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Deleted member 20978
This question is open to anyone, but specifically I'm hoping the admins, and maybe Anthony, could chime in as their is such a wealth of info about therapy techniques in the forums.
I'm reading that among the 4 "tier-1" recognized therapies effective for PTSD, most studies try to omit severe and complex PTSD from the subject data. Anecdotally too, therapists will say that EMDR is more effective for one-time traumas than for complex PTSD. So this seems inconclusive but strongly suggests that CPTSD is harder to treat.
As someone suffering with CPTSD (as is my wife), who has also recently been rendered extremely non-functional due to recent trauma, I'm desperate for info about what therapies can actually work. Also am confused about how to stabilize from recent trauma when that trauma has freed up so much childhood trauma that it is all coming up at once.
Since my trauma involved a lot of neglect (as well as a life-threatening trauma at age 7 at hands of my mother), I also wonder if neglect/abandonment are somehow a different animal. For example, when therapist doing EMDR will ask me to bring up images or specific memories about my trauma, when I think about the trauma of being chronically abandoned... it's like asking someone to come up with specific images or memories of being female. It *isn't* specific but is pervasive. In some ways I felt abandoned for years by my mother even though she was there, taking care of me, since the trauma at 7 so shattered trust that it was like I had no nurturing mother I could trust, and so was abandoned.
Where do the 4 main therapies fit in for complex PTSD? Are there other things I should be seeking?
Lastly -- I instinctively keep wanting to find someone very empathic, willing to listen. I had so little of this in my life, it feels like a basic biological need. But I'm trying to reconcile this with the idea (which makes a lot of sense to me) that talk therapy is neutral to harmful for PTSD, as it basically causes a lot of re-traumatzing in the retelling, without necessarily helping to process or resolve the trauma.
Every therapist I interview will either say my case is too complex, they won't take it, or they will invariably say their method is effective, whatever it is. So I feel awash in contradictory info. EMDR so far has proven very difficult. In 5 sessions I only managed to do the process once (and it seemed to make a big impact), but often am agitated and finding issue with that therapist's ways of explaining what she's doing, interrupting me a lot, being late to appointments, not following up on things she says she will do like *billing* me or providing referrals for my wife... I don't know what part of this is me being an impossible person with a lot of agitation when forced to discuss traumatic stuff vs. she is not very organized and effective as a therapist.
Any input is welcome and appreciated. Thanks
I'm reading that among the 4 "tier-1" recognized therapies effective for PTSD, most studies try to omit severe and complex PTSD from the subject data. Anecdotally too, therapists will say that EMDR is more effective for one-time traumas than for complex PTSD. So this seems inconclusive but strongly suggests that CPTSD is harder to treat.
As someone suffering with CPTSD (as is my wife), who has also recently been rendered extremely non-functional due to recent trauma, I'm desperate for info about what therapies can actually work. Also am confused about how to stabilize from recent trauma when that trauma has freed up so much childhood trauma that it is all coming up at once.
Since my trauma involved a lot of neglect (as well as a life-threatening trauma at age 7 at hands of my mother), I also wonder if neglect/abandonment are somehow a different animal. For example, when therapist doing EMDR will ask me to bring up images or specific memories about my trauma, when I think about the trauma of being chronically abandoned... it's like asking someone to come up with specific images or memories of being female. It *isn't* specific but is pervasive. In some ways I felt abandoned for years by my mother even though she was there, taking care of me, since the trauma at 7 so shattered trust that it was like I had no nurturing mother I could trust, and so was abandoned.
Where do the 4 main therapies fit in for complex PTSD? Are there other things I should be seeking?
Lastly -- I instinctively keep wanting to find someone very empathic, willing to listen. I had so little of this in my life, it feels like a basic biological need. But I'm trying to reconcile this with the idea (which makes a lot of sense to me) that talk therapy is neutral to harmful for PTSD, as it basically causes a lot of re-traumatzing in the retelling, without necessarily helping to process or resolve the trauma.
Every therapist I interview will either say my case is too complex, they won't take it, or they will invariably say their method is effective, whatever it is. So I feel awash in contradictory info. EMDR so far has proven very difficult. In 5 sessions I only managed to do the process once (and it seemed to make a big impact), but often am agitated and finding issue with that therapist's ways of explaining what she's doing, interrupting me a lot, being late to appointments, not following up on things she says she will do like *billing* me or providing referrals for my wife... I don't know what part of this is me being an impossible person with a lot of agitation when forced to discuss traumatic stuff vs. she is not very organized and effective as a therapist.
Any input is welcome and appreciated. Thanks
