EMDR and me

[scarlettina]

Years ago, after explicitly diagnosing me with PTSD as a result of my experience with my mother's illness and death (a diagnosis that had been gently implied by other therapists), my then-therapist recommended that I undergo EMDR treatment. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a therapeutic technique in which the therapist

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[varina8]

I'm a little wonky today (4+ hours of sleep will do that) but wanted to reply as soon as possible. I did EMDR in 2001. I did not have the kind of overwhelming pain you did. That said, I do remember the experience as being intense.

My therapist did not bring it in until we'd been meeting together for a couple of months. We started alternating an EMDR session with a session or two talking about what came up, then did another EMDR session. One thing I remember clearly is the therapist warning me not to kitchen sink. Take one image from the event, work with it, move on. It was very slow, lots of back and forth on how I was doing. She was a lot like a good groundman during an acid trip, not that I know anything about that.

I think so much depends on the skill of the therapist. EMDR seemed to work well for me, despite my initial resistance to doing it, because we did other things too. The gains from other exercises and approaches seemed to work hand-in-hand with the EMDR sessions.

Oddly enough, some of the most effective tools came out of The Artist's Way. When I mentioned to the therapist that I'd started doing it, her attitude was: okay, let's see what that brings to the table.