Emdr Addiction?

[samson]

Hi everyone,

I've been up and down for a while now. Had to cut back on therapy due to finances. I'm only meeting my T every other week now for an hour and we are trying to hold off on emdr while I move, sell my house, etc. Lots of stressful things happening - trying not to add more by doing memory work. I have been doing emdr for a year and a half now.

I had a break for about a month and then I was triggered by something and just felt miserable. We did some emdr on the memories and I have felt better ever since.

Has anyone ever heard of being addicted to emdr? Or feeling like your brain is used to it and it needs it to function?

Interested to hear any stories.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Interesting. Does EMDR teach you how to function without the therapy/therapist themselves? I'm just wondering because the best therapies I've had encouraged independence and self-sufficiency away from a therapy setting.

 

[ashdawn8287]

That is interesting. I do EMDR and CBT therapy at the same time. CBT is more focused on being self sufficient it seems. Isn't the EMDR therapist suppose to teach you coping skills? Are you doing other things for self care outside of emdr?

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

It's probably just a routine for you and as if you've not reached the end of your therapy, the break has interrupted the healing process. I'm not getting therapy yet, but my appointments with my social worker are so needed that I'm incredibly reliant on them ticking me over, each one keeps me going till the next one and so on until my therapy starts. I should imagine that the same will happen in therapy until I come through to the other side of it.

I don't think in my instance it's me be addicted to them, I think it's knowledge that even if they're painful for me, they do me good, they're a step in the right direction and they break up the waiting therefore feel like progress. Do you think your feelings of being addicted are definitely of EMDR or maybe more broadly of your therapy in general?

As for feeling as though your brain needs the therapy to function, that was surely true at the beginning of your therapy, until you're very advanced through it, why should the same not still apply? Also the relief (even if stressful at the time) that it brings you, the sense of bettering yourself and overall support that you receive from therapy may not be addicting, but very necessary at the moment for you. Even more so during moving - that's stressful anyway and under stress you are far more likely to be triggered. So maybe it's just that you are going through a rough patch and between that and no therapy you feel as if you don't have the support available to cope with it all?

xx

 

[Deleted member 16646]

No one becomes addicted to EMDR! To the contrary, the course of treatment is often extremely brief, and gets you back "on your feet" in record time compared to other therapies. It also teaches coping skills and psycho-education. That said, if you feel like you really need more EMDR therapy, you haven't neutralized and metabolized your target memories and/or events. When that's done, there's no more need for EMDR therapy!