"ego states"

Will emdr trigger the awareness of "ego states", not as in MPD, but as in denied/hidden parts of self even if a person feels that, despite an history of abuse and stress, she has maintained herself as a unified self knowing of course we all have different parts/ways of being (one person at work, another person at home so to speak)?

or - can emdr result in fragmentation/the development of ego states where such states never existed before?

I have discussed this with my therapist, but I feel uncertain about it and it is scarey. My therapist is not surprised, has dealt with this before, has made sure I know that I'm not crazy and is quite open to my questions. Has also told me clearly that I do not have MPD - which I knew but was starting to worry about. Therapist talks about a family of parts, parts which need to communicate with each other and that it seems that parts of me which have been denied/hidden are surfacing and want to communicate with other parts. My therapist thinks the emdr may have triggered the surfacing of these ego states, that they existed all along and I just wasn't aware of them. All of this is new for me, never experienced it before and so it surprises and scares me.

Now I'm not too keen on continuing with emdr or even with therapy. It needs to be noted that I was previously set up, used and sexually abused by a therapist so my trust can be a bit shakey at times. My present therapist is trained in emdr and has experience in the area of trauma and so forth. We have spent a lot of time on developing a sense of safety, building the therapy relationship etc.

I'm seeing these "ego states" as being an unhealthy development, wondering if therapy - more precisely emdr is causing some sort of fragmentation which I certainly was not aware of before.

Can someone shed some light on this for me? Is my experience common with emdr? Should I be concerned about what is unfolding?

Replies:

Re: Ego States, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 08/25/00 Re: Ego States, by uncertain, 08/26/00 Re: Ego States, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 08/26/00 Re: Ego States, by , 08/26/00 Re: Ego States, by uncertain, 08/26/00 Re: Ego States, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 08/26/00 Re: Ego States - update & thanks, by uncertain, 08/31/00 Re: Ego States - update & thanks, by Robert P. O'Brien, Ph.D., 09/05/00 Re: Ego States - update & thanks, by Too many to write down......hehehhe, 11/07/01 Re: Ego States - update & thanks, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 11/08/01

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