How Childhood Trauma Affects Adult Relationships | EMDR Explained with Jessica ConnellHow Childhood Trauma Affects Adult Relationships | EMDR Explained with Jessica Connell
A Little Help For Our Friends
Psychotherapist Jessica Connell talks with Dr. Kibby McMahon about developmental trauma, EMDR techniques and how early experiences can shape adult relationships. The conversation outlines how EMDR sessions work and how they may ease triggers around safety, trust and conflict in close relationships.
55:21•2 Sept 2026
Childhood Wounds, EMDR, and Why Your Relationship Reactions Make Sense
Episode Overview
- Developmental trauma can include bullying, emotional neglect, shame and chaotic homes, and may be just as impactful as “big T” events.
- Unresolved childhood experiences can become “rubber bands” that snap people back into old emotional states during adult conflicts.
- EMDR uses bilateral tapping and guided imagery with wise, nurturing and protective figures to help release trauma from the nervous system.
- Trauma work can reduce intense reactions in relationships, especially around safety, trust and fear of conflict.
- In couple dynamics, both partners may need to adjust: one softening their expression, the other challenging narratives that see every raised voice as malicious.
“No t is small enough to not work on.”
What drives someone to seek a life without old emotional baggage? This conversation on **A Little Help For Our Friends** takes a close look at how childhood experiences can still run the show in adult relationships, and how EMDR therapy might finally loosen their grip. Host Dr. Kibby McMahon chats with psychotherapist and executive coach **Jessica Connell, LCSW**, who works with adults carrying developmental trauma into their careers, love lives and family dynamics.
Jessica explains that trauma isn’t only about “capital T” events like assaults or accidents. It can also be the humiliating moment on the school playground, the parent who cared more about grades than feelings, or the chaotic home shaped by addiction or personality disorders. She breaks down developmental trauma as those early experiences that get “trapped in your nervous system” and later show up as anxiety, fear of conflict, shutting down in arguments, or constantly needing reassurance.
Jessica shares her rubber band vs. string analogy: instead of being snapped back into a childlike state during triggers, EMDR helps people look back at where it started and choose how to respond now. Jessica then walks through how EMDR sessions actually work, using bilateral tapping devices and guided imagery. Clients set a scene from a painful memory, then bring in “wise, protective and nurturing figures” (yes, Dumbledore is a popular choice) to create the safety they never had.
Over time, this process “releases the trauma from the nervous system” so reactions in current relationships soften. The episode also tackles real-life couple dynamics: the “tiger and turtle” pair, where one partner gets loud and the other shuts down, and how both can shift without labelling normal conflict as abuse.
Jessica’s reminder lands firmly: “No t is small enough to not work on.” If childhood experiences still steer your reactions, this chat offers a practical look at how healing might actually start to feel possible. Could some of those old stories be ready for an update?
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