Some painful medical experiences need processing, not just resourcing. When you’re ready for that, our GTEP group for endometriosis is built for processing trauma.

What is GREP2?

GREP2 stands for Group Resource Enhancement Protocol 2. It is an EMDR-based group protocol developed specifically to build and strengthen emotional and psychological resources, not to process past trauma, but to develop the inner tools that help you face what you are living through right now.

Where other EMDR protocols like GTEP or R-TEP work with the distressing memories directly, GREP2 takes a different route entirely. It asks: what do you need more of? Calm. Safety. Confidence. A felt sense that you can get through this. And then it uses the same bilateral stimulation that makes EMDR effective to help those resources become more accessible and stable in your nervous system.

Think of it as strengthening the foundation before, during, or alongside any deeper processing work. For many women, GREP2 is exactly the right starting point for EMDR for endometriosis.

How is GREP2 different from GTEP?

Both are EMDR-based group protocols, but they serve different purposes and work with different material.

GTEP (Group Traumatic Episode Protocol) processes specific distressing or traumatic memories. You identify something that happened, a procedure, a diagnosis, a dismissal, and the protocol helps reduce the emotional charge attached to it.

GREP2 does not process traumatic memories at all. It works entirely with resources: inner strengths, positive experiences, felt senses of safety and capability. It does not require you to identify or revisit anything painful. That makes it a natural fit if you are not yet ready to process trauma, if you are in the middle of active medical treatment and need stabilization, or if you simply want to build more internal capacity before doing deeper work.

Many women do both, in either order, depending on where they are.

How can GREP2 help me as a patient with endometriosis?

Endometriosis does not just affect the body. It chips away at your sense of safety, your trust in medical systems, your ability to feel at home in your own nervous system. Years of unpredictable pain, diagnostic delays, and being dismissed by providers leave a mark that shows up as hypervigilance, avoidance, exhaustion, and a low-grade sense of dread that becomes background noise.

GREP2 works with exactly that. It helps you:

• Feel more grounded and regulated before surgery, procedures, or high-stakes appointments
• Strengthen your capacity to tolerate pain flares and medical uncertainty without spiraling
• Reduce the anxiety and helplessness that accumulate with chronic illness over time
• Build a felt sense of safety in your body, not by bypassing the reality of what you are living through, but by cultivating what is also true: your resilience, your strength, your ability to keep going
• Access calm and confidence more readily, even in situations that typically trigger your stress response
• Develop an inner resource kit you can draw on between sessions, in the middle of a flare, or in the waiting room before an appointment

GREP2 does not promise to fix what endometriosis has taken. But it can meaningfully shift how resourced and steady you feel while you are navigating it.

What happens in a GREP2 session?

Sessions are held in a small group format, either online or in person, and typically run 90 minutes to 2 hours. The pace is gentle and structured. Here is what you can generally expect:

• Grounding and baseline: The session opens with a grounding exercise, typically the Four Elements (Earth, Air, Water, Light/calm place). Before starting, you note your current stress level on a scale of 0 to 10. After completing the grounding, you note it again. This gives you and the facilitator a live read on how your nervous system is responding and what level of distress you started with.
• Positive cognition: You identify a statement you want to believe more fully about yourself. Something like “I am resilient,” “I can cope,” “I have what it takes.” This becomes the anchor for the work that follows.
• Choosing a resource: You identify a specific quality to strengthen, such as courage, stability, resilience, mental clarity, or hope. You draw a symbol or write words on your worksheet to represent it.
• The Google search (bilateral stimulation): You tap from one box to another across your worksheet in a wide horizontal movement, letting your eyes follow your hands from left to right. This creates bilateral stimulation. As you tap, you search your memory for a real moment when you felt that resource, a time you were genuinely courageous, or got through something you did not think you could.
• Installation: Once you land on that memory, hold it in mind and strengthen it with Butterfly Hugs while staying connected to the memory, the resource, and positive cognition. After each round, you rate your connection on a scale of 1 to 7. You may do up to five or six rounds, depending on how that number moves.
• Closing: You revisit everything you built and identify the overall positive statement that feels most true now. You end with a final round of Butterfly Hugs to install it, and the session closes with you grounded and settled.

You do not share the content of your resources with the group unless you choose to. The group setting provides a sense of collective support and nervous system co-regulation, even as each person does their own internal work.

Do I need to talk about my medical history or trauma?

