EMDR is short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. That’s a mouthful in itself, EMDR is much easier. The best I can describe from my experience is that it is very similar to hypnosis.
In a nutshell the therapy is intended to have you review the traumatic event in baby steps and process your thinking of what actually happened and how you react to it.
I can only relate my own experience and to be truthful it had a horribly negative effect.
It wasn’t until the 4 ½ hour visit with the shrinks Some 30 years later that I learned that this therapy works for 60% of the participants. Of the remaining 40%, a full 5% have a negative result.
And of course that’s where I fall into, the part of the participants that occupy the bottom 5%, where EMDR has a negative effect.
The methodology is fairly simple, focused on the actual traumatic event. You are basically in a completely dark room with hopefully a psychiatrist somewhere out of sight and out of mind.
A great description and how it is used and the intended outcome can be found here from the Cleveland Clinic:
EMDR Therapy: What It Is, Procedure & Effectiveness
The particular type I went through is described in the below excerpt from the site shown above.
“Newer methods for EMDR can involve your vision, such as with specialized light devices. These have a moving light that you follow with your eyes in place of your healthcare provider’s hand. Other devices might use sound, where speakers on either side of your body play tones. Healthcare providers might also use your sense of touch (if you’re comfortable with this), tapping on your hands, arms or thighs to activate your sense of touch on both sides of your body, or holding a device that pulses in your hands.”
In my case it was 12 sessions using the actual technology, with 3-4 sessions of psychotherapy beforehand, followed by another 2 after. 18 visits in total.
My PTSD is considered to have dissociative implications, as my mind shut down during the episode and many of the facts of the event were lost forever.
Or so I thought.
Dr. J was a pleasant woman, maybe 50 at the time, with an old house out in the country.
A steep and narrow staircase off the back of the kitchen led up one story to her office. It was a small room so full of books that you always had to move them to sit. I have no idea what the rest of the house was like, as I always came into the kitchen and followed her straight up.
The first few sessions were building background and understanding the actual traumatic event.
But, once the actual treatment began – the real portion of EMDR that is – things went south in a hurry….
Read Part 2 here.