You have asked important and difficult questions, and it isn't entirely clear to me just what the nature of the problem is. I can't respond to your situation specifically in this forum. However, let me say a few things in general about EMDR, trust, and feelings including shame. When anyone gets EMDR, it is key to success that the client be able to feel things, because otherwise it is like having one foot on the brakes and one on the accelerator. EMDR pushes the feelings forward (the accelerator) and a client's inability to feel puts the brake on the process. This makes for a pretty miserable EMDR session. In general (again, not about you in particular), there are several things that help here: 1) the first EMDRs can be about being free to feel, so the blocking beliefs about feelings being bad/dangerous, etc is the first thing that gets reprocessed. That would be the same as taking the foot off the brake first thing, so the processing can move ahead. This may involve targeting the first time(s) one learned it wasn't okay or safe to feel things, for example. 2) for some people (I don't know about you in particular), the feelings aren't accessible because they have been disowned by part of the self, as in, "what, who me? never!" This is a very human thing to do, and once it happens out of our awareness it is hard to get access to the feelings. Without access, the EMDR can't get going. It just loops. Therapists who talk directly to parts of the self that contain the feelings can sometimes readily move those feelings back into awareness so they are better "owned" by the self, and the EMDR processes fine once that happens. 3) It is up to the therapist to earn your trust too. To anyone trying to decide whether to trust, I would say...See what your antennae (we all have them) say about the trust-worthiness of your therapist. Talk about it as best you can with the therapist, and follow your heart. Somewhere inside, your body's own understanding can guide you to do what you need to do. Best wishes in your EMDR work.
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