EMDR therapy?

I have been bringing up (complaining really) of flash backs and PTSD symptoms to my T. They come in waves waxing and waning between debilitating to unnoticeable.

He has suggested EMDR therapy for them. He is certain that it will work in alleviating the severity. I have never tried it, but he says it would be safer over abreaction which would be to complex and risky to carry out. Let alone he says that trust issues can get in the way with Hypnosis type treatments. He gave me some articles to read, they were vague, but in so far they seem to deal with single event trauma rather than chronic ones.

Has anyone else tried EMDR? What do others think? Will it help? Im really confused.

EMDR can be very helpful for treating complex PTSD, even DID. However, the presence of significant dissociation does complicate the EMDR. The good news is that there are books and therapist training workshops devoted to this topic. They teach extra safeguards and special techniques for doing EMDR with someone who has DID.

See also threads here about meditation and/or mindfulness therapy. The issues are related, and in a nutshell concern the fact that sometimes internal communication is one-way.

When internal communication is one way, typically the host alter is flooded by stuff from an inside alter, and no matter much work the host does to come to terms with that stuff, the source of the flooding is not accessed and not affected and thus the flooding continues, unchanged. The flooding continues as long as there is any communication, and the naive solution is to build up the internal dissociative walls to stop the communication. This is a patch, and often fails. The better solution is to do therapy work to establish communication with the inside alter, then with that alter work on the stuff held by that alter.

A number of techniques, including hypnosis, are used to allow the therapist to work directly with the inside alter. But there are other techniques by which the therapist teaches the host or other alter(s) to do trauma processing work with the alter who is trapped in the flashback.

Thank you!

You have given me a lot to think about. That is what concerned me most in that I have never heard of EMDR being done where strong dissociation is present so I was worried about the outcome. I guess as with all therapy the T must have a very good understanding of DID. So just any EMDR specialist will not do?

Im glad you told me, I think that might have been a big bump in the road. I think this has happened before therapy. So if direction is one way, the host will never be able to recover unless the alter that holds the specific trauma is addressed. So in theory when EMDR is applied it must be applied to the specific alter that holds the trauma rather than the ones who receive it?


Thanks again for the info, very informative!

Riccola wrote:So in theory when EMDR is applied it must be applied to the specific alter that holds the trauma rather than the ones who receive it?

Yes, but this is not theory. It is professional experience based on many, many observations. It is mentioned in the international consensus Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults available free from the ISSTD, numerous technical books and medical journal articles on EMDR, and in other sources as well.

Hi Riccola,

Firelamb mentions her experiences with EMDR related to DID on some threads. This is what I found:

EMDR for Alters: Can it work?

Hope it works.

Sea

A standard beginning for EMDR treatment is to create a safe place for the younger parts to go so that they don't get pulled into a recalled memory and become retraumatized, so to speak. Up to several sessions may need to be spent building, imagining, structuring and populating this safe place and how your system chooses to protect the littles so they're shielded, even if a trauma originally happened to one of them. The later stage of processing memories requires that a rational adult part stays in the present while simultaneously accessing the past without getting swallowed up into it.

It has been working very well for me with my therapist, who has experience with both DID and using EMDR with DID. Perhaps focusing at least on that early phase, which is very low key, could help you. I used to get completely overwhelmed by trauma recall, I called it drowning, but it now feels much safer. T seems to sense when to suggest using the bilateral paddles to help me access more. The early results for me personally have been great.

Pre-EMDR I have had plenty of abreactions, sudden breakthroughs of a trauma memory or a just a part of such a memory (the physical sensations, the thoughts, the emotions). These could be chaotic, painful and confusing, especially when they happened randomly. Trauma memories returning via EMDR can be rather similar to abreactions, but with EMDR I'm more in control of the memory and more in the present to analyze what I'm seeing rather than being swept away by it.

I'm not saying it's easy. I often leave therapy a bit dissociated and drained, but with valuable new information. I have recently recovered several new alters affecting key parts of my life and have answers to some of the exact questions I was asking.

The most recent was a little boy who tends to limit our success sometimes. I knew this pull-back from full victory sometimes happened but I began to see it as a potential target for an EMDR session. I wanted to know the how and why, and possibly who. What came via EMDR was specific knowledge of our mother being resentful, jealous and enraged by any perceived success by a boy (I was her only son) and her physical abuse for a win was very particular and male-directed (groin punch or kick). I had zero memory of this prior to the EMDR. Our alter who took this abuse wasn't allowed to win, but in his mind the mother wouldn't be allowed to win either, only God will win, hence his name Godwin.

Hi Johnny-Jack, this is great news; your EMDR work has certainly paid off. I'm glad, I remember you posting some months ago about wanting to unlock some memories, so I'm really glad for all this.

Sea

Thank you for the great info! This is truly an inspiration for myself, same for the hope it brings. I am reading that thread right now, its so interesting


Thanks again

I have to say the results of therapy using EMDR have been better than I imagined and my system was absolutely adamant about finding someone who did EMDR with DID. I had a bit of experience a couple years ago and it did something but no big breakthroughs. So insisting on therapy with EMDR felt like pure instinct.

Spread out from April 2011 to July 2014, we had discovered 26 alters. There still seemed to be obvious blocks about doing certain necessary life things and these known alters don't yet explain these negative patterns. I want to know it all. I'm tired of living a crippled life and I want to find all my little guys (or gals) and help them heal. We started with a new T in July, actually a former T who was retiring but decided not to. For months it seemed a bit slow, mostly talking and little or no EMDR. But the talking did seem to be setting the groundwork for the EMDR. We got to know each other better and trust each other's communications and approach more. I felt like this was happening for her too so I include it.

In the past two months we have discovered 7 alters, including the fact that I am not one but two cooperative hosts, a major reality we're still figuring out. Five alters were found from each of the last five T sessions! Three in therapy, two shortly afterward. I find this astonishing because the pace of our work is much faster, which I want. EMDR is working for me. The T and I are in tune. She recommended I write down questions I want answers to before a session. This has been informal for me. I don't really bring or read the questions, just write out thoughts free form, get my mind focusing on them. It might work better to bring them to session for someone else. Significantly, the question sare posed in words, the communicates to the rest of my system my thinking and desires is clearest. We've found anything less than words doesn't get everything through.

I'm starting to record a blog entry here for each of my alters starting with the most recent. For the first time since I discovered the DID, I think I see an actual road to healing. Not a hopeful direction but a clear plan and set of actions that are producing movement and results. I hope I don't jinx myself in saying this. If so, I guess I'll just use EMDR to work further on "what happens when I jinx myself?" I'll want to write more soon about what factors I think have worked for me personally, in case they're able to help anyone.