Hi Sara;
Good on you for doing your general listening!  Of course, the GL shows the general area in the body that is presenting with the greatest tension. I'm assuming when you say she is "falling outside her base of support backwards" you are saying that she literally is falling backwards to the degree that she has to take a step back in order to keep from falling???  If so, then yes, this is an "emotional listening".  If she is still able to maintain her footing then she may be very close but she is not quite there yet. If she is falling backwards to the point of an "emotional listening" then prior to placing your hand on her head place a finger or two just between her eyebrows and, with your intention, sink to the mid part of her brain, the limbic area of her brain. If this is an emotional general listening you will feel something different. You should have different GL, and this time it should be in her body someplace. 

Now you know where, within her body to do local listening. You may even find that this location in the body, this organ that you discover with local listening is the organ associated with the difficulty in discharging whatever emotional energy she is struggling to read. I working with this organ in a fact inadvertently helping her in a much broader way.

Cheers to you for sticking with it. 

Ron