EMDR And Sharing Details With Therapist

[Lauren]

HI all. My T brought up EMDR in today's session. He had gotten a brochure on professional training for it and I believe was asking if it might be something we should consider. I don't know enough about it. I appreciate that he is willing to go thru the training to help me, but I am not sure that I want to be a guinea pig for it. Well not a guinea pig, but the person he first tries it on.

That being said....does anyone have any experience with EMDR? How severe should your symptoms be to consider trying it?

The other question I have is about how much in detail should I go into of all my different traumas? I have have never shared this stuff before the list I wrote last week. I've started writing the details and my T thinks that I need to share them with him. He won't force me of course, but feels that I won't get over the traumas until I do. It was hard enough typing them up here on diaries, let alone saying them outloud. I trust my T completely. He is understanding, level headed, open to what I need and knows what he is doing. But it scares the hell out of me just thinking about saying those things out loud to anyone. Any ideas and experiences with this would be helpful to me.

Thanks to all of you. The support I have gotten here really helps.

 

[Healing Survivor]

I actually just started EMDR. The lady I'm working with is trained in it but she's still being licensed as a therapist. She's actually being supervised by my therapist of six years. For that reason, I haven't had to go into hardly any detail about my trauma because she has access to my chart for the last six years. So far, I've had about four sessions but we haven't actually started the EMDR because she had to do some preliminary work. Apparently my dissociative score is pretty high so she has spent some time with me setting up "resources" for when we do start EMDR. I will let you know how it goes when we actually get into it. I don't know how helpful this was, but I'll stay in touch about it. Good luck!

 

[Lucycat]

I started EMDR at the beginning of the year. I too had a number of sessions first as ground work before true EMDR started. It has helped me enormously.

I understand exactly what you mean about sharing the detail of the trauma. I have never done that, and even through EMDR have only had to give an outline - not detail. I have to THINK about the detail right enough, but only talk about how it makes me feel, and the responses in my body. We joked about the standard box of tissues, as until recently I could not get through a session without blubbing. However my Therapist is incredibly supportive, and never made me feel embarrased or ashamed to cry.

My T. is very experienced in EMDR. I have read coflicting reports about its use in cases of multiple trauma and Complex PTSD, however I trusted his judgement and am so glad that I did. I feel like a different person. People comment every day about how I look different. I find it so hard to believe I have come all this way in just 6 months.

We have finished working on the historic trauma, and are now tackling the residual difficulties this has left me with. I know I have some stressful days ahead, but not yet when this will be. Once we know he is going to use EMDR to help prepare me to cope with it. I find it amazing that it can be used like that, but have every faith that it will work, as it has so far.

Before embarking on this I had never heard of EMDR but was in such a state that anything was worth trying. I have never looked back.

I don't know if you have seen Curioser's story on here about the Tea Cup? That to me summed up EMDR in a nutshell. Powerful, painful but the results make it all worthwhile.

 

[Lauren]

Thanks Cat....I will share that with my T. Next week. It might be worth looking at. I've been with him for 9 months now and we are really just starting to get into the meat of things. My walls have been very thick. He has taken it slowly so I don't freak out too much. Maybe it's time to dig in and try to finish up. I am hoping anyway! Your experience definitely encourages me to look into EMDR further. Seems awfully weird, but hey, if it works.....I don't care how strange it seems!