new therapy

new therapy

Tom E.

Registrant
Hi Guys,
My therapist & I are going to be working with EMDR therapy.
Wish me luck! Has this form of therapy been successful with any of you? Please let me know, pros & cons.
Thanks, Tom E.
 
I'm just off to work, and saw this.

Quick answer is yes, and it's working for me.

I've written a great deal about it.
 
Tom E. and anyone... I went through my posts about my most recent EMDR and related therapy sessions. This is very long, I'm sorry, but it connects.

This is now one long post from about 5 or 6 I've already written since May this year.



EMDR Sessions:


05/26/18 12:56 PM

Prior to seeking a well trained therapist. I emailed local trainers and found a top trainer who took an interest in helping me find a well trained EMDR therapist. I am in a region where this type of therapy and all therapies are in high demand. It's hard to find one who is available, and well trained.

I've discovered my experience is, to me, a miracle. I'm not much toward associating faith, nor existentialism in how this kind of necessary treatment can support my personal journey. I have found, that my connection with my therapist, her willingness to get to know me, and especially my idiosyncrasies has given the best results I've experienced from about a dozen therapists in my lifetime, and some 3 or more psychiatrists.

I'm grateful beyond proper articulation to this therapist. The training she takes seriously, and knows my need to question how things work. I've learned what to expect, and that has been instrumental toward the progress I've known thus far.


If she stays, meaning I get to continue long term with her, I know my healing, and growth will show progress I can realize and bring agency to a life that's been stagnant with panic, anxiety, depression, dissociation and avoidance. I can relate with proper depth of concern and compassion to concerns and the information shared to me.

I do know of the problems, and hope that if someone seeks to read this very lengthy thread of posts, there will be seen among it all, a compassion toward self exploration and a need for study, combined with the absolute of support of a well trained therapist.

My story here is to keep track that I had to work quite hard to find the therapist that works for me, but, in the end, it was taking a chance, and she has become a part of my healing that I could not understand when I began.

She doesn't just focus on EMDR, and we stopped for some months to help me deal with dissociation I denied and had made excuses for. When I found the truth, I had to manage another facet of therapy that's taken a lot of emotional effort that's again difficult to articulate. Emotions so intense, they wracked my body with so much pain, that even now, writing this I shake, and feel the welling up of tears and furrowing of my brow.


The connection of my parts, my inner child, a sense of my internal family system, linking the depth of trauma, neglect, bullying, molestation and rape to those parts and my physical and internal reactions is described HERE.
https://janinafisher.com/tmodel.html

I have spent a lot of time on this part of my therapy, especially because I was wholly blocked from seeing my inner self, my problems source and what affected me without my knowing/seeing it. The revelations were too profound, and physical, so my therapist also taught me self care, with Sensorimotor therapies that sought to bring to my core, what small love could be built with the work.

It took months for me to fix a massive hole in the bucket of my core, unable to build any beginning of self worth. The internalized loathing so deep, I wished not to be, that I wasn't worth to be. I cried and cried... couldn't stop and she let me, guided me back and showed me a few tools that helped build some self worth.

We've discovered a lot about me, and all of it, we've been able to be in the space and time of the child of me. I find that a significant proof that she's been the best for me. I have not had such concern to know me, to see whom I am and why, in decades of therapy.




…………………………………..................
6/1/18
I'm going to add today's therapy session to this thread. There's a lot here, and I think this documents some of how Van Der Kolk and Odgen have described therapy involving being aware of reactions in the body, and describing them. I think todays writing describes Sensorimotor therapy.

..................................

6/28/18 06:58 PM
This session, I started with realizing I have been doing better with fear. It's seemed to me, that therapy, writing, and working with discussions has brought some intellectual processing of what's worth being afraid of. That I've been working on myself and other advocacy gives rise to better motivations to do the work too. The realization that two looming fear sources remain top of mind is what I wanted to check into today.

I thought the bigger problem is attachment, leading toward how I get very upset about marriage issues? It was the issue considering fears affect on my body that my T wanted to look at. My T and I agreed that age 3 had a lot to do with manifesting the fear, and she told me, a 3 year old only feels, doesn't put words to that fear. She asked me to identify what the fear felt like in my body, considering being so young, and unable to articulate.

My T wanted me to describe what my body reaction is, and it was tight all through my torso, especially with my throat, unable to talk. I had furrowed my brow, and felt a lot of pressure in my forehead down to my neck and torso. It was inward pushing pressure. Add to that, all my limbs felt weak and limp, my legs as if detached, my arms as if by my side frozen.

My T had me focus on the sensations, keeping the narrative out of my mind, but to feel the sensations, and when I was present, and able to describe them very well, she asked what I could picture from the age of toddler. She reminded me that words didn't work for a toddler, but seeing and having me see it was how I could bring my body sensations to a single memory that characterized my body reaction. I brought to mind how I froze when my dad spanked me with his belt. I could recall being in the bathroom, and he directing me to obey so he would spank me properly. At first I got very angry, my adult self's attentions intruding where my T was guiding me. She gently got me back to focusing on my body sensations and there origin memory.

