Emdr, Cbt, Or Just Talk Therapy?

[xena21]

I'm wondering after a recent post if I'm even doing the correct therapy. On an online support group a Psychologist told me that the only thing that truly work for PTSD was Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I know CBT from my OCD therapy and he's talking about exposure therapy. Right now I'm not doing exposures in therapy, but more talking about my life and trying to build trust, along with talking about the past events in general. I guess this is more talk therapy.

I tried exposure therapy for 5 weeks and ended up in the hospital. I can't imagine that is the right way to do things for everyone. I've never tried EMDR, and actually have no clue what it's about or it's success rate. I've heard bad things about it, so that's scared me off. Though everything has its critics I suppose.

I'm just wondering other people's success or failures regarding these different therapies?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I only did CBT and EMDR and I was so scared to try it, but it changed my life for the better.

I say follow your heart, do the research and trust your gut instincts with the therapist at hand.

I wish you the very best and good for you for working on your healing and recovery.

 

[Jane.l]

I have been trying to do gradual exposure therapy but I am having a break at the moment as I was finding it really hard to switch off from . I have tried EMDR twice and found the after effects too overwhelming but I would try it again in the future.

Talking therapy is good if you can talk ! I am really crap at being able to stay present and talk - so it 's a long slow process but I am trying to stick with it.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think that talk therapy is limited in that it is just talk---that is, you're not learning new skills that you would in CBT or processing your therapy that you would do in EMDR, for example. I think many of us have found limited effect with just talking about the past.

Also, if you're talking about the past without doing any sort of processing, then its akin to digging in with no resolution. Repeatedly bringing up the past actually reinforces these negative thoughts in your mind instead of forming new and more positive thoughts. That is, it can reinforce negative neural pathways.

I don't know about CBT being the "only" way to heal, but it can be very effective for those with PTSD. I have used a variety of types of therapy, and they have all added to my healing in one way or another.

I think that if you ended up in the hospital after doing exposure therapy then you did not have sufficient coping skills in place in order to start processing or you had a therapist who was not doing therapy correctly with you (or maybe both). Do you have a lot of coping skills? Or, possibly, you were just not ready for this type of therapy, or maybe it was not the right type of therapy for you. (I can't really say given that I don't know what exactly happened to you.)

 

[xena21]

Do you have a lot of coping skills? Or, possibly, you were just not ready for this type of therapy, or maybe it was not the right type of therapy for you.

I suppose I didn't have a lot of coping skills at that time, or today for that matter. I've been in the hospital quite a bit due to self injury, severe self injury, and suicidal attempts...so going thru this type of therapy was very traumatizing. The only thing I've focused on was death, so trying to focus on therapy and getting better was such a change and very difficult.

I was re-traumatized severely by the doctors and therapists I did see so trusting anyone was out of the question. They would lock you up in a heartbeat and tie you down, not to mention the drugs they put into you. The places they put you into were horrendous. Animals shouldn't live there. Anyway, treatment is a negative thing for me in many ways. I see treaters as predators in many cases, so trying to decipher what is best usually takes a very long time after which I have done so much damage to myself and whatever relationship with the treater I have tried to find.

I always find a way to sabotage anything good...but then again I often don't see it.

 

[Hashi]

EMDR is a type of exposure therapy.

Different things work for different people. Neither CBT nor EMDR work for me with regards to trauma.

Kind-of-CBT/exposure has helped me with OCD, but not the straight-up kind of CBT/exposure. I've had to really adapt it. And that's only for OCD. For trauma, for me personally, forget it.

For me, talk therapy has had a very definite place in trauma work. That's a place within the context of somatic therapy (in my case craniosacral therapy), imagery, and other things like art therapy. Not on it's own.

Some people are big fans of exposure therapies for trauma/PTSD. Others, like me, need something different. To each his or her own.

