Bringing out preverbal memories

First of all, I want to state that it is appalling to me that anyone would suggest that most adults who were victims of CSA in turn become abusers. Nothing could be further from the truth. In all the literature I've read and in any personal experience I've had, most people who were victims of CSA work very hard to avoid being a perpetrator. I include myself in that group of people. I am angered by anyone suggesting otherwise - especially without a valid, reliable source to support such a statement.

Another point I want to address is the therapeutic purpose of EMDR. I was one of the first clients to receive EMDR in the early 1990's. The technique was brand new and experimental back then. The psychologist I worked with through the Veteran's Administration was a student of the first group of therapists trained by Francine Shapiro (the founder of EMDR). He was planning to use EMDR to work with combat veterans.
The purpose of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), to put it succinctly, is to bring up and reprocess unresolved emotions and reactions to those emotions.

A third thought I have is something I experienced at a conference I attended some years ago at Esalen. I'm tossing this out there because none of us (human beings) truly know what is going on in our existence. Therefore, anything is possible.

What I'm referring to was a dialogue between a participant of the workshop and one of the presenters, a well-respected past-life regressionist. The participant was extremely distraught about sexual feelings she had toward young women (teen-aged). The woman described herself as a happily married person with a son she and her husband adored. Yet, here she was, plagued with these disturbing, obsessive sexual thoughts.

The presenter listened carefully to the woman's concerns. He suggested that perhaps she had been a man in a previous life and had had relationships with young women. For whatever reason, those "memories" had carried over into her current life. And so on. The presenter gave the participant suggestions as to what she might do to resolve her pain. (One of the suggestions, I recall, was that she do some conscious work on recognizing and accepting the part of herself that was masculine...that it was okay to realize and accept that even as a hetero woman, wife, and mom, she also had masculine energy that she was suppressing.)

Obviously, the past-life idea is controversial. In the western world, anyway. But the reality is, we just don't know about such things. Over the years I have thought about and considered what transpired in that workshop. If nothing else, it was food for thought, especially the part about the woman getting in touch with another part of herself that she had been spending energy to reject. I do not know whether that woman was a CSA, or not.

Just my 2 cents.

I have thought about this thread as I am missing memories from 0-12, but I don't show any distressing triggers like you do, Dnster. I DO understand how frustrating it is not knowing (belieeevvveeee me), so I get why you want to get to the bottom of it. I am not sure there is an easy way to do that though. None that I've found out.

No easy way; many years of hard self-work that comes from being scrupulously honest with ourselves. I think that Dnester is on a healthy path toward resolving issues that are causing obstacles.

Oops..how disturbing and embarrassing..A victim of sexual abuse is herself an abuser..And she is one of the leaders of MeToo movement and a spokeperson for all sexual abuse victims..Wow

Harvey Weinstein accuser Asia Argento accused of sexual assault

This revelation brings into the spotlight the concept of the chain or "cycle" of abuse that people usually don't like to talk about because we like to keep "good" and "bad" people in the neatly separated piles when the reality could be much more complex.