I have gone through EMDR, but it wasn't done properly. It was rushed into.
I started EMDR on the second week of meeting the therapist. The first week was a 'tick box' paper assessment. During the second session, I was then told to constantly think about my trauma, while I had to follow her finger with my eyes, as she moved her hand across in front of my face. She would do this for 1-3 minutes, with a 20 second break (I'm not sure whether that was to give me a break, or to give her arm a rest!), then continue again.
There was very little verbalisation during this. Occasionally, she would ask me where in my body, I was feeling tension. Sometimes she would say "What are you seeing now?", and I would give the briefest of descriptions. I hadn't built up any sort of relationship with this woman, in fact we'd hardly really spoken at all. Why the hell would I be willing and able to discuss intimate aspects of being repeatedly raped and assaulted, when all I felt was shame? I was flooded with memories, flashbacks, images etc, and would be in a state of panic/ anxiety. This would continue for some 40 minutes. She would then tell me to think about a 'safe place' to calm down, and would leave the room for about 5 minutes. Then she'd come back and say that I should be feeling okay now, and that she'd see me the same time next week. She would then show me down stairs and out of the building.
As she took me out of the building, she'd usually have something to say - such as "You did report him to the police, right. How long did he get?" , "You know, so many women in South Africa are raped (she was South African), they just have to pull themselves together and get on with things". I'd then sit in my car for ages, in pieces, before I could even drive home. The flooding of flashbacks, nightmares, memories, panic etc would continue for days. I was a wreck.
Needless to say, the whole experience was completely re-traumatising. The programme to 'cure' my PTSD, was supposed to last 12 weeks. I think I went through about 7 or 8 weeks of this, before I quit.
I was really ill when I started the EMDR programme. I was desperate to try anything. This was offered by my GP, paid for and endorsed by the NHS. I didn't do enough research into EMDR, how it was supposed be done, what it might be like etc. I put myself in the hands of this so-called specialist (who by the way, had certificates of EMDR training on her office wall, and was endorsed by the NHS), I thought I was in safe hands. She was a bad EMDR therapist, but I didn't know that or see any warning signs, because I went into it 'blind', not knowing what to expect.
So do your homework, and find out all you can about EMDR. There is a good overview of EMDR on the PTSD forum Wiki page, with further references - [DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/wiki/eye-movement-desensitization-and-reprocessing/[/DLMURL]
Three things stand out for me, just skimming through this
Ensure you have an EMDR licensed physician (although I did, it still went wrong)
EMDR should be undertaken in conjunction with other CBT methods
EMDR is delivered in 8 structured phases
I have little doubt that EMDR can be a very effective treatment for PTSD, if done correctly. Plenty of people here, have gone through EMDR, and thoroughly recommend it. My case of severe re-traumatisation is not the 'norm', and I don't share it with you to put you off EMDR, only to make you aware that it can go wrong. Do your homework, and discuss the EMDR process thoroughly with your therapist, so you know exactly what to expect.
Good luck :D
