Hypnosis VS EMDR VS Other

Hi Everyone,

The therapist I'm seeing right now is a big advocate of hypnosis and EMDR. I'm a little bit nervous about the idea, particularly that of hypnosis because it involves closing my eyes and not being able to keep an eye on her, so I was wondering if anyone else has had experiences with it. Did you find it helpful? Not helpful? Was there any reason why?

Thanks!
-E

Hi...

I've heard from a lot of people on here say that EMDR can make the therapy process go too fast for them and that they can end up overloaded with traumatic memories that they can't process and so it is retraumatizing for them... I've got this feeling I read somewhere at some stage that EMDR isn't recommended for use with people who have DID. Might be wrong about that, but that is what I seem to recall. You don't want to get retraumatised.

Our therapist initially wanted to do hypnosis with us but we didn't want to close our eyes either, just like you. He told us there was another way to do hypnosis that involved staring instead. He said he didn't really like doing that as much because patients usually find staring intimidating and also because then he would start to experience the hypnosis a little too, as well as having to keep eye contact so he wouldn't be able to take notes as effectively. Eventually someone came out and said that we didn't need to do hypnosis for him to speak to the others, that we could just come out and speak to him if we wanted. Everyone was like "what? I can just go speak to him? I didn't know I could do that...". Maybe if you just ask them to, the others will just come out and speak to your therapist of their own accord. That is usually better for the pace of therapy too because it means you won't get overwhelmed by receiving too much traumatic information at once.

I think if you aren't comfortable with what your therapist is suggesting then you should tell her. If she continues to push those methods without addressing your concerns first, it could mean she is more interested in the fact that she has a multiple on her hands than being interested in helping you. I would hope she would be considerate of your concerns and address them without trying to pressure you into something you are hesitant to do...

Hi there,
we considered doing hypnosis for a while, but in our system the biggest chance of switching comes
when we close our eyes, especially meditate or go into a trance.
It really was quite funny when we had a counselor telling us to "live in the present" and to "meditate" to feel better
and when we tried to meditate someone else came out Living in the present only works when you have already processed
significant trauma!

Talk it over with your therapist, because it's quite possible someone else will wake up when you're doing
hypnosis, and if the person doing the hypnosis isn't trained to deal with (The one I talked to wasn't) or doesn't believe in DID,
they could probably cause some harm.

Also, information comes to you at a rate you can handle it. If you force it, it can hurt sometimes. I remember my alters
were prodded for information at too fast a rate they were comfortable with and my whole body went into shock-
Everything went cold and numb and we could no longer move our body, and it stayed for about an hour, then we had
to be almost carried. We then forgot what it was that caused us to go into shock in the first place!
If you go into a deep hypnosis, you may remember some things, but you also have to ask yourself "Am I ready for this?"
If you don't feel comfortable don't do it.

Just some things to think about when considering hypnosis. I don't know much about EMDR though.

The new (May 2011) guidelines from ISST-D for treating DID in adults advises caution in using EMDR, for exactly the reason stated: it can bring up too much traumatic material too fast. The 2011 guidelines are published in two versions: summary and full. The 2011 summary version is online,[1] and so is the full version of the previous 2005 guideline.[2]

[1] http://www.isst-d.org/jtd/2011AdultTrea ... ummary.pdf
[2] http://www.isst-d.org/education/adult%2 ... d-2005.pdf

broken_mirror wrote:Talk it over with your therapist, because it's quite possible someone else will wake up when you're doing hypnosis, and if the person doing the hypnosis isn't trained to deal with (The one I talked to wasn't) or doesn't believe in DID, they could probably cause some harm.

That's a good point actually... In my case that I was talking about above, my therapist specializes in DID and wanted to do the hypnosis to actually facilitate talking to the others. So I suppose that would mean that by default it is more likely for another personality to come out during hypnosis. I'd agree that a therapist who isn't trained to deal with DID could potentially do more harm than good in that case.

