Gentle Reprocessing, Formerly Gentle EMDR

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with Gentle Reprocessing (Formerly Gentle EMDR). My T is going to add it to my therapy and I was hoping for a little feedback.

I read that is a unique combination of the EMDR technique, guided imagery, inner child work, and cognitive therapy designed to safely and effectively reduce trauma symptoms. This gentle approach limits negative emotional reactions sometimes associated with more aggressive approaches to treating trauma and can be effective with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and many other mental health symptoms.

Thanks!
Xtree

I have done those things with my last 2 T's. It is amazing, you can just feel your body relax as you calm your mind. Then eventually you can incorporate some of these techniques into you life and do a lot of these things by yourself.

It is now a part of my therapy when we do the tough EMDR trauma work, we always end with a gentler EMDR that calms me, and puts me in a better place after all that terrifying hard work. I think you might like it! Let us know what you think.

Thanks Exoticflower!

What is the process? What does your T do?

Thanks again!
Xtree

Well there are so many ways my last 2 T's have done this. One way my current T does is to tap on my knees alternatively while giving me a guided calming "trip" using all the senses. I can do this sometimes myself too. It takes some concentration to do this that you need to focus, so what ever bad thought are in your head, leaves because you can' t think both. lol Sometimes we don't do the tapping.

Do you do regular EMDR? My old T would say these ego strengthening statements while holding on to these buzzers in my hands that would alternately buzz back and forth to stimulate each side of the brain. This way for me was less successful. It is hard to control the speed of the buzzers for a T, so tapping on the knees, they can change to speed and the intensity of the feeling.
Have you talked about this yet?

I think I just did regular EMDR but it didn't seem aggressive to me and incorporated some elements of what you have described. For example, during the EMDR we went back to earlier times in my life, when I was a child, when I was an infant, and I experienced those times again. We did some work on learning how to rescue younger ego states from their traumatic experiences, and give them love and acceptance. Regular EMDR does have some cognitive elements and we used those too, such as making the positive and negative cognitive statements about oneself and rating on a scale. I did find this mix of elements to be quite effective. The hardest for me was the positive cognition rating after the EMDR was over. I had a hard time feeling in the present how my positive cognition might have changed. A few days later, I could answer more clearly.

We used the buzzer thingies and I put them in my shoes. This worked better for me than putting them under my thighs, which T said is another common place to put them. T always gave me the controls so I could change the tempo and intensity if I needed to. I found having the alternating pulses to be very relaxing and soothing. I wouldn't mind having a pair of those gizmos for home use and just using them for their calming influence.

Xtree, I hope you will share more as you do this in therapy. The combination sounds really promising.

HI sunrise!

You can actually do the same effect by tightening your hands into fists alternating back and forth. Or maybe for you, your feet! :-) Those gizmos aren't anything magic, they just stimulate different sides of the brain back and forth . There are other ways, but I won't post them because i wouldn't recommend everyone to do this without their T, especially if they have had some traumatic stuff happen to them in the past.
EMDR can seem aggressive especially if you have had some severe trauma in your past, because you do experience those memories on all sensory levels again, but the uncomfortableness usually passes quickly. But it can also open up a can of worms of traumas that you may have repressed , if you come from that kind of background growing up or had multiple traumas. But this form of treatment is gentler than the traditional ways of desensitizing trauma and much faster. For me it was very hard because of the level and amount of trauma I have had in my life. We actually have to take a good amount of time (many weeks) between sessions of this, since it is that distressing for me, and I have to function in my regular life with people I am responsible for, etc.

But the gentler ways is when you typically when you concentrate on the here and now, like your positive and negative cognitive statements about oneself, or tying to calm yourself in stressull situations, like if you are a performer, athlete, etc.. IT is an amazing tool to help for many things.

My t and I have done EMDR a few times. I've always had a pretty low threshold for it. I get the sense of strong, overwhelming emotions right under the surface, which scares me, so I tend to fight opening up to them. Then it blocks me and I'm numb and unable to let the emotions come out. At times when I've been able to stay with the emotions, I've been flooded with too much, and rather than resolving the trauma, I end up having breakthrough anxiety and needy feelings during the following week. It's incredibly hard for us to find the balance between emotional numbness and emotional flooding.

My t uses things to try to make it easier, such as incorporating visualization and relaxation. But I seem so supersensitive to emotional stimuli that I can only handle it in very small amounts. It feels like there is so much emotional pain built up under the surface, and that its power is huge. The idea of coming into contact with it feels terrifying, as though it has the power to destroy me.