I got to the point where I knew the memory that represented my bodily reactions originated with being spanked with a belt. I froze, ergo my limbs, and I had hopeless tension, ergo my forehead, neck and torso. My toddler mind, age 4ish didn't have words to deal with it, and from age 3, where neglect hits me hard, I know that my toddler response is to withdraw, try to disappear, not be a burden, try to be such a good boy, not there, but a helper. It created intense fear that my life meant so little, and it's better that I withdraw. Too young to think what any of this is, my T sought to find how my body reacted, Like Odgen, and Van Der Kolk write about. We had my body reaction, and the source, and she now sought to guide a thinking reaction.

What she asked next, was to consider a few words or a word that I could add to this situation, that described my mental reaction to the situation of myself as a toddler. I had so much pressure in my forehead, running through (inside) my face, into my neck, and then my torso, pushing inward, that to me, the word that came to mind was "scream"! My T thought that was very apropos to what I described during our session. She asked what about screaming, and thought that I could perhaps scream into some Kleenex?

I accepted that proposal to scream into Kleenex, and grabbed some I had and added some of hers. I noted I would stifle it, because I'm very loud. She thought that wise in the context that her office is in a multi-use building. My scream could cause a response where some explanation would be required. I had the Kleenex held between both hands, set to be brought up to my mouth when I got to the scream. I focused on all the body reactions, and pictured myself as a toddler unable to find a care giver's comfort, and by 4ish seeking to be small and un-noticed, too good to be a problem.

They divorced when I was 5, and my sense of disappearing, failing to be good enough, unable to not be some cause of the break up, and troubles that followed became a part of some narrative that went through my mind quickly, and my T, seeing something going on, noted for me to concentrate on my bodies reaction, not my thoughts of the story.

Trying to keep the story out of things isn't very easy, I think too much, but, I tried. I refocused on my body, and could feel all that pressure, the reaction to being the problem, and what the scream build up was like. It built too, I had to keep focused on the pressure, and being unable to interact with my limbs. I felt the inward tension, pushing me, and pushing me, and that was when I had an intense need to scream. I built up my breath with some deep breathing, and while I did that, I worked to bring my hands to bear with the Kleenex. My arms had to let my hands help me with this. By the time the scream was in my throat, I had the Kleenex up to my mouth really firmly, and I let out a visceral, animal scream... but, stifled. It was a grunt sound into the Kleenex, but a kind of grunt that didn't seem like it was me.

I had been crying, and as I removed the Kleenex from my mouth, and began to sit up, I immediately noticed my body had completely changed. I was stunned, and caught with a thought, "what just happened", "why did the crying stop, the tension and pressure end, and my limbs were again part of me. I felt present and calm, and I was dumbfounded by that! It's incomprehensible to me that my body would change that much, when just moments before I had tensions pushing in on me that felt powerful.

Like I noted, I became aware of the present, and I was soon at ease about my body changing like that so abruptly. It seemed so weird, and I said so a few times. I decided it didn't matter, why or what happened, what the present meant, is that it happened. I liked it too, I smiled, and felt relief, it seemed to me, I knew the tension of that one memory, an important one representing being nothing, was relaxed. I felt that I could go home after this session, and not bring tension with me. I felt calm.



…………………………..



7/07/18. 8:40 AM EMDR and me- The rape:

I don't know what to call this... Does it have a therapy category? It still seems like Sensorimotor therapy, but it felt very different, and was a different style.

In today's session, I went in knowing my 15-18 yr old me parts are stirred and have taken over my head. I've been triggered by the recent news of children taken from their parents. I've become deeply depressed, crying easily, hurt more easily, and having difficulty thinking clearly.

My T tried looking at those boys of me needing to realize their/my flashbacks to pain were not still happening. She wanted me to convey to one or all, that I care, what they went through was horrible, and that Now, the one of me that will listen can know I am here for them.

I was having trouble with it, the theme of pain being rejected, thrown away, hopeless impotence to be seen and cared for.

My T had an idea, or tried before, I guess it's a thing... That having defined a means to show someone cares, is their eye contact while listening, I will look into a mirror, into my 15 year olds eyes. I'm to keep eye contact, tell him I care and know his pain, and the me Now, looking at him, is showing that Care by looking at him, while we're sharing memories.

I cried the first 20 minutes in session, and drops of tears streamed down my face when I started looking in that mirror. I held it over 10 minutes (it seemed), and that 15 yr old, at first would jump back in my head, taking over, forcing us into pain. A few minutes in, he settled down a bit, heard me reaching out. Heard me and saw in my eyes, our life Now, I, a caring man, giving, loving. I hoped he would tell me he understood. I didn't get that yet, but, he looked back at me, and we calmed down.

