Pre-discuss or just let it role?
 

Yes. I know you cannot comment on specific cases. Nonetheless, in a recent session, my mind was about to take us to a place I was not ready to go. (I was hyperventilating in session and visually and physically petrified to move down the road to that "place" I was viewing in session. And I could barely walk when I left to go home.) I can identify this "place" (it wasn't a "repressed memory"). But I'm wondering if you could comment, in your general "non-specific case" way. I've considered discussing the "place" my mind wanted to take me without using the bilateral stimulation, just to discuss the discomfort I'm going to have going into this "place" when I actually do "go there" using bilateral stimulation. However, I wonder could it be more effective in dealing with this "place" by not discussing it before hand with my therapist and instead just letting my mind take me in "fully exposed"? I wonder if a pre-discussion would desensitize me and any "lessons" I may learn would not have as much lasting impact.

thank you

Re: Pre-discuss or just let it role?
 

I'll make some general comments.

Overall, one of the things that needs to be present in any client prior to EMDR is the ability to tolerate emotions, one way or another. Some people just let them fully flow and do well with it because they aren't afraid of strong emotions. Some are afraid, and do better when they have strategies to allow them to control the intensity. With any client who is worried about the intensity of an experience or a "place" they need to go, I'd be teaching them to use a dimmer switch in the mind or something else to decrease the intensity of the experience so they COULD go to that place in the EMDR.

Its easier with EMDR than talking by the way, because its faster. With talk therapy the work is more in the head, less in the body, and it often seems too slow compared to EMDR.