My therapist used EMDR with me early in my therapy, before she realized how dissociative I am, and it caused a lot of problems. I couldn't handle the emotional distress that it caused. I got too flooded with pain, either during the EMDR session or in the 1-3 days following an EMDR session. It was a destabilizing experience for me that triggered my issues from childhood of being in painful situations that I couldn't tolerate. I endured several destabilizing episodes of EMDR. The emotional pain was so bad, it left me feeling retraumatized every time!

My t did her best to verbally coach me through these distressing EMDR sessions, but I felt like the pain would destroy me. All I could think and feel was that I was in horrible danger and pain, and I needed somebody to rescue me and protect me. In my case, it would have helped significantly if my t had come over and sat next to me, perhaps even holding my hand so that I would be able to hang onto some realization of her presence and know that I was not actually all alone and in danger. But my t was afraid to touch me because of my past SA in childhood. As a result, it triggered old issues from times I really was in too much pain or danger, and my mom wasn't there for me. It created feelings of fear and deprivation, and damaged our therapy relationship for a time. We finally quit trying to do EMDR.

As time went on, my t started to realize I was dissociative and learned that she should not have done EMDR with me so early without first helping me develop more coping skills and ability to tolerate distress. We have been working on that now for quite awhile. We still aren't ready to try EMDR again. But I sometimes still hold the hand buzzers in my session when we work on things. I think my t believes that it will help me incorporate more of our work with the bilateral stimulation.

Maybe my experience will help guide some of you who haven't tried it yet. I am by no means implying that EMDR is bad or damaging, in and of itself. But be careful that your therapist understands that people who are dissociative need much more preparatory work ahead of time to make sure it will not be too overwhelming for them. Also, if it helps to share my experience, my t has had to learn over and over again that in my sessions, she absolutely must go slow. It does not take much to flood me. Thankfully, I am getting better and being able to tolerate more and more distress without feeling retraumatized. But it has taken a long, long time!

As a child, our family just never talked about emotions or bad things at all, or even acknowledged emotional pain. So I never have learned how to talk about bad or scary feelings, much less work through them in therapy. I've had a hard time even allowing myself to feel things like fear, rejection, need, etc., without being terrified. It takes a long time...

Peaches