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Perna said:
I finally decided to do a 6 week "test" where I wouldn't write her at all, would just talk to her/be with her in therapy. Part of the period she was going to be away too, so that was going to be doubly hard. But it worked; I started "seeing" her and therapy for what they were and how they were here-and-now, "real" things whereas all my inside-the-head stuff and writing, etc. were not real interactions of any sort.
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That is a great achievement. I think it is for just such a reason that many T's don't allow their clients to write to them, but insist on sharing by talking.
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the memories were not fun ones, and I didn't want to inflict this painful stuff on him. </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I suppose I have not questioned this therapists strength in taking in my story
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SG, it's interesting, because when I told T I didn't want to inflict my horrible memories on him, he told me he had heard that so many times before from clients. So I guess it's common to want to watch out for one's T and be protective of him.
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You have mentioned EMDR sessions several times before. Can you expand on what they are?
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EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is used to resolve past trauma and help you get unstuck. You recall and share the traumatic memories with your T while undergoing alternate stimulation of the brain--first the right side, then left, then right, etc. This is supposed to help the memory get unstuck from one side of the brain and be let free so you can continue processing it. I'm sure I'm garbling this explanation. There are different ways of doing the alternate stimulation of the brain: flicking your eyes right and left to follow a moving object, alternating sounds in either ear with headphones, alternating electronic pulses on either side of your body, etc. My T uses the latter method. I put one of these electronic gizmos in each shoe and then I can adjust the alternating pulses with a dial so I feel them clearly but not too strongly. I find the pulses very comforting. There is also a verbal protocol the T goes through with you as you share the memories that involves rating both positive and negative cognitive affect before and after the EMDR. It's pretty cool. I think I have done it about 3-4 times. It really helped with some recovered abuse memories from my childhood. And also we did one session on infancy. It can be exhausting and emotional, but can also be quite rational (depends on the individual). I feel so good after EMDR, but I usually go crash and sleep for hours. The memories are much less traumatic afterwards. I can talk about them or recall them without getting traumatized all over again. T says EMDR is the fastest way to resolve trauma that he knows.
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http://www.emdr.com/q&a.htm
1. What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b). Shapiro’s (2001) Adaptive Information Processing model posits that EMDR facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories to bring these to an adaptive resolution. After successful treatment with EMDR, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced. During EMDR the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed lateral eye movements are the most commonly used external stimulus but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio stimulation are often used (Shapiro, 1991). Shapiro (1995) hypothesizes that EMDR facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations are thought to result in complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights. EMDR uses a three pronged protocol: (1) the past events that have laid the groundwork for dysfunction are processed, forging new associative links with adaptive information; (2) the current circumstances that elicit distress are targeted, and internal and external triggers are desensitized; (3) imaginal templates of future events are incorporated, to assist the client in acquiring the skills needed for adaptive functioning.
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