, deciding what the "next place to visit" is during processing.
Click here to learn how to use the snapshot feature and save activities to the Client Record and Client Album.
Supporting Caregiver Collaboration
For younger kids, much of the initial information will come from caregivers. Teleo makes it easy to include caregivers in the process, even when they are in different locations.
Ways to engage parents in Phase 1 using Teleo:
Use Talk Mode to meet with caregivers directly before seeing the child. If caregivers are in different locations, they can join separate talk bubbles during the same session.
Encourage parents to reflect creatively, too. They can draw their own version of a roadmap or use the Whiteboard to draft a timeline of emotional turning points from their child’s life.
Include psychoeducational materials in the room that help explain EMDR in a more immersive way. It's easy to include a psychoeducational video introducing EMDR or the 8 phases of EMDR file activity found in the Activity Bank.
📌 Check out an overview of the 8 EMDR phases for additional ideas.
Using Digital Assessments Collaboratively
In addition to creative mapping, some clinicians use structured measures to inform treatment planning. In Teleo you can upload your prefered assessment tools into your private activity bank.
Assessments can be viewed and written collaboratively during virtual sessions. This makes assessments more interactive and allows clinicians to walk through them together with caregivers or older children, rather than simply assigning them as prework.
⭐Quick Tip:
Use the Whiteboard text or color to mark on the forms together and then use the Snapshot feature to save the assessment or activities to revisit in future sessions!
What’s Next?
Phase 1 sets the tone for the entire EMDR process. With tools like Your Roadmap and flexible features in Teleo, therapists can build a collaborative, creative foundation that helps kids feel heard and ready.
In the next article, we’ll explore Phase 2: Preparation, focusing on how to build emotional safety, teach calming skills, and prepare both child and caregiver for the work ahead.
✍🏼Dee Keller, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor, parenting consultant, and owner of Sunnyside Counseling, a virtual practice based in Virginia. Dee focuses on supporting kids, college students, and moms in navigating anxiety, perfectionism, and overwhelm. She is dedicated to helping clients uncover their strengths and embrace balance and growth in their lives.
Learn more about Dee’s work at sunnysidecville.com