Has EMDR Worked For Anyone With Childhood Abuse PTSD?

[garden]

I was told right off the bat that I was not someone who could be helped by emdr...although now reading this thread I wonder if it's a matter of finding a therapist with depth of experience with emdr and chronic childhood abuse survivors. I have come a long way, but still function with shattered focus and dissociate all the time, but have now found a way to function within this without beating myself up and with acceptance of my abilities. It would be nice though to find a way to function at a higher level, and emdr seems to help some people do that.

 

[mindifields]

I am in training as an EMDR therapist, and the way it is taught now is: You never start a client immediately with EMDR. You always start a client with the calm place exercise and continue with that until you are certain your client has some ability to regulate emotions so that when feelings come up, the client can have some control over them. If a client cannot attain this ability, then continuing with EMDR is not advised. It may be that with continued non-EMDR therapy and then coming back to the calm place exercise, that ability may be achieved. It is very important to educate your client fully on EMDR, if they are interested in it. There has to be informed consent. Then let the client know they can stop the treatment at any time or for no reason. And importantly, you never start with the most traumatic or severely distressing material. You start with something small, maybe a 4-5-6 on the subjective units of disturbance scale. This allows the client to experience some success with the memory of an event that is not very disturbing. Then you go from there, only gradually moving towards more disturbing material after continued successes. This is what is meant by building client resources, so the client can handle more distressing memories in time.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I was told right off the bat that I was not someone who could be helped by emdr...although now reading t...

(((garden))) I think that you were told WRONG about EMDR! That person was either not experienced enough, or taught in an incorrect manner. One can't know the value of a type of therapy unless it is tried

It CERTAINLY helped me in MANY aspects of my trauma, including childhood, and adulthood, and most especially regarding the life and death of my little girl. I had been through SO much therapy that I had quit, but got the opportunity to watch it in action. I sat in on a friend's sessions due to her fear of being alone in a room with a male therapist. I sat behind her, out of her sight, and watched the transformation come over her face as he was bringing her into a place of peace. She had been abused by a male physician, along with a childhood full of abuse and trauma.

After her first session, I asked if I could be his client. The BEST decision I EVER made in my history of therapy!

 

[Freedomfighter]

I've recently started emdr therapy for PTSD caused by sustained childhood trauma. The therapist says th...

I have good experiences with emdr, it seems to click the brain into forward moving phases, tough to explain, can trigger major panic attacks, but gotta take the bad with the good like they say.

I am in total awe of therapy choices and I am certainly in awe about what has happened in my case. I feel like one of those patients that had major surgery, standing barefoot on that typical hospital linoleum floor, with one of those awkward hospital gowns that makes you feel exposed physically and mentally. I am just standing there, my jaw dropping, scratching my head saying: Whaaaaat? what happened? A whole bunch of surgeons are smiling at me and tell me that my operation was successful but I have no recollection of it.
I have an angel, an angel that has accomplished what others never have accomplished and never will accomplish. I never thought it possible to reach such stages without physical intervention. To say that I am in awe of my angel is an understatement. No team needed in that case.
I love my angel.

 

[Works4me]

It had limited success with me. EMDR relies on memories or at least cognitive emotion in order...

I am 29 and have been doing emdr weekly for about 8 months now.

I had completely disscociated an extensive history of severe sexual and physical abuse in my early childhood (before age 7). I did not have anything to work with when i started therapy, other than the suspicion that there may have been some form of abuse. My therapist suggested IFS (internal family systems). I was skeptical but from the first session It started unlocking flashbacks and memories. I found it to be incredibly effective not only in unlocking the memories but also as a means to separating my personal identity from the trauma. Early onset trauma tends to fuse into the identity of the child.

Subsequently i have switched to EMDR because IFS had unlocked the memories that were now active in my day to day life and i needed a way to desensitize these memories. I think the combination of IFS and EMDR has helped me work through, what would have taken a lifetime, in a relatively short time. Obviously the more trauma the longer it takes and the more complicated it is to deal with.

EMDR helps to dislodge memories that have gotten stuck. Its not a miracle drug. When you deal with intense memories (Such as being raped and nearly strangled to death as a 5 year old boy) it will of course have a severely destabalizing effect. Because the memory has now been disloged it will now be active in your life and you will start processing it as if it just occured. With time it intergrates and it no longer has the same effect. But its like pandoras box, these memories have been suppressed for good reason. However, ignoring them doesnt make them go away, unprocessed trauma follows you wherever you go and actively destroys your life. This has been the hardest thing i have ever done, once you start you cannot go back, but i will never be free untill i face and conquer these deamons.

 

[SophiaWisdom]

I am in training as an EMDR therapist, and the way it is taught now is: You never start a client immediately with...

