Worried About T's Suggestion Of Emdr & Hypnosis

[macca]

My T is suggesting we start working on some of my strong triggers, such as dark windows with no window coverings. I know that probably sounds weird, but my flashbacks are always of someone intruding into my room through a dark window, and they are utterly terrifying. Due to these flashbacks and others I've had, and the inappropriate sexual play and re-enactment play, I think I may have been abused, probably at 3-4 years old (plus my mother always said my personality changed overnight when I was 3). So, seeing as how I can't actually remember anything - how can EMDR work? Plus, I'm very afraid of encountering something terrifying, and I'm not sure I'll handle it if it does. I've been really unstable for the last 2 months, though it's settling a little bit since I've been in therapy.

My T is also talking about using hypnosis, but not to recover memories. She's suggesting it to retrain my responses to anger directed at me (I respond with fear and/or anger), due to emotional abuse stuff. I'm finding I'm scared about that too! I don't like the idea of not being in control of what might come up. She tried an imagery exercise, and I tried so hard, but just could not imagine myself responding differently. I might have tried to do one that was too difficult first up maybe. Has anyone else tried hypnosis or imagery for this type of thing?

 

[digger]

I've not experienced either EMDR or hypnosis, but I share your fears with regard to the hypnosis especially the control issue, not only of what might come up for me, but the idea of someone else having that much control over me would be terrifying.

I guess it partly comes down to how much you trust your therapist. How long have you been working with her? What did she say about your concerns about it.

With regard to imagery, I think the key is practice, and not just when you are in the moment when you need to use it, you need to practice it at other times as well. It's something I'm still working on, but I do think it is worth persevering with. I am a very visual person though anyway, so maybe that is just something that clicks a bit with me. Even from just reading through various posts on here you can see often enough that what works brilliantly for one person is a nightmare for someone else, so I guess a lot of it comes down to trial and error unfortunately till you find things that work for you.

 

[Reds]

We'll I have had a session of EMDR and it didn't go well. I freaked out and was so angry. Few sessions after that I did hypnosis, which I have good and bad feelings towards it. After the session I felt ok and didn't remember much and a few days later I started remembering also remembered things I would rather have buried. The problem with me is that I like to be in control and having to not remember what I said or did during session kinda got me freaked out. It ended up with me sending my therapist mean emails because I hated that I couldn't remember. After hypnosis it feels you just waking up from a deep relaxing sleep.

So do not do any until you are comfortable and sure you want to do it. You also need to trust your therapist completely to do hypnosis. Well I hope this helps

 

[macca]

Thanks guys. I've seen my therapist only for the past couple of months, though I really like her. Generally I trust her too, but it's hard to trust someone when you are put in a very vulnerable position, like hypnosis. I guess I'm a little scared of what I may remember, by either of the processes, and I also don't know that I want someone else having that kind of power over me. Probably I need to talk it over with her.

As for the imagery, I can imagine without problem, quite vividly, but I couldn't seem to imagine having different feelings in a remembered moment, as she was asking. She asked me to try and imagine being calm and unbothered in that past moment, and I may have chosen an experience too emotionally intense, as a child in a nasty incident with my father.

 

[Hashi]

I've had both hypnotherapy and EMDR but not for trauma. I've had hypnotherapy for insomnia and a trial of EMDR for something non-traumatic to see how it felt and whether I wanted to try it as part of trauma work.

As a result, I won't do either for trauma work. However, I'd definitely recommend you keep trying the imagery.

If you have traumatic amnesia, you need to think very carefully about EMDR because new memories can come up as a result of having it. One reason I won't have it is when I did the trial I felt it having an effect on my brain that was very much an external one, overriding the natural process. My experience of recovering memories (naturally) is that it's very finely tuned. My subconscious is assessing my resilience, my resources, my coping skills, how much I've already assimilated etc, and then somehow deciding how much more memory to give me based on that, and when. I didn't feel that would be the case with EMDR, and I'm much too careful of what I expose myself to and how.

I also don't see what you would work on with EMDR if you don't have enough memories, but my main concern would be the "side effects" and how it interferes with the natural process (which is there for a reason). I'm not talking about EMDR in general, but in the case when there's significant amnesia.

I'm glad you said the hypnotherapy would not be for recovering memories, but personally I would still stay away from it and do guided imagery instead. You shouldn't be out of control with hypnotherapy in the sense that the therapist could direct you to do things that are against your better judgement. However, if you have selective amnesia then that is a protective mechanism to stop you getting overwhelmed, and there's a risk of losing some control over maintaining that if you lower your defences through that type of deep state. Again, I think the subconscious knows when to give us memories but if we do things which interfere with that process then it can't always regulate things as it wants to.

Guided imagery is more contained - or, hopefully it would be. It's very directed, and by it's nature you can build a lot of safety and protection into the imagery itself. I don't know what you tried or why you thought it was too difficult. I agree with digger that practice is key. I wouldn't expect an immediate effect. The effect comes when you do it consistently, every day. I started noticing some difference after two or three weeks, and major differences after about two months. It's important to have imagery and a style that works for you, not an out of the box one. I think it's also important to have a very active, strong, safe, positive image, with movement, and not a static or passive one.

If you want to talk any more about guided imagery, I'd be happy to. There are a small number of things that have had a huge effect on my coping and healing, and guided imagery is one of them.

 

[Hashi]

We cross posted so I've just seen your last post. I'm not sure about guided imagery to do with specific past events, as you've mentioned. "Rewriting" what's happened is something I think can be valid, but for me that's much further down the line. I'm working on strength, stability and safety first, and using guided imagery for that, before any rewriting stuff. Maybe your therapist's approach is a bit different.

Can I ask, what specific approaches does your therapist practice?

