Re:New to EMDR

First off, let me say that we cannot do case consultations tailored to you here because we don't have enough information. So all I can say are some general things.

Walls are there for a reason, for protection. The only question is whether they are still needed for a given client at the time of the EMDR.

EMDR tends to take down walls but we don't want to do it prematurely. That's why every client receiving EMDR should first be screened for a dissociative disorder, because in dissociative individuals, the walls should be left up for a long time while ground work is being laid. Then, rooms in the self get worked on one at a time, so the walls need to be up to do a fraction of the work at a time. Otherwise, if the walls come down all at once, its like a warehouse with no walls and a big pile of stuff in the middle -- hard to work on. May or may not apply to you. Not everyone with walls is dissociative. Some are just defended.

If the client is not dissociative, proceeding with EMDR is likely to help gradually reduce the defenses.

Finally, some people with lifelong depression started feeling that way in the crib (may or may not apply to you). In such cases its hard to find good EMDR targets, but they are available in a slightkly non-standard EMDR approach, targeting little snippets of memory, emotion, body sensation, the memory of the linoleum in the old house, the memory of Mom's smell, etc.

Replies:

Re:New to EMDR, by Iesha, 01/13/04 Re:New to EMDR, by Sandra Paulsen PhD, 01/13/04 Re:New to EMDR, by Iesha, 01/14/04

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