Looking for advice and experience about EMDR therapist for CPTSD

[SoulSeeker]

Hi everyone!

I've worked with a bunch of therapists for my CPTSD. I've had a good experience with a psychodynamic therapist who was understanding, perceptive, empathetic and an active listener. I've done EMDR too for a while but felt a bit unsafe with how clinical it felt. I still want to do EMDR so I've been looking for a new EMDR therapist and found one with good credentials and good reviews. Unfortunately, it's still very clinical. She's extremely neutral, there's 0 validation or willingness to know more. When I'm distressed, she just tells me to breath and simply gave me the "safe place" grounding tool.
During sessions, we're just following the EMDR script step by step, she takes notes and is confused when I can't follow the steps because my mind is a mess. It is complex trauma after all. It makes me very self-conscious, like there are good and bad answers. She wants my memories to fit in precise boxes and categories, which is very confusing. I understand that it's a protocol but I feel like she's lost with me and doesn't get me, she's super focused on her piece of paper. I may be wrong but I also sense some general insecurity coming from her.

When I shake my legs because of anxiety, she stares at them. Small things like this feel weird to me. I don't want to feel like a case study in a lab.
I also tend to dissociate when under pressure so it's hard for me to access memories on command. Having a silent, distracted and distant therapist makes it worse and makes me feel judged. I have trauma surrounding the silent treatment and self-involved caretakers being unable to soothe me so this is a sensitive area for me. I need to be seen.
She forgets quite a lot of things too. There's barely any human connection.

I've tried a few therapists before her and I had a terrible session once with one who pushed me into a terrible emotional flashback after 1 session without any attempt to soothe me or to guide me. The panic was so intense that it affected my vision, a symptom I never had before.

I'm torn because I want to do the work and a part of me is telling me to stop overthinking, that I'm just trying to avoid pain and to just grind me teeth and stop being so needy and scared. I'm not trying to avoid working, that's all I've been doing for years. I'm just trying to work safely and I've put myself in such discomfort over and over again in my life, I'm now at a point where safety is my main priority without leaning too much into avoidance because, so far, pushing myself, "going out of my comfort zone" has brought me little benefits and has often traumatized me even more. I'm willing to fight these awful feelings and memories, it's a slow and a lonely fight, but I need someone who has my back for once in my life and adapts to me at least a bit.

Can anyone relate? Is EMDR supposed to feel that way? Is it a good idea for me to be looking for a competent but also actively empathetic therapist? I feel like the therapeutic alliance is essential but since I have attachment issues, I know I'm extremely sensitive to people's "vibes" and I know I may ask for too much. Maybe doing the work no matter what is all that matters?

 

[parrotthepolly]

Many people who do EDMR get retraumatised from the memories so it's normal to feel just as bad as before.

If you want some empathy from your therapist, maybe just ask cause it makes more sense to have symptoms 'fit in a box's in a way and they're not there as a caregiver ...

 

[Mach123]

It was supposed to be the big thing. I worked like a year and a half trying to get myself together enough to go to Bessels vaunted trauma institute at JRI in Boston. She didn’t even do EMDR with me that was a terrible experience. I was there more than a year . When she decided she didn’t want to be a therapist anymore and went back to being a receptionist she told me we just spent a year doing family systems. Not exactly the phd I expected.

Then I went to a place that just did emdr and I had the same experience you just described. They weren’t therapists they were emdr technicians I guess anyway it did nothing in my opinion.

I think it can work still in the right hands my first therapist used to laugh at the stuff I said then she’d roll over and her desk chair and tap me somewhere. I thought that was probably the best way to do it . It introduces touching and having the therapist in the actual physical space with me and die trauma I think this can be helpful because being in a shell and disassociated from the body is a thing IMO.

So I might switch therapists now my current one gained my trust and then took off on a personal family matter and has been gone 2 months which is a total screw up BUT, she told me there are other therapists in that office that are more trauma focused and so emdr and I might switch. I don’t know if she’s actually coming back anyway long story. Lucky for me I’m well enough now that I can process it.

But yes that’s how it was for me too. They had told me it was going to reprogram my brain and all this so the trauma would not affect me so much anymore. Trauma therapy had all these new tools and it was very exciting and all this lol. If I got real lucky I hoped they’d throw in some meds while they were at it .

It ended up just sitting across from a therapist and talking like always . I thought I’d be a lab rat and they’d like experiment on me which I liked that idea more or less but that’s not how it ended up.

 

[SoulSeeker]

They weren’t therapists they were emdr technicians

That's a great way to describe it!

So, in the end, did it help? Did you wish you had better suited therapists?

 

[Mach123]

No it didn’t help. Yes I think it’s a tool in the right persons hands because of the physical component.

 

[Sues]

Hi SoulSeeker,

I can relate to everything that you've said.

I have an excellent trauma therapist who has helped me a lot and who 'gets it.' We've been doing EMDR off and on for about 3 years now. He's an EMDR instructor as well. I say off and on because we take breaks. We've found that helps me and gives me some space when my I'm struggling a lot with coping.

What you're saying sounds very bad to me, very off, with lots of red flags.

From my experience, yes, it's a clinical process. During EMDR my therapist does not take notes. He does not have a piece of paper. Yes, he follows the script of "what are you getting?" and "just go with that." But he also asks me how I'm doing and checks in with me as we go along. He doesn't want us to just keep going, and will pause the EMDR or stop altogether if I need to.

