Number of sessions?

I know that each case is different, and results cannot be predicted with accurancy. My question is, if EMDR is successful, what is number of sessions in which long-term positive results can be expected. I have had three EMDR sessions recently and while I have experienced some positive results, they have been short-lived (approximately 8 hours).

When I was 5 years old, I had a "parentectomy". An asthma doctor had a later disproven theory that asthma would be cured by separating the asthmatic child from his or her parents for two years and sending the child to live in an institution far from the child's home.

I've been stuck for about 50 years, despite years and years of therapy as an adult, anti-depression medication, 12-step programs, etc., and I would like to let go of the emotional trauma apparently related to the parentectomy that appears to be causing me to feel numb, emotional paralysis, intrusive recollections, lack of concentration, isolation, feeling of detachment from the world, difficulty related to others, etc., and to feel like I still live in the institution.

Here's the background. As a young child I had severe asthma. A couple of months before my 6th birthday, my mother (whom I later learned had already been categorized as a "rejecting mother") told me: In a few weeks you will take an airplane (from our home in New Jersey) to Colorado to live in a place with other boys and girls who have asthma. You will live there for 1 to 2 years and then come home again. Daddy, your sister and I will not go with you, we will come to see you after a while, not too soon, but after a while. She told me to be a big boy, and not to cry.

I felt a wave of numbness go through me, like the blood was draining out of my body. I said nothing. I didn't cry.

I spent the next 2 years at the National Home for Asthmatic Children in Denver. I was the youngest child in the institution; most of the kids were 10-15 years old. Psychological counseling was not available until shortly before my 2 years ended. The principal professional at the institution was a nurse who to me was similar to Nurse Rachet in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." My treatment there included the administration of a suppository almost every night.

Thanks.

Replies:

Re:Number of sessions?, by Robert P. O'Brien, Ph.D., 12/29/00 Re:Number of sessions?, by Amigo, 12/29/00

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