New here - EMDR Therapy?

[SaraDurga]

Hi Everyone,
I've only recently come to understand that I have complex PTSD. It's been quite a journey to this point.
I am starting EMDR therapy in a few weeks. Does anyone have any experience?
I am not currently on any meds. I've seen an improvement in my executive functioning at home but not yet at work.

Hope you all are having good days.

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome! Glad to have you aboard. 

I haven't experienced emdr but it has been discussed here, I'm sure someone will answer who can throw some light on the subject.

Thanks again for joining us. 

[sanmagic7]

glad you're here.  yep, quite a journey to get to this point, and more exploring to do, but at least you've got a good start.

i'm an emdr therapist, and have utilized it for myself and with others.  it's one of the best trauma therapies around.  others have posted their experience with it as well.  personally, i've found it very helpful in re-processing (which is part of its name!) old messages and memories that have kept me from feeling the best of who i really am. 

it's a client-centered therapy, and will go at your pace - you will choose what you want to process, and your brain will do the work, guided by your therapist.  'guided' is the operative word.  i hope you have a good experience with it, and you get relief.  best to you - a new therapy is always a bit daunting, but it's ok to be nervous. 

i'm still a work in progress, but i've also found this forum to be extremely supportive and helpful.  many kind, caring people here.  just take care of you, and know that you're not alone.  big hug.

[mourningdove]

I've done EMDR, and I think it can be very helpful. Unfortunately, it's just like any other kind of therapeutic technique, in that it's a roll of the dice whether or not the therapist doing it will be competent and/or be a good fit in terms of personality. I've tried EMDR with three different therapists so far. One was actually damaging because she didn't follow the EMDR protocol hardly at all; one was just lackluster in general, including the way she did EMDR, and so the treatment didn't do much for me; and the third one was great and cleared out one issue completely. I hope you get one of the good ones!

[Kizzie]

Hi Sara and a warm welcome to OOTS    I tried EMDR and had a bad experience with it but I later learned the T was inexperienced with using it with Complex PTSD.  I would encourage you to find out if the T has training and experience in Complex PTSD (versus PTSD which is different because it involves short term trauma).

I also wanted to mention that you may want to consider removing identifying info for safety/confidentiality purposes.  If you want to change your user name, etc and aren't sure how to do so, let me know and I'll give you a hand.

[SaraDurga]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and info about EMDR.

Kizzie - yes I think I would like to change my personal details. Help! Thanks

How many sessions of EMDR do you think I will need? I'm eager to get started but its so hard. Getting to this point has been tough. I was in therapy for many years from 2003-2008 and that helped me a lot - basically allowed me to not be/continue to be an abuser or have a borderline personality disorder.  But it's clear to me that there is more work for me to do.

Hope you all have an okay day.

[Kizzie]

HI Sara - I've changed the title of your post here throughout this thread so that your personal info has been taken out.  Now you will need to go in and change your profile to whatever username you want for the forum. 

Click on Forum Profile" at the top right hand side of the page and it will take you to your profile file.  Once there click on "Account Settings" and at the top of the page that comes up you will see "Username" and "Change".  Click on "Change" and type in whatever name you want to use on the forum. Once done, click on "Change Profile" on the lower left of the screen.   

[LucyHenry]

I'm new here too. I did try some sessions of EMDR after reading about it extensively (I've applied to grad school to become a therapist), and I know a child therapist who recently went through the EMDR training.
Make sure you are clear with the therapist what you want to work on and how much of the session you want to spend doing EMDR and do not rush to the most emotionally charged memories. I first worked on it with a memory that was not repressed and had lesser trauma associated with it and it did decrease the emotional charge. When it came to repressed memories with deeply held physically charged emotion, it brought back my memory and I had long drives home bawling my eyes out. It was bad because the sessions were so short and appointments were widely spaced out.
With EMDR, it is much better to have a few long sessions over a shorter amount of time than the short ongoing sessions many clinics offer so I would talk to the therapist about options for double appointments when doing EMDR or at least saving any lengthy "how are you doing" talks/progress questions for the end of the session and do EMDR at the beginning of sessions to make sure you have time to process what comes up.

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome! Thanks for joining. 

You also may want to remove personal info from your user name; if so just follow the directions in the post preceding yours.

We're glad you are here!

[pit_bull]

Hi Everyone,
I've only recently come to understand that I have complex PTSD. It's been quite a journey to this point.
I am starting EMDR therapy in a few weeks. Does anyone have any experience?
I am not currently on any meds. I've seen an improvement in my executive functioning at home but not yet at work.

Hope you all are having good days.

Hi and welcome.

My former therapist tried doing EMDR with me but since I didn't have any childhood resources he couldn't complete it with me.

I am glad you are experiencing an improvement in executive functioning.

Were you thinking about going on medication at some point in the future?

[SaraDurga]

Thanks everyone for all your answers to my questions. I have a few more so hoping you can help.

