Re:Feelings with no memories

EMDR should not be conducted on dissociative individuals unless the therapist knows how to work with dissociative individuals OUTSIDE of EMDR. Clients need not feel foolish about not wanting to be retraumatized with EMDR or any other method -- and can ask their therapists if 1) the therapist knows how to screen for and diagnose dissociative conditions and 2) if they have been trained or are seeking consultation on working with dissociative conditions. I'm not saying Brian is dissociative - I don't know --- but extremely intense rage and hatred is a very serious subject. Any person who is getting worse in therapy is not getting the right therapy. The other poster I am taking at face value her statement that she is dissociative and responding wiht some general thoughts that may or may not apply to you.

Trauma work is often painful but should not be destabilizing - there should be a sense of relief, not worsening, with EMDR or anything else -- or it isn't the right intervention.

The two of you both deserve appropriate care and treatment, and a second opinion, and for your therapists to seek consultation or help you get to someone who can do a good job for you. Abandoning a patient without attempting to help with placement with another therapist is not the usual standard.

I wish I could tailor something to each of you but as you know I really can't here - it would do you a great disservice and you'd had quite enough of that in your lives, I gather.

For dissociative individuals, there are steps of stabilization and containment, and also negotiating with sometimes angry protective parts of self, that their rage will be heard and understood as the appropriate protection it originally was. And to reassure angry parts that those parts of self won't be gotten rid of, rather that their jobs can be updated, now that it is x years later, and things have changed. Those angry parts need to be on board with the EMDR or it just makes things worse.

These are general comments that apply with nearly anybody who is either wearing a dissociative disorder or who just has closeted-away rage.

EMDR is NOT always appropriate to do for clients with trauma histories; the therapist must understand the structure of the self system and if it is dissociated, do stabilization, containment, ego strengthening and inner negotiations with parts of self as needed to secure safety and treatment alliance. And you might want to print this off and take it to your therapist, to convince him or her to get consultation if they either haven't done these things or doesn't know what's involved in the screening. They have a responsibility to keep their clients safe during trauma work, and that's true for everybody, not just you two.
SAFETY FIRST AND ALWAYS, OKAY EVERYBODY?

Replies:

Re:Feelings with no memories, by Brian, 12/02/03

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

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