I have done EMDR off and on with my therapist for over 10 years now, and have found it to be incredibly helpful. We kind of go through phases, where we do EMDR for a while and work on trauma stuff and then I need a break and we work on more immediate coping skills kind of stuff.

I have found EMDR to be incredibly helpful in both processing trauma and and in connecting to my emotions better. I used to be completely disconnected from my emotions and simply could not describe what it was i was feeling.

But it is a very intense form of therapy and it's important that the therapist be well trained in the most up to date protocols. My T was one of the first to start using it in Toronto, when it was still relatively new and controversial, and we jumped into the trauma stuff to fast. I wound up literally throwing up after the first session. It can also cause or increase dissociation, if that is an issue at all, so it's probably wise to do the dissociative experiences index scale first to assess risk so that you can work on grounding techniques.

I round it helpful to lay out a narrative of traumatic experiences, kind of like a road map of my life's story, that we then worked through linearly. That helped keep it manageable for me.

I still react very strongly psychosomatically to EMDR - to the point that I sometimes twitch and experience intense physical pain during sessions, but then I somatize everything so this may not be a normal reaction.

I often leave an EMDR session feeling highly energized, only to crash a couple of days later.

I'm glad I'm having it as part of my therapy, but it's definitely an interesting experience.

I hope it works well for your partner.

--splitimage