Re:Power Study

Hi,

I don't know if you noticed, but there is a bit of a discussion a ways back on emdr and meditation... I know, I was the one who started it, under another screen name. Dr. Paulsen did a good job of enumerating some of the differences (and similarities) between meditation and emdr.

I am actually on a therapy "sabbatical" trying to figure out a reconcilliation between emdr and meditation, trying to see if they are complementary. I don't know if they are, I still think therapy, by the very virtue of how verbal it is, requires a far greater engagement with the traumatic material than does meditation.

I think the meditative "separation" you talk about, and connection to a "healthy self" is very much the "dual attention" of emdr. But, if you read back on the recent thread on bls/das it becomes clear (at least to me, if not to others) that there are some peculiar and distinct phenomenon associated with eye movements, no matter how "clown" like... on that note, next time I am intimidated by a therapist, I am going to think of them wearing a big old red bozo nose...!

Personally, given the choice between meditation and emdr, I'll keep my mouth shut and increase my meditation time, since I am not someone who has any need to have others "bear witness" to my pain. I find sharing in therapy to be horribly fraught with various transference and projection issues.

However, I continue to think maybe there is stuff meditation will not show me the way out of... and then the structure and direction of emdr would be very helpful. (Of course, equally helpful would be a meditation teacher who understood trauma!)

A caveat: my (ex?) therapist refers to the emdr she does as "meditations"... so take whatever I say with more than a little bias! The two -- emdr and meditation -- are so confused in my mind at this point as to be inextricable. Generally I would say integration of the psychological and spiritual is a good thing... but in this case it has just been confusing.

Replies:

Re:Power Study, by Barbara, 10/25/02 meditation, by missusscarecrow@yahoo.com, 10/25/02 Re:meditation, by Barbara, 10/25/02 Re:meditation, by missusscarecrow@yahoo.com, 10/25/02

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