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  #21  
Old August 2nd, 2010, 04:35 AM
Catch-22 Catch-22 is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

Hello,

what can I do to be able to "see pictures" or let them come up?
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  #22  
Old August 3rd, 2010, 01:53 AM
Sandra Paulsen Sandra Paulsen is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

I posted a lengthy comment yesterday but in the wrong place maybe? I commented that there may not be pictures for some people, especially if 1) there are protective parts blocking the processing or 2) if the trauma or neglect was in preverbal first few years of life. Perhaps you might read that post if you can find it...I think somehow it's before this one.
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  #23  
Old August 3rd, 2010, 04:54 AM
Catch-22 Catch-22 is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

Thank you very much for answering. I did read the post but I still wonder how can I change the situation. If there is something blocking how can I break the blockage? I want to help my psychologist because we only have two!!! sessions left.
I had great difficulties visualising a "safe place", too....I thought of a white room with white walls and no windows and no doors...with light coming out of the walls....I can't say I felt safe....I suddenly thought what would happen when the light goes out.........
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  #24  
Old August 4th, 2010, 12:32 AM
Sandra Paulsen Sandra Paulsen is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

I don't know if this applies to you, but in MY office I'd be interviewing and appreciating the block for keeping you safe all these years, asking if the block knows it is 2010 and its not happening now (whatever "it" is), that the block is in the same body with the rest of the self, and that the rest of the self wants help.

I'd ask if the block would permit progress in the two remaining sessions, or what the block's concerns were. I'd have the client listen internally and look at an internal whiteboard or better yet an internal conference room.

Hard to do all that in two sessions. Good luck!
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  #25  
Old August 4th, 2010, 01:55 AM
Catch-22 Catch-22 is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

do you mean, she should hypnotise me? I'm afraid all kinds of "mental dialogues" are quite a big problem to me.....I just can't visualise...
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  #26  
Old August 8th, 2010, 10:56 AM
joec1964 joec1964 is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

After Therapy for 9 months my therapist suggested that I consider EMDR to help with the Traumas. Make a list of Big T and Small t experiences to bring with me to the EMDR Therapist. I am a bit detail oriented and made up a matrix flow diagram of life 's traumas and the points where I feel they diverge and interconnect. This chart had 18 events. I was asked for 10 but oh well. things are what they are. After a couple of weeks of establishing safe place skills and a minor t experience the real sessions began. I have to say I did like the safe place sessions. The one of the common things during and when I drive home afterward is the shaking. During the procedure I would shake vigorously at times but settle down during the closing step. This shaking would return thou driving home. I would end up puling over once almost every session. It was the worse when working on the beginning initial day memory of a SA experience. This experience was revisited during the next session but I never did get to a 1 after the second session. The following session things turned bad. We were undertaking another different sexual based experience. During the first initial bilateral whatever of the session the only way I can explain how it felt was I grabbed a live electrical wire and could not let go. She spent the rest of the sessions 45 minutes or so closing out calming me down. I stopped EMDR after that session. So yes My experience has been it helped with one SA experience but also it can bee too much as well.

It has been 9 months since then and my T and I are discussing EMDR again. Why she wants to put herself through that hell again after getting me reasonably stabilized the last couple of months. No more monthly cycle of self harm, push pull by firing her/ running away and then apologizing. I can be difficult. She once described me as a mine field. I see it like wack a mole myself. I compartmentalize very well and excel as a father and boss. Not so good in any of other other goles. I isolate mostly. People would never know what is really going on inside.

I digress my question has to do with being afraid of touching that memory/experience let alone the another memory of self harming / reenacting at 7 years old. I have no direct memory of any reason why I had to do what I did /do. During the SA experience I mentioned above all I could think of as looked at him doing things to me was that he was doing the wrong sexual act. It was supposed to hurt. We did not touch that the last time in EMDR. So as positive as everyone is about EMDR and most of my experiences with EMDR except the last session. I like my T. She has helped me. I do not want to behave they way I have when things are crazy for me. She accepts my crazyness when it happens mostly but my behaviors cause these firm boundary conversations. I just feel guilty that I caused her to angry with me. My words not hers. EMDR scares me but I do believe it works. What can I do? A very round about way of saying my experiences with EMDR were plenty eventful.
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  #27  
Old August 9th, 2010, 11:44 AM
Sandra Paulsen Sandra Paulsen is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

The capacity of the person to process needs to be greater than the volume and intensity of material to process. if not the EMDR will potentially be overwhelming. it's no fault of the client. it's up to the therapist to know the following:

There are many ways to increase the capacity to process (resourcing, ego strengthening, somatic work, ego state work) and there are many ways to fractionate or titrate (make smaller) the dose of traumatic material to process in EMDR (hypnotic suggestion, ego state tucking in and other negotiations, the use of the early trauma protocol and more).

I don't know your story or whether any of this applies to you but I know this. Every client should be screened for dissociative disorder before doing EMDR and an appropriate modified protocol used if the client is dissociative.

Books available to your therapist include mine (Looking Through the Eyes), Forgash & Copeley, Luber volume 2, and otherss, the O'Shea chapters in Robin Shapiro's Solutions 2, and others.

You might print this off and discuss it with your therapist to ensure all these things have been taken into account.
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  #28  
Old November 9th, 2010, 12:57 PM
xena467 xena467 is offline
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Red face Re: emdr:nothing's happening

Just noticed how old these posts are, this one of mine is two years late, but I thought I'd respond anyway.

I'm currently doing EMDR therapy to try to determine some blocks I may be having in my life. And as it's happening, I generally see images in my mind's eye, and sometimes, when the therapist draws her fingers downward after moving them back and forth in front of my eyes, there seems to be a subtle sensation in my head, like an energy shift. After I did the first session, I walked out of the office and noticed that the restaurant across the street, which I had been seeing as having a green onning and called Dublin's (I'm come to this therapy session twice before) actually had a black onning and was called Dahlia's. So clearly, something in my brain really did shift.
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  #29  
Old November 10th, 2010, 11:23 AM
Sandra Paulsen Sandra Paulsen is offline
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Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

Pretty interesting case vignette. Makes me wonder about the meaning of the misperception. No need to reply; but something to take up with ones therapist no doubt.
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