EMDR during longterm therapy

Because of several cross-country moves over the last 18 years, I have had four therapists: two LMSWs and two psychoanalysts (in that order). I have been working with the only male of the group 3X week for nearly five years, yet despite his experience and skill and my hard work (and that with my former therapists), I have been unable to feel the hatred and rage that continually threatens my existence with suicide ideation and one self-aborted attempt. (My infancy and toddlerhood were contaminated by paternal incest and maternal emotional abandonment.)

I've continued contact with my second therapist over the years and since I moved back to her area, have begun to see her every two weeks or so for EMDR with the approval of my analyst, who knows how "stuck" I've been. Before the EMDR, I described my feelings of rage/hatred as "frozen." I knew they were there, but could feel them only rarely and fleetingly. In the last 6 weeks, after four sessions of EMDR, I'm coming alive. This was evident even after the first session, when I traveled back to see my analyst and covered more emotional ground in 4 sessions than in the several prior weeks. At the end of the EMDR session today, I told the therapist that if the light repetitions were strung out along a straight line, they would add up to the many miles I traveled today. Who can explain it? I'm not asking for an answer to this question, only expressing my perplexity and gratitude that two therapists are willing to collaborate in such a way, and that EMDR is unfreezing parts of me that I have NEVER felt, only known intellectually.

My EMDR therapist has integrated the technique into her practice with long term clients and is thus available to me in my current process. Perhaps working with both therapists simultaneously would not be feasible if my EMDR therapist had not already been a trusted and trustworthy partner in my journey and if my analyst was not open to the idea (after I gave him a binder full of printouts of articles about EMDR that I found on the Internet!).

I wanted to tell a little of my story here because so much is about short term EMDR and my experience goes much, much deeper.

I am willing to respond to any questions. I am not unique in the inner devastation I have suffered all my life, and am a strong believer in long term therapy (with therapists who have done their own work, which is personal soapbox of mine). Personally, I don't see EMDR as a substitute for therapy for people with similar early traumas, but about its use as an adjunct, I can only say, "Wow!"

Jeanne Marie

Replies:

Re:EMDR during longterm therapy, by Sandra Paulsen Inobe, PhD, 03/16/01

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