Re:Grief and EMDR - is it ever too soon?

I recall in one of our early trainings the request for a show of hands as to the appropriate use of EMDR with the issue of grief. Very few if any hands raised at the one week time frame. A few were added at one month and many acknowledged EMDR use as appropriate at 6 months.

Individual case specifics considered, I have found that in almost all cases, EMDR can rapidly and effectively facilitate the healing process without qualitatively interfering with it. In fact I have even gone so far as use EMDR in preparation for loss.

I recall a case from several years back in which my client who had lost her father 6 months earlier responded very positively to an EMDR intervention. Her mother was in a nursing home and terminal. We used EMDR to "prepare" her for the loss of her mother, and several months later as the loss became a reality, she reported that it was much less difficult than dealing with the loss of her father. Considering the dynamics, I thought this was an idiographic event until I used it in a number of similar cases, to include a mother who's 9 y.o. son was dying of a rare form of leukemia. The opportunity for individuals to address grief issues with EMDR prior to the loss have resulted in finishing business before it has the opportunity to become "unfinished".

My protocol involves turning the clock forward instead of backward and it usually stimulates a return to unresolved realtionship issues, which are much more easily resovled when the person is alive. In many cases, they have been able to communicate things to the terminally ill, which they may have avoided due to strong defenses. Some in
the support group have flippantly refered to it as the "grieve before they leave" protocol, but I have found it extremely useful.

I have used the process now with over a two dozen clients. By their report it has been quite helpful in alleviating a considerable amount of the emotional pain and facilitating the grieving process, especially in those who have had other or repetitive losses for comparison.

So, it is never to soon.

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