Re:EMDR & Dissociation & Parts

Having been a client with DID, of a therapist working with EMDR, I would have to strongly agree with your perceptions.

Although the therapist I saw worked exclusively with DID clients and therefore should have known better, her use of EMDR was extremely re-traumatising. She expected that traumatic material that was elicited through EMDR would be automatically integrated. It was not. I was left sitting in her waiting room after sessions trying to come back down from abreactions. I was left to deal with either trying to process the memories on my own during the week or more commonly, having the "pictures" of traumatic events float around haunting me, stirring up my entire dissociative system into high alert and danger signals. This caused my fucntioning ability to grind to a halt.

When I came back the next week asking to process the previous week's material I was told that it wasn't necessary. The therapist proceeded to do more EMDR which compounded my traumatization with yet more memories I could not digest. I ended up living in bed because under the circumstances, that was the only place that felt safe enough to endure; I was living as if in the middle of the traumas I had experienced in the past, so even a trip to the supermarket was too frought with danger to be borne.

Believe it or not, this went on for a year. I thought it ws me that was doing something wrong. I also depended on some gain from having newly discovered child parts acknowledged for the first time in their lives. I finally consulted my psychiatrist on it. Knowing this therapist he agreed that she worked very fast and suggested I tell her I need her to slow down. I did so but by the following week I could see she was back to her pace again. I brought it up to her again, whereupon she told me that she can't work any slower. I left. In hindsight I think that the only way she could work with the horrific memories that this type of client presents is to view it herself, as if fuzzy and speeding by through the windows of a car. If it needed to be slowed down and really looked at, she became unwilling. Truly an injustice to her clients' experience and a misrepresentation of her ability and willingness to work with these clients.

No therapy would have been better than this therapy. I have strong reservations as to whether EMDR or any "rapid paced" so-called processing of traumatic memory for those with very substantial dissociated traumatic experience is viable or safe. I resent the arrogance of practitioners who are basically experimenting with the lives and souls of vulnerable clients. It feels tantamount to having a skilled hairdresser turn her scissors to brain surgery.

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.