Failed At Emdr Again - Where Now?

[Hashi]

Maggie, I understand that on the inside of this therapy relationship you might be perceiving only that you feel trust in her, how much she's working to help you, how she has stayed with you when the NHS hasn't helped, how she's affordable and you feel other options aren't and so on.

From the outside, I've got to be honest and say the situation sounds alarming and concerning. There are red flags everywhere. It isn't just about her not having all the tools. From what you say, she doesn't have the experience or judgement. A therapist needs to be monitoring, pacing, guiding, putting on the brakes where needed. Instead, she has put you in a very risky position doing EMDR the way she did. Even if you wanted to do it, she shouldn't have gone ahead.

I can't even start to understand the decision for her to train in EMDR for your sake. As Abstract has pointed out, the first thing to think about EMDR with a client such as yourself is that the therapist should be experienced. The second is that the client should be stable enough. Neither of these things seem to have come into her thinking, and I'm surprised she didn't pick up on any of this during the training she did.

More than anything, it seems to me she isn't being responsible about her own limitations. I fear that she may be over-involved in your case - that she wants to help you to an extent that's muddying her perspective and professionalism. I don't see healthy therapist-client boundaries, and the roles seem to be getting very blurred with you informing her of things about your condition, sending her information and the two of you planning to attend a workshop together.

Her being willing to learn new things isn't the point, except to make it alarming that she's willing to try working with you in ways that are so new to her. I can't feel that this is responsible. If the idea of sensorimotor therapy is that she'll learn it then do it with you, I would warn you not to.

I'm sorry, but I can't feel there's anything right about her actually treating you in any way or doing trauma work with you. If you see her for support only, and are getting other help, then I could understand that. But for her to be actually leading you in these kinds of approaches that she knows little about (or are you leading her?) is seriously worrying.

 

[Maggiemay]

*Hugs * Pencil - it def fed into my feelings of being too much and unattainable... :(
Hashi - I guess in some ways you are right but I don't think want to lot go, I don't want her to abandon me... ;(

 

[Pencil]

Maggiemay - I'm in a similar situation - it seems that my 'almost therapist' (whom I've not seen in 13 months but who stays in contact with me) is actually doing harm (in addition to BEING there and thereby saving my life) - and I'm in the same spot - my head tells me that in some ways I need to let go - but that thought is terrifying.

Getting back to you: I HATE the title of your thread - YOU did not fail, it is emdr or your therapist or whatever, but not YOU.

 

[Hashi]

Then I think at the very least you need to see the issue as one of attachment and abandonment fears, work on that, see her for general support for everyday life, and not do things like EMDR and sensorimotor therapy with her.

And I think @Abstract has good suggestions about DBT. DBT teaches a lot of good skills.

 

[Maggiemay]

Glad I'm not alone pencil - it's so hard!

Hashi - we've done a lot of work in the past on attachment as it's a major issue for me. She's never abandoned me so luckily I haven't had to deal with it head on... Sigh...

I just want everything to go away and to be ok again...

 

[Abstract]

Hi Maggie! Neither CPTSD nor the BPD is the persons fault! :)

It sounds like your t cares about you and that you have developed an attachment to her. Maybe when it comes to attachment stuff you are achieving something with her. It's possible that some problems are developing with this too though.

I guess I am mostly just going to be reiterating a lot of Hashi said but feel compelled to say it anyway. I am very concerned that she doesn't seem to know when she shouldn't be doing something. She doesn't seem to have an awareness of the possible danger of doing things she isn't qualified to do or hasn't got the appropriate experience for. Gaps in knowledge or/and experience can be a problem but what is much more of a concern is when someone doesn't have a sense of where their limits should be.

I can guess where her temptation to do this is probably coming from. You are attached to her and you were not offered suitable treatment and have limited finances. I imagine she may be getting caught up in the idea that you don't have choices. She may be getting caught up in a saviour role and that wouldn't be healthy for you at all.

The way I see it you have a few choices when it comes to her. Firstly if you stay it seems you are going to have to take full responsibility for checking if something is advisable or not. I don't think you can trust her judgement on this front. It is going to be up to you to do all the research, find out what she does and doesn't know, take your own situation into account and then make decision.

Second option is stay with her and keep therapy with her to a limited field which you both discuss and decide on at the beginning. In other words there would be a decision about the limits of what therapy will cover and where you will go in it before you go further. It seems to me that this would't include trauma work and there would be the necessity of finding someone to do that with you at some point.

Third option as hard as it may be would be to leave her which I hear you don't want to do. Remember that you have proved it is possible for you to build a relationship with a t and that means you can do so again.