My history: I'd done 5 years of CBT with a Psychotherapist from 2003-2008 and had hugely positive results. I believe now that that work is what has kept me from developing a personality disorder myself, and helped me keep a job, my marriage and keep a binge-eating disorder at bay. I had two kids in 2011 and 2013 and then my mother, my chief abuser, passed away in 2013. Shortly after her death, I started writing again - something I'd given up mostly as a result of the abuse I'd endured my entire life. Very quickly my writing started delving into my past.

Early 2016 I started binge-eating again and very soon found that even food wasn't numbing me. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that I just feel sad all the time, find it difficult to cry, and have a lot of trouble starting or completing work at work. I realized something wasn't right with me and I did some counselling through my workplace EAP. I went on a diet and lost 20 lbs but during that time my feelings of sadness were overwhelming. I slowly started medicating with food again and have gained back 10 lbs. I've decided to put that on the back-burner for now.

After I reached the max with my counsellor, I found a Psychologist who suggested EMDR after an initial consult. She says that because of all the work I'd already done EMDR would work very well. We've had 2 1-hour "intro" sessions so far where her goal is to get to know me and identify some main memories. We are going to do one more and then get started with the EMDR. She only does EMDR as double sessions (100 minute appointments) so that she can help me through whatever comes as a result of the EMDR.

My questions/concerns:
1) I have been dragging my heels with this for a long time. I'd like to heal but I am honestly afraid of what could happen once I open these festering wounds up.
2) I work full-time, have two small kids, and am in school part-time. Should I wait to go gangbusters into this when I have a break (in December)?
3) I have very limited benefits that can pay for this. I was originally planning to have one double-session a month to stretch it out, but I am reading that doing them for long sessions twice a month (weekly at most) would be best. What is everyone's experience?
4) My therapist seems to have a lot of experience with EMDR. What other kinds of questions should I ask her? I generally feel comfortable with her.

Also, I didn't change my handle as its not my name anyway. But, thank you so much to those of you who rightly advised me to change it and told me how to. I really appreciate that.

Thank you!

[SaraDurga]

2 more things:
- How many sessions do people usually need?
- I know I was hurting from the past but did I make things worse in myself by writing? I couldn't help it - it's the story that was coming out of me - but, I'd really made efforts to start writing down things that kept popping up in my head and then going back to write about them later. Did I dislodge something that should have been left alone? Sometimes I'm afraid of what I'm going to unearth. That said, in terms of my control on my life - living life as the REAL me and not who my parents thought I needed to mold myself in to - I'm doing the best I've ever done. And I'm not being horrible to my partner. And I am, he assures me, even and supportive and playful with my kids. But I am sad, and I find it difficult to move sometimes, and I binge eat, and I really don't want to do that anymore. AND i think I've reached the limits to what talking about my past can achieve, for me. I've gone over every memory as an adult and rationalized it but I can't heal from it, I still carry it with me. Maybe I just talked myself into not being afraid of EMDR... for now... but would still appreciate your thoughts. Thanking you in advance.

[mourningdove]

It's normal to be scared, but by the time you do the actual EMDR you and your T will have set up a way for you to get grounded in the event of anything unexpected. If you haven't done anything like that yet, you can ask about it. It sounds like your T is following the protocol so far and that's great.

In my opinion, 100 minute sessions are the way to go for EMDR. I think that only you can know how often will be best. The good thing is that you can wait to decide until after you've tried it. You'll probably have a better sense then of what works for you.

I think the number of sessions necessary is impossible for anyone to guess at. It would depend upon how quickly a person can move through the process, and how many memories they want to tackle.

Wishing you luck. I hope it works out well for you! 

[sanmagic7]

glad you're here.  welcome.

i've found writing to be cathartic for me, i do it a lot.  it not only gets the muck out of me and onto the paper/screen, but as i write i find clarification and realizations.  perhaps some of what comes up for you can be targets for your emdr sessions.  personally, writing has never hurt me, but has always, somehow, helped. 

i'm an emdr therapist, so i know a little about it.  emdr doesn't necessarily have to be concerned only with memories.  emdr can help with your feelings of sadness, for example.   targeting the sadness you feel could be a possible step for you.  it's also helped people with eating disorders.  talk this over with your therapist.  i'm sure she'll help guide you to where you want to go.

often times, in cbt therapy, we can talk about our childhood, memories, etc., to death, but it doesn't necessarily change the underlying emotional charge  that still rules our lives.  this is where emdr can help.  it is a healing therapy.  it is also efficient and can help encourage changes in a short amount of time.  the number of sessions needed is completely individual, depending, as was said, on your goals.

the fact that  your therapist is taking it slow in the beginning is a good sign.  she's getting as much information as possible in order to be able to see as much of your picture as possible, and begin building a therapeutic connection with you, which is very important.  the fact that you feel comfortable with her already is a good sign.  your therapy will be able to move along more smoothly because of it.

best to you with this.  it sounds like you've made a lot of progress already, and have a busy life on top of it.  that's already showing your own resourcefulness, strength, energy, and determination that will all help you get to the bottom of what is getting in your way, clear it out, and clean up any underlying harmful messages that might still be lurking.  i hope you keep  us informed as to how it goes.  big hug.

[SaraDurga]

Thank you so much, sanmagic and mourningdove.  This is incredibly helpful, and uplifting as well.

I will for sure keep you posted.