SOOO glad I read the above! Wish I had it earlier :)

I dropped my therapist earlier this year because of an increasing feeling of unsafety with him. One of the major things that made me feel less and less safe over time was that he kept pushing the EMDR process at a pace I wasn't comfortable with and I couldn't seem to get him to match my comfort level whenever I brought it up. He was constantly worried about insurance (I don't know his history with insurance but it seems he's had major issues with the financial side of his practice to the point of filing bankruptcy), so I suspect it may have been external forces contributing to his rush to get EMDR going, but it certainly didn't feel like an organic process.

It has made me slightly nervous about finding another EMDR therapist. most of the ones I've contacted dont' take insurance so there's also a cost issue. It's still a consideration to try, but hearing about how much it triggers and all the panic attacks - I'm so scared my nerves can't handle anymore stressors. My panic attacks have certainly abated and I've been able to sleep through the night again after I ended therapy so I'm not in a hurry to go back to that horrible dark period again.

 

[Snowflake]

EMDR success

oh boy. This is hard for me.
I am an incest survivor, by both p...

2quilt well said. I'm not sure I could explain it any better. My childhood sounds very similar.

EMDR is a long, exhausting process. But I am seeing a difference.

 

[garden]

One can't know the value of a type of therapy unless it is tried

Thanks for saying this to me. I actually finally went back to therapy and found someone with years of experience in EMDR. I am not contraindicated for it!!! I am so glad that I got another opinion. We are still in the early stages. Taking inventory and practicing some self calming techniques is all we are doing. My therapist is very gentle, and we open up a bit at a time. So far I totally get light headed and feel floaty at every session. It's like an altered state of consciousness that I am witnessing and seeing unfold, whereas I know that I have been in that state before, but I never know how I get there, I just find myself there sometimes. So it's a bit strange to slow it all down and actually feel it happening. It's as if we deliberately induce that state through what we talk about and then we slowly walk to my safe place and feel the calm, and then we walk into a vault and lock the session away. It's not crazy scary or alarming, it's actually doable. He has taught me to hug my arms and then tap them alternatingly while visiting my safe place in my mind. It feels really weird. Now I am more interested in learning more and possibly learning how to conduct this process for myself at home. I was really scared to try this, especially after hitting a wall with CBT, and after the roller coaster ride of medications. I appreciate that this process allows me to feel things without me getting overwhelmed. I do notice that I am pretty dissociative still, and I have problems with memory, and so on, but I am functioning through it all without freaking out or totally checking out...I just float through everything, but I am still 'here' if that makes any sense. It's really hard to describe. Maybe it's just a shift in awareness, I don't know, but I'll take it. Looking forward to more. :)

 

[BpinkJ]

Reading this thread has me not sure about EMDR. I have serious repeated daily sexual, mental and physical abuse that happened by my mom's boyfriend from when I was 8 till 13.5. Then many traumas after. My T is having a hard time figuring where we should start. She says maybe start with my home life now and what bothers me, BUT has told me she thinks everything relates to my childhood. I will never be at peace until I confront those memories. I had a P tell me that he doesn't think I should do EMDR because he is not sure I can keep a container closed and he doesn't think my T knows how deep and dark things are. I have buried for so long I have big gaps in my childhood. I am afraid to remember anything, but I want to feel better. I'm not sure what I should do. The abuse was so bad it was on national TV because they weren't sure if there were victims in other states. There was so much evidence of movies and pictures I didn't even have to testify. Can EMDR really cause brain damage?

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

(((@BpinkJ ))) I am SO SORRY that you were so horribly traumatized! I do not believe that EMDR can cause brain damage! A therapist who is properly trained will work with you on grounding techniques. You should have a "safe place" in your mind that you can always "go to" and know that you are in control.

It is important to trust that the EMDR practitioner is well trained and experienced. It is DEFINITELY worth finding the right therapist.

Blessings of peace to you!

 

[AnnaW]

(((garden))) I think that you were told WRONG about EMDR! That person was either not experience...

@garden there is basic, straight-laced EMDR, ala Shapiro (the founder of the therapy) that tends to be so narrow in its focus, that the practitioners sometimes believe the original EMDR protocols are the only way to treat PTSD, and if those original protocols don't work for a particular kind of PTSD (like complex PTSD from childhood abuse) then EMDR will not help you.

Luckily, EMDR has been around long enough now, that a new generation of therapists who use EMDR are recognizing how it can be used if not to completely "fix" any kind of PTSD, at least to improve the situation. And, in a lot of complex PTSD cases, using parts of the EMDR concepts are extremely useful.

Mostly, if your therapist told you EMDR could not help you, that means they are not the right T for you, and now you know more about what kind of question to ask when searching for a better therapist. You need to ask if they will use bilateral stimulation treatments with clients who have complex PTSD from childhood abuse.

Anyone who says they don't use any of the tools from EMDR for complex PTSD, because EMDR doesn't work with CPTSD, is just not the right one for you.

It does take a special T to be able to use EMDR tools for CPTSD. They have to be willing to buck the Shapiro system, and they have to really "get" treating complex PTSD. That will limit your options, but knowing what you need, is the best path to finding it.

 

[Deleted member 42665]

I should ask about this, it might help with my issues.