 

[ghotiff]

Also, if you're talking about the past without doing any sort of processing, then its akin to digging in with no resolution. Repeatedly bringing up the past actually reinforces these negative thoughts in your mind instead of forming new and more positive thoughts. That is, it can reinforce negative neural pathways.

@Solara you sometimes say things that just hit me to the core (in a cathartic, positive way). Thanks...I think this is exactly where I went wrong with my ex-T. I think that everytime I spoke about my childhood I re-opened old wounds that I had previously healed, but with no follow up. To use someone elses analogy, Yes the broken bones had healed crooked, but they were still healed and the pain was manageable. My T re-broke all my bones and I trusted that she would then heal them in the correct position...but she didn't, she just they were just left that way and tried to break some more. When I finally got through to my T about how much pain I was in, and that I wasn't coping, her solution was to drop back the frequency of our therapy sessions. So, while the new breaks were occuring less frequently, nothing was being healed.

Thanks for this thread @xena21.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy was essential for me. It helped me stabilize my life in all realms to help me develop a support network needed to be ready to tolerate the trauma therapy.

I can't say enough good things about it. I learned a lot about the many blind spots and unhelpful thinking styles I picked up being raised in an unhealthy household. Knowledge is power. I have no chaos in my life currently.

I also did two years of Dialectical-Behavioral-Therapy (DBT) which broke a lot of the constriction in my life through practicing the skills. I conquered several phobias I hadn't realized were in play.

Now, I'm in trauma therapy with EMDR, and have been for over two years. I can finally see a day when enough of my lifelong traumas have been processed that I will someday no long need regular therapy.

I decided that I was going to get better and learn something new every single session, no matter how lousy I may have felt about the material or the therapist. I also decided to be very wary of creating unrelated drama in the therapeutic relationship because I had a habit of doing that as a way of avoiding facing myself. It's so easy to get caught up in negative feelings about a therapist rather than move forward, but that's time I refuse to waste in my journey to getting better.

My therapists are human and have made some stumbles across the way, but not out of ignorance. I have such a complex network of trauma triggers and back alleyways that even google couldn't map it all.

 

[Hashi]

Oh my goodness @patti jane, how many times have you been banned here then created a new account? I'm reporting your post for this reason.

the emphasis in E.M.D.R. is to help the information processing system make the automatic connections required to resolve the disturbance... They need only focus briefly on the disturbing memory during the processing ....

So it's brief exposure therapy.

There are therapies that don't involve any level of exposure, like craniosacral therapy. Those that do involve exposure are exposure therapies.

 

[anthony]

Disregard, the member has been banned again under their new name, for posting the same cut and paste nonsense they have posted here before. Deleted.

 

[xena21]

Kind-of-CBT/exposure has helped me with OCD, but not the straight-up kind of CBT/exposure. I've had to really adapt it. And that's only for OCD. For trauma, for me personally, forget it.

Hashi have you had a hard time between both PTSD and OCD therapists? Or do you see one therapist for both? I have had a very hard time with the concrete way OCD is handled and the way they look at it as if you aren't getting better than it's something you aren't doing correctly. That's the way the prestigious schools and academies look it now. I went into the OCD Institute at Mclean and they kicked several people out for not doing well at getting "better". They blamed it on those people and I know they felt horrible as a result.

I find that in PTSD therapy they are a lot more in the grey are with treatment and don't judge how well you are coming along. Maybe I'm just in the wrong circles, but that's what I've experienced for the last 5 years. OCD therapy is very cut and dried, black and white. PTSD therapy is so messy. When you add the two together its a huge mess, and my OCD therapists don't like to discuss that, so all my therapy comes from the PTSD standpoint. I wonder if you, (HASHI), have found this also? I am just so confused now with therapy in general. I want to quit yet I am suicidal on a regular basis. I have new bruises and potential fractures from self inflicted inuries on a weekly basis. I know I need help yet the people I keep going to keep turning me away. I am curious as to what have found.