Regardless of which option you choose I think you need to be looking elsewhere as well. The DBT is available to you so that seems like a good first focus. It might be worthwhile making some progress there first before you consider doing trauma processing again. If you do that then your ability to tolerate trauma work should increase as well as the attachment things being eased and therefore therapy being easier and better tolerated all in all. Your t may be fine for someone to just help you process what you are learning. It would be much more helpful if she does some reading up on DBT. Reading of professional material on it that is.

I realise you are getting way more than you thought you would be getting on this thread! Hang in there as you doing good work talking this through.

 

[Maggiemay]

Thanks Abstract
I know BPD isn't my fault but feels like it sometimes.

I will discuss my predicament when I see T next week.

I spoke with her yesterday about where we go from here. She said that I'm on a journey and just need to tell myself I'm safe now. I don't think it's that simple tho...

 

[Hashi]

I agree with @Abstract, with the exception that I have to say I don't think this is a viable option:

if you stay it seems you are going to have to take full responsibility for checking if something is advisable or not. I don't think you can trust her judgement on this front. It is going to be up to you to do all the research, find out what she does and doesn't know, take your own situation into account and then make decision.

I suspect this is probably the most appealing option to you. It seems close to the approach you've been trying for already. But you're a client, not a therapist. You yourself don't have the training and experience, and you certainly don't have a detached perspective, to be in a position to assess this. Your therapist should not have tried EMDR with you - she should have known better. You were ill-advised to try EMDR - you couldn't have been expected to know that you shouldn't have done it. I don't think it's safe for you to be making the decisions about things like this.

You're also considering sensorimotor therapy with her, and as far as I understand it she doesn't have much experience in working with trauma and sensorimotor therapy. If that's the case, I can see why you might decide to do this but I think it would be a very unwise decision. I don't think you're in a position to judge and decide. I don't think you could be expected to.

I think only Abstract's option 2 and 3 are viable.

Maggie, to be clear - this isn't just a case of something not helping. It's about the serious risk of harm - overwhelm, psychosis, retraumatisation, entrenching the trauma by reinforcing negative neural pathways.

 

[Hashi]

There's something I want to say about the part that dissociation might be playing in your therapy situation.

I'm not saying you have to leave your therapist. I do feel that you have to stop trying to do trauma work with her.

I've had a lot of dissociation and part of that was drifting through inappropriate treatment - in my case medical, for physical conditions. I imagine that it's hard for you to focus, be objective, make decisions and take action on things like this. So I sympathise with that.

However, once I became aware that the treatment I was receiving was inappropriate, I had to act on it. However bad your dissociation is (and mine was bad to the point of selective amnesia and living in fantasy, a lot of derealisation and depersonalisation) once you get conscious about something you can't reverse that and you have to take responsibility for it. You can't afford to choose to drift away from the issue again.

 

[Maggiemay]

Thanks for your input Hashi.

I'm feeling very confused by everything, don't know what to do for the best right now...

 

[Abstract]

Take your time Maggie. This must be a lot to absorb. There is no rush here. At the beginning of the thread you felt trusting towards your t's choices and were judging and distrustful of yourself. You judged yourself when EMDR didn't work for you.

Then you have us telling you that there is nothing wrong with your reaction and that instead it is the fault of your t that you trust. That is a difficult shift of perception to get used to; especially when you have abandonment issues and are attached to your t.

When I looked back I didn't explain myself very well in my last post. What was in my brain didn't translate over onto screen. I am afraid I agree with Hashi that I wouldn't do trauma work with your t if it was me. The first option I mentioned would not include trauma work and what I rather meant is that I would double check everything she mentions or suggests regardless of what it is about. That you would need other therapy alongside her regardless.

this would't include trauma work

this was meant to apply to the whole thing.

In order to do trauma work you do need someone to help you pace things and keep you safe. You do need someone who understands how to manage these things. I also agree that you in no way should have known not to do EMDR or any of this. Checking up and researching would be about anything that happens from now on and would only relate to non trauma stuff if it was me.

She said that I ... just need to tell myself I'm safe now. I don't think it's that simple tho...

You are very wise. I agree that it is way away from being that simple and in fact telling yourself you are safe when there is potential for you not to be (even when there is only intention to help not harm) is a very bad idea.

What I meant to convey before is that it seems it is probably wiser to temporarily put trauma work on the backburner for now regardless while you develop more grounding and other skills. That because that is the case there could be a way to temporarily see her while you learn other skills.

This needs to be your decision of course as you have the final say over your path in life. These are just some opinions to consider. Feel free to ask questions if you have any and take your time.