Re:ego state work

Your post is very interesting... or, at least, I suspect it is. It is too late at night for me to be sure.

However, you bring up some key points. My therapist was not a parent, and her statements and suggestions re: parenting were often unhelpful. Yes, she did often have an "all or nothing" attitude (esp re: attachment issues) and her clinical work with me reflects that (eg a sudden, unexpected termination). Up to the point of that termination she was incessantly accessible and available... it is my own issue that I consistently AVAILED myself of that availability and accessibility. I should have had more of a spine. As I should, no doubt, not be availing myself of posting here... :-| Excuse the "humor"... it is late.

You bring up the benefits of termination, in that a therapist can tell the client/patient what they perceive and the two parties can create a "story" of treatment together, among other things. (Personally, I find "client" an affectation unless one actually practices Rogerian psychotherapy.)

My therapist refused my request for such a closing session. I am left with many questions: all I was told was that my posts here were "accepted and respected as a termination". Uh?!? An odd, disconnected, unintegrated way to end a year of therapy for DID.

(Yes, apparently, I tested her beyond her tolerance... odd to me... after all, I, to my own ears, sound like a "borderline" patient who cannot deal with boundaries or therapy. Certainly my posting in a forum of HER peers makes me look bad, not her?! Thus, what is she upset about, even assuming either of us was identifiable?!)

To return to EMDR... when I first began therapy I wondered if 'transference' had any place in such a protocol. I actually posted here last July on the subject. It was my understanding that the cognitive nature of the treatment discouraged such introspection or reenactment. But I did not understand how one could keep transference away (an apple a day, perhaps?)... In the end, I'd say my therapy fell apart precisely over transference and it's near relative, countertransference.

So much for cognitive treatment.

Don't get me wrong... one thing that has become very clear to me in the past weeks is that "EMDR" is not what my therapy was about, no matter if my therapist practiced it or not, waved her hands back and forth or stood on her head. This gives me hope. I no longer feel I am failing at EMDR... I simply (and painfully) got caught in reenactments.

As the wise moderator of this forum said a bit ago... reenactment is what it's all about for trauma patients. I am nothing, if not a trauma patient... and note I do not say client. :-)

Thanks for your comments... they were intelligent... although I guess we are as far from EMDR at this point as the moon is from cheese.

Good night.

Replies:

Re:ego state work, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe PhD, 08/10/03 termination, by wondering, 08/10/03 afterthought, by wondering, 08/10/03 Re:afterthought, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe PhD, 08/11/03 Re:afterthought, by wondering, 08/11/03

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