 

[macca]

Hi Hashi. She uses a mixture really. Some CBT, some psychodynamic (I haven't seen that much on here - I'm not sure how to explain it, but it seems really helpful), and she uses EMDR and hypnosis. Trying to explain the psychodynamic, it's kind of getting to the deeper stuff regarding how I relate to others, or expect them to relate to me - kind of if I project my expectations of rejection onto her, and she highlights that and we explore it.

I'd be interested to know more about the guided imagery you are using. She asked me to imagine an upsetting memory with my father, and I chose a really bad one, from when I was 15. There was rejection and strong anger on his side (after I dared confront him about how he treated me), and intense fear and anger on my part, and my T asked me to imagine myself in that situation being calm instead of reacting to him. I could put myself there, just couldn't imagine being calm. That's when she suggested hypnosis, to try and alter my strong reactions to anger in others. I don't know, I think it was reasonable that I was angry with him, as he'd treated me like crap my whole life. But I react strongly to anger in others, too strongly, and that's what she's trying to change.

 

[Toranoko]

I did EMDR for my therapy, as well as visualizations. I'm also a trained Hypnotist. Visualization, for what it's worth, is a form self-hypnosis.

EMDR doesn't need memories, necessarily, just something to work with. One possibility is to focus on your flashbacks and see where your mind wanders. As far as hypnosis, one does not need to forget the session. It works by entering a deeper state and receiving suggestions and imagery.

That said, Trust is the key to both of these modalities. You must trust your therapist not only in the general sense but also with the modality being used. A good chunck of therapy is bulding both general trust and specific trust (trust for specific things/modalities).

Pay attention to resistance. Consider it in the same light that a Detective considers a Clue: important, but only in context can it's full meaning be deciphered.

Hmmm ... feel like I'm rambling now. I'll stop ...

 

[Toranoko]

This may be off in left field, but can you imagine "calm strength"? Or is "anger == strong" for you? Using a more esoteric visualization, can you see yourself as a Mountain in that type of situation? Or only "Raging River" or "Roaring Fire" (two different types of anger)?

("No matter how hard the Wind howls, the Mountain cannot bow to it." The Emperor, Mulan.)

 

[Hashi]

Visualization, for what it's worth, is a form self-hypnosis.

Yes, I didn't talk about how they're related. The possible distinctions I'm meaning are: (a) the depth of change of consciousness - you can do guided imagery/visualisation without even going into deep relaxation, if you choose to, so you can have much more control, (b) the amount of time spent in more general quiet and relaxation compared to the amount of time which is managed and directed, and (c) a technique that you need to set aside more time and space for compared to one that you can do for a few minutes, anywhere, repeatedly through the day.

If it's hypnotherapy with a therapist then there's also the question of how much someone else is guiding and leading you into a different level of consciousness, which can be quite different from doing this yourself or doing guided imagery with someone.

macca, I hope it's OK to ask about the overall approach to the example you gave of visualising a different reaction towards your father. Did you and your therapist spend much time first exploring the incident and how it had made you feel, and relating that to current issues? Did your therapist talk with you about what sort of alternative responses you might want to imagine? If so, did any other ideas come up as well as the one you tried?

 

[Abstract]

Just reading macca as I don't have anything to offer. All I can say is that an attempt to hypnotise me didn't work as I was instinctively afraid and for the reasons you mention. I have been glad afterwards as I had decided it could override safety mechanisms there for a reason and that it could open Pandoras box inappropriately. Even "free writing" is not something I can go anywhere near. Just the thought freaks me out. I too have big chunks of my life missing.

I have also done a lot of reading about how hypnosis can distort memories when it used in that way so I feel very cautious about it used like that - which it seems she isn't planning to do.

I too have had psychodynamic and although I wouldn't have someone purely psychodynamic now (I need something warmer, more reassuring and more interactive) I found it very helpful in many ways before.

I have to say I personally would feel uncomfortable about trying to change my response to a bad experience in the past unless I had fully processed the emotions around it, allowed myself to feel them and come to a point where I was ready to let it go. I have a habit of avoiding reality through dissociation and it might feel a little too close to that in some respects. That's just me though. Has she tried other approaches to help you manage present day anger?

 

[macca]

@Hashi it's fine to ask, thanks for your input. We had been talking about my reactions to anger that had come up a lot recently, and talked about some specific incidents from the present time. She knows my father was often angry and that he scared me at times when I was young, so she asked me to create an image of one of those times, but didn't ask any specifics around it. Of course, the first one that came to mind was one of the worse ones, and in my haste to pick one I stuck with that. She didn't ask anything about the image, just asked me to imagine being calm in that situation, instead of fearful and angry. The particular incident I chose went on too long, and had too much happening for me to be "calm" in just one part of it. We didn't explore the incident, and things happened that carried a lot of weight. Maybe I need to talk to her more about that. She doesn't know the half yet about a lot of stuff. I don't know how to tell her.

@Abstract The psychodynamic stuff is not in the traditional Freudian sense, where the therapists have to be emotionally removed. Thank goodness, because I'd hate that. She's very warm and caring, but just picks up on me projecting feelings about the past into the therapy relationship, and stuff like that, like how I unconsciously expect to be treated, which I wasn't aware of. The writing stuff - I know it really works for a lot of people, yet I find I haven't even tried, even though I think it would be helpful. I guess there's still a bit of fear, but I'm also finding that I'm still progressing out of the denial/minimising stage, and so I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. I only have some small chunks missing, but I'm not that keen on going there, just in case. I'm fearful of finding memories from when I was 3 mainly, as evidence seems to point to something happening then, and I think it's my core trauma.

I think you're both right, I probably need to work some of these incidents through before I try to change them. Otherwise I think I might end up even more messed up! Thanks so much for your input, I really value it.