Una+ wrote:The new (May 2011) guidelines from ISST-D for treating DID in adults advises caution in using EMDR, for exactly the reason stated: it can bring up too much traumatic material too fast. The 2011 guidelines are published in two versions: summary and full. The 2011 summary version is online,[1] and so is the full version of the previous 2005 guideline.[2]

[1] http://www.isst-d.org/jtd/2011AdultTrea ... ummary.pdf
[2] http://www.isst-d.org/education/adult%2 ... d-2005.pdf

Thanks for posting those resources. They look interesting, I'm looking forward to having a read of those.

Glad I remembered that correctly about EMDR potentially bringing up too much traumatic material too fast.

I personally found it making me feel more traumatised, as like people above has said it's VERY intense
It was like slowing down my flashbacks by 10x..
I'd be very careful, if you aren't finding it helpful or if you find it too difficult to cope with, let your therapist know straight away as you don't want this to effect your progress in getting well!

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'm having a hard enough time without hypnosis or EMDR, so I think I'll ask to beg off. The T is pushing it pretty hard, but considering I'm barely making it through the days and my job has been affected by how upset I am, I'll just keep pushing back.

The thing with hypnosis is that I and lots of DID diagnosed people use auto-hypnosis without even realizing it. So even if we are not induced into hypnosis, it's still happening. It is partly dissociation but I don't know about you guys but I think in pictures and if I'm in that trance zone basically whatever is talked about reflects as pictures in my mind. I also don't like to close my eyes and my therapist hasn't even asked me to (new therapist) as it's very obvious I don't need to do that to visualize anything. One good thing about DID, I guess

Remember also the three stage approach -
1. Stabilization, putting out fires, addressing co-morbid psych issues and addictions
2. Trauma reprocessing
3. Reintegration into the world with or without alter integration

I personally have been only in stage one. I'm stable for the most part but my co-morbid major depression takes first priority and it's only just started to get better after close to six years of different meds and med combos + CBT and psychodynamic therapy. Also group therapy. I still am extremely non functional. But patience is the key especially with co-morbids. I used to be frustrated with it but I totally see the importance is helping the suicidal ideation, no energy, anhedonia, hermiting etc first.

It is dangerous to do focused trauma work in the first stage (I mean things like EMDR, obviously talking about the trauma is done from the beginning). I have before when a certain memory that was so overwhelming that we basically had no choice. This was with EMDR and it was hard but it totally worked and most of the shame from that situation is gone now. Also I just want to note that people do freely go across these stages (1-3) so there's no hard and fast rules.

I personally like EMDR from the little I saw of it. But they need to be very experienced with dissociative disorders or things can really get messed up. In any part of treatment one can be triggered like crazy and "regress" so to speak, so caution is a must.

LittleRedDog, I am sorry you are having this dilemma but I agree that hypnosis can be destabilizing and it's probably better to wait. Best of luck.

LittleRedDog,

Yeah my therapist started to do a similar thing where he was pushing really hard. I think it was because he could see how much I wasn't coping in everyday life and so he wanted me to get a bit better and he thought pushing faster through therapy was the answer. A "lets just get this over with" type of approach. I think it was partly because he doesn't realize first-hand how difficult the therapy process is if you are the one going through it. He didn't realize that pushing the therapy actually makes it harder to cope in everyday life because you end up having all this traumatic stuff to cope with as well as everyday stuff. So it meant that I felt like I was pushing for therapy to go slower all the time... Is that how you feel? For me it was an uncomfortable feeling because it meant I felt like I was fighting my therapist.

Eventually I just had to quit work for the moment so that I can work on my therapy. It has made me realize that when I had my job, I felt like I was doing my work a disservice and I felt like I was doing myself a disservice by not being able to cope either at work or at therapy. My therapist helped me get financial support so that I could take the time off of work. Now I can work on my therapy faster and so I feel like I am accomplishing so much more and I also feel like I am not trying to fight my therapist because I can now go at a faster pace. It feels soooooo much more productive. I also feel less depressed because I don't feel $#%^ about doing crap at work... It's good. Perhaps if you are feeling overwhelmed, taking some time off is something you could consider?