HOW does this work??!!

So, anyway, I will be doing this at home or anywhere they get stirred. I will look at them and care, and love them. Does this bring me more toward loving me? I don't know yet?

……………………………………….



This is the session about the moment the rape begins:

I had therapy today and as usual I took a look at my inner child/chldren to find my point. That is, the part of me I see having a lot of affect. A moment to focus my attention.

I had started (TRIGGER WARNING), dealing with the exact moment of rape last time. It's noting my physical reaction, which is what my body was telling me at the start of the EMDR, and it was was complete tension. It took about 20 minutes and I calmed down.

This session I looked at the beginning moments of the rape. I was again very tense, but just slightly less. My inner boy knew I dealt with this last time and prompted by the therapist, the oldest were with me to deal with it this time. I was thinking about his feelings at that moment of first fear.

My T asked if it was terror? I'm not sure it was? I was in survival mode. I could barely recall how my mind raced, and words I tried in an effort to escape. I wanted him to stop so badly! I briefly had a mind storm about the 3rd EMDR round.

I kept saying to us/myself, it's not your fault, I'm here now, I will work on this. I wanted to tell us/myself, that I've been trying to find ways to work on these memories, what he/we/I endured.

My T asked how I thought he/we/I managed to go-on after the rape? I said we/I stuffed it, buried it with other troubles. She said "brilliant, that is taking care of it"! She meant it. I looked at her, wondering where that was going, then my inner child knew. He knew he did the best he could. He liked that she said that, so we did; I did.

A few more rounds now that I could see how I can/am helping with this trauma. She did those rounds to have me process that I can do this work. The last two of those, I had noticed she asked me if I could see the we/us was now "I"? I answered spontaneously that I did.

That caught me off guard a bit, that we moved to I. I put that thought in with managing process for the last 2 rounds. I finished calm.

I knew my trauma memories have become more manageable to talk about, it's been integrating the memories by feeling my body reactions at those moments of memory, the inner child moment that have stirred my bodies tensions and intense crying.

Today, my oldest parts of me, could see and believe those moments they suffered will be looked at by me, one by one. Which means the very small, sometimes less than a minute moment.

I've tried to explain that moment thing before. All this was prepared with my ability to take a small moment, and leave the rest for later. I have truly seen how powerful this is.
 
Thank you, so much, Ceremony. I hope this works for me too, but I must confess, I'm a little afraid of what will be brought up or remembered & the intense feelings it all might cause.
I hope I can handle it.
 
Hi Guys,

I'm just starting to explore Richard Miller's iRest program (https://www.irest.org/). Do any of you have experience with this?

Cheers,

S
 
Hope EMDR was a positive experience for you Tom .


SubtleStuff , I never meditate ; but that is b/c I don't have
the tools to listen to it.
BUT! I hum in public when I want to stop the conversations in my
mind.
What also helped me , was adopting from strangers while on buses or trains - simply closing your eyes.
Don't think this helps , my two cents and more.
James
 
Hi Tom

Hey I have had an experience with EMDR. I only had one treatment and the therapist missed the next session with no notice to me. I showed up for my session which had been the same time and day since I stated to see him. They told me that I have the wrong day he is not in today. I had a hell of a time just getting home.

I learn some things from that one session. I had been waking in full on panic for around 20 years with no memory or thought in my head. After this treatment some time in the next week or so I woke and had a memory. It was of the sudden impact of a close to fatal motor cycle accident in 1976 that I have very little memory of never have. Now I have a memory to attach to it. I now now the colour and make of car I hit. I don't think I wake to this anymore but not sure. I do not tear the bed apart every night and find myself sitting there with no thoughts and no blankets or pillows they are on the floor like I used to.

My next session with EMDR he told me I was blocking him. He then gave me home work to do and email to him before our next session I did. I got phone calls and text message and an email tell me he had for got to tell me that he wouldn't be here this week. I quit seeing him and I am looking for a new T that is more reliable and is experienced with EMDR. It really looked to me like it was going to be a good thing for me to do.

Good luck with your treatments Tom

Esterio
 
Tom,
I have had mixed experiences with EMDR. A few years back, I had a very bad time with it: I flooded too much at certain parts of it. Research I did at the time indicated that while EMDR is very effective with single source or single incident trauma, it didn't work the same way for more complex forms of PTSD.

More recently, my experiences with it have been better. I'm glad we tried it again. We worked with it initially to lock in some positive experiences and then took on a relatively moderate negative experience.

In general, for me, ego state/integration work is more of what I need. Just thought I'd add my two cents: if it doesn't go well, or doesn't go well initially, it may have little to do with patient or therapist and more to do with the logistics of trauma. Also, it may be possible to return to it at a later point.
 
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