No, and this is one of the things that makes GREP2 uniquely accessible. The protocol is entirely forward-facing. You are not asked to identify, describe, or revisit anything painful. The focus is on what you want to build, not what you want to process.

If difficult material does surface during a session, your facilitator helps you return to a resource and restore your sense of grounding. We never push you beyond what feels safe.

Is GREP2 right for me?

GREP2 may be a particularly good fit if you:

• Are in the middle of active treatment and need stabilization more than processing right now
• Want to feel more prepared and grounded before an upcoming surgery or procedure
• Are not yet ready to work directly with traumatic memories, and that is okay
• Feel chronically overwhelmed, depleted, or disconnected and want to start rebuilding internal resources
• Have completed trauma processing work and want to continue strengthening and consolidating what you have built
• Want a supportive, evidence-informed group experience that does not require you to share your story

GREP2 is also a strong complement to individual therapy. If you are already working with a therapist, adding GREP2 can accelerate resource-building in ways that support whatever other work you are doing.

Can I do GREP2 and GTEP?

Yes, and many people do. GREP2 and GTEP work well together. Some women start with GREP2 to build internal resources and stability, then move into GTEP to process specific traumatic experiences once they feel more resourced. Others do GTEP first and use GREP2 afterward to consolidate and strengthen the gains. There is no single right order. Your facilitator can help you think through what makes sense for where you are.

What about confidentiality?

Everything that happens in the group stays in the group. Participants sign a confidentiality agreement before joining. Your facilitator is a licensed mental health professional bound by professional ethical and legal standards for confidentiality. Because this is a group setting, absolute legal confidentiality cannot be guaranteed the way it can in individual therapy, but the group agreement creates a clear, shared commitment to privacy and mutual respect.

How do I pay for GREP2?

• HSA and FSA cards are accepted
• Superbills are provided for out-of-network insurance reimbursement
• Group rates are significantly more affordable than individual sessions
• Payment plans may be available, inquire here

Ready to build more resilience?

If endometriosis has left you bracing for the next flare or the next appointment, GREP2 gives you a gentle, structured way to grow calm and confidence on your own terms. No performing. No reliving anything.

GREP2 runs through the [Endo Kin Collective](INTERNAL LINK: Endo Kin Collective page), our group EMDR space for women with endometriosis and adenomyosis. If you’d like to talk it through, you can [book a free consultation](INTERNAL LINK: consultation booking page) anytime.

If something recent and specific is weighing on you, our [R-TEP group for recent medical trauma](INTERNAL LINK: R-TEP post) may fit better. For the fuller picture of trauma-informed care here, our post on [healing chronic pain after medical trauma](INTERNAL LINK: Healing Chronic Pain post) is a good next read. And if you want to know how we keep this accessible, our [Community Care Agreement](INTERNAL LINK: pricing / Community Care page) explains.

About Your Facilitator

Shakira O’Garro, LMHC-D, LPCC, LPC, NCC
Founder, Cheerful Heart Mental Health Counseling PLLC

Shakira is a licensed mental health counselor with diagnostic privilege and advanced training in EMDR group protocols, including GREP2, GTEP, and R-TEP. She holds licensure in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and California, and specializes in supporting BIPOC women navigating the intersection of chronic illness, medical trauma, and emotional wellness.

She is the creator of the Endo Kin Collective, a structured group EMDR program for women with endometriosis and adenomyosis, and brings both clinical training and a deep understanding of what this patient population actually needs, not just what the research says, but what it feels like to sit with a body that medicine has repeatedly failed to take seriously.

Her practice is trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and built on the belief that healing should be as accessible and honest as the people it serves.

www.cheerfulheartmhcpllc.com

Strength in kinship, hope in healing.

Sources and further reading

Korn, D. L., & Leeds, A. M. (2002). Preliminary evidence of efficacy for EMDR resource development and installation in the stabilization phase of treatment of complex posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(12), 1465–1487. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.10099

Amano, T., & Toichi, M. (2016). The role of alternating bilateral stimulation in establishing positive cognition in EMDR therapy: A multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy study. PLOS ONE, 11(10), e0162735. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162735

Jarero, I., & Artigas, L. (2021). The EMDR therapy butterfly hug method for self-administered bilateral stimulation. Iberoamerican Journal of Psychotraumatology and Dissociation, 10(1). https://www.revibapst.com/volumen-11