How did you choose the themes/categories to work with? And then how did you choose the “worst” memory within that category? Just by what bugs you most? But what if things bug you most at different times and just shift?
I think the idea is not so much choosing the one that is subjectively 'worse' - it's tunneling down into the one that would be considered formative - the 'root' of the trauma that then runs through subsequent similar events. In this way, the root may not be
directly connected to what you perceive as your primary trauma.
By directly connected - I mean, part of the trauma 'plot', or narrative.
This is less likely to be an issue with self-contained, single-event traumas. If you're dealing with multiple occurrences over time - complex trauma - the root might be in the first time the molestation occurred. But, if the predominant traumatic emotion you're dealing with is (hypothetically) helplessness..there could be some other, earlier event that is the root of that.
Example: Patient X was repeatedly sexually abused by their grandparent over a period of 10 years. When describing the events, the visceral emotional trauma response for patient X connects to a panic-inducing fear. That emerges as a consistent 'theme', and appears to the therapist to be the strongest. Patient X agrees.
Therapist and patient X decide to begin with the earliest memory of the abuse. Why? Because the first incident is
typically where the 'root' of the traumatic response will be found. Even if there is (hypothetically) a later event that
seems like it's worse, one that patient X thinks of as 'the worst one' - it's the initial occurrence that is
most likely to be at the root of the traumatic experience.
There's a fair amount of guesswork involved in this, on both the part of the patient and the therapist. With EMDR, the thinking is that it doesn't matter whether or not you've guessed correctly. You'll find the root eventually, just get as close to it as you can, before you start.
Patient X and therapist begin EMDR processing on that initial event. Turns out, patient X isn't able to connect to any real feelings about it.
So, they move to targeting the feelings that go directly with the narrative from that later event, the 'worst one', in patient X's mind.
And it's while working on that, that patient X remembers something that they had forgotten, because it didn't seem connected - but now, it's becoming a very overwhelming feeling of panic-inducing fear - even more than the memory of the abuse.
It's the time when patient X was playing in the yard, and the grandparent abuser snuck up behind them wearing a terrifying mask, and pushed patient x from behind. When patient x turned and saw the masked figure, they were so completely terrified that they wet themselves, and froze on the ground, while the masked figure laughed.
That's a
very crude example. My point is that - for patient X - there was an event involving the abuser that happened
before the abuse started. It's not the trauma itself - rather, it's a terrible and traumatic (small-t) experience involving the person who eventually begins sexually abusing them, that is the
root of the panic. Once that's identified, it becomes easier for patient X to start connecting
that panic to the subsequent abuse events, and by working on the emotions associated with the mask incident, part of the abuse gets 'processed'.
Not all of it - there are other feelings more directly tied to the abuse events, and they can now emerge as
other 'roots'.
That process will be repeated until enough roots have been removed that the whole architecture of the complex trauma - the other roots, the branches, whatever - these elements whither away and become events that are located in the past, instead of feelings that are still happening in the present. In theory - and sometimes in practice - with EMDR, you don't need to go through every single thing that happened in the narrative. You only need to go through enough of the common themes, that the events all start to lose their power.
Like I feel really close to nature and believe there might be a higher power but I don’t have a name for it. I just weirdly envision Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas lol, but I also don’t want to be laughed at for that.
Nothing laughable at all in that. Many people think of the natural world as their higher power, and all that matters is that you have an understanding of it that is clear to you, that you can connect with and rely on.
Hope some of this is helpful.