He's told me so many times that there are no right or wrong thoughts or answers, and we will just go where it leads. Memories come up and can lead to different memories. Sometimes he will guide me and ask me to go back to the original memory that we started with.

I dissociate a lot. All of the time. He gives me space to do that, and yes he reminds me to breathe, but he's also there for me and very supportive. I've talked with him about freezing and not being able "to access memories on command" or even answer questions like you've said. He allows me to not answer questions with zero pressure.

You mentioned that "safety is my main priority" Yes, absolutely! Safety comes first and is so important. We can't process trauma if we don't feel safe, or if we are activated. If we are activated and at a high level of stress, it makes things worse if we try to do processing. That's when the tools come in and help out (slow breathing, somatic mind body stuff, safe space visualization, etc).

"I need someone who has my back for once in my life and adapts to me at least a bit." - Yes! This is so important!

Can anyone relate? - Yes, 100% with everything you said.

Is EMDR supposed to feel that way? - No, not at all. You need more support. It sounds like your therapist is not competent.

Is it a good idea for me to be looking for a competent but also actively empathetic therapist? - Yes, I definitely think so. Empathy is super important when it comes to trauma therapy.

I don't think you are asking for too much at all. It sounds like your therapist is unable to meet your needs, basic needs that we all have, and that are so very important.

"Maybe doing the work no matter what is all that matters?" - No, how we do the work and having support throughout is super important. My therapist tells me all of the time that I don't have to do this alone (I have trouble opening up to him and telling him trauma things) and that I don't have to do what he calls 'white knuckling it'. You deserve a therapist that is supportive and can guide you as you work side by side. We aren't supposed to be left out in the cold to just suffer through the process. It's a long, slow and hurtful process, and we can't do it alone.

 

[SoulSeeker]

Thank you Sues! That's very validating.

I've read studies that show that one of the main factors that determine if a therapy, regardless of modality, is successful or not is the therapeutic alliance. And I'm just not feeling it anyway so I guess there's a reason for that.

Given my attachment issues, it's hard for me to really know when someone is good for me or not, I tend to just tell my intuition to quiet down. Thank you for helping me see this more rationally.

It's very hard to find a competent and attuned and, even more so, trauma informed therapist. I know I'm a more "difficult" client because trauma is all encompassing (it's not just thoughts, it's body, mind, past, present, dissociation, relational, preverbal and verbal...), so my needs are a bit higher than most but I guess that's why my standards should be higher too.

Your testimony gives me hope.

 

[Sues]

I know I'm a more "difficult" client because trauma is all encompassing (it's not just thoughts, it's body, mind, past, present, dissociation, relational, preverbal and verbal...), so my needs are a bit higher than most but I guess that's why my standards should be higher too.

I just wanted to let you know that you are not more difficult. What you're describing is completely normal.

 

[SoulSeeker]

Thanks, I guess "complex" would be a better word, hence the name of the disorder. But I think you got my point.

 

[Sues]

I also have CPTSD, and I'm a mess. My therapist will leave an extra 30 minutes open at the end of my session in case I need more time. I am very lucky that he does that. I've always thought that I was too much, too messed up, I still do, but he reminds me all the time that I'm not. I think it's probably normal for us to think that way, and it's a hell of a lot easier for me to tell someone else that they are not too much than for me to believe it about myself.

 

[Freida]

I've been doing emdr for about 8 years and it's been both amazingly helpful and a nightmare

My emdr experience is longer than most because I didn't even know I had trauma - I was that dissociated. So it took alot of time to get me into a place where I could even talk about things that I thought of as just life

The process itself has been super traumatizing because it makes you relive the experience so that you can learn to rethink about it. And in my case they were events that I had blocked so completely that everything that came up was a total surprise. One big challenge is that I couldn't set a safe place to retreat, or a container box, or any of those things when things got bad, so she had to add grounding me to the present when it got bad during emdr. And yes, she does watch my body reactions pretty intently which freaked me out at first.

It has been a very long, very slow process. Very. I could only sit with memories for 60 to 90 seconds at the beginning, and there was no connection between them,, so it was like playing a nightmare game of whack-a-mole. One memory comes up, then another, then the first one, then a different - you get the picture. It sucked. I swore I was going to quit many, many times but she somehow always got me to stick around. I think it was just because we went so slowly

Was it worth it?
YES!!!!!!!
Emdr doesn't make the memory go away - it makes it easier to feel and changes how you think about the event. As the memories get easier to accept as real events then my regular trauma therapist could do the next step of processing what had happened (yep - I have two cause I'm all sorts o special LOL)

The key is to find a therapist that deals with cptsd and does emdr which is kind of like finding a unicorn. They are out there - but not common. If you don't have someone who can do both things can go south pretty badly.

But if you find the right one the outcome is amazing. Not the process - that part is horrific. But worth it.

 

[Charbella]

I’ve done EMDR for 3 years now and I think I’d find it hard if my therapist was like yours, however he is on EMDR days. I see him for both EMDR and talk therapy, so I do every other appointment. The times when my T isn’t so scripted it usually goes awry because he’s showing emotion and when I’m half in the past that is exceedingly triggering.

Have you spoken to her? There is a script for EMDR but most trauma therapists know that we are not a case study we are humans. How did my therapist know that any emotions triggered me? I told him. I said that I need time to process my own and being swamped in his (super easy for me) means I never get to mine. Communication is key to any therapy.