Hey there @Snowie 🌺🙂💜
I’m sorry it’s hard going to do EMDR for you - I hope things can get to a place where you can try again and it becomes an easier therapeutic process for you 🌺💜🫂
I have a new psychologist, I’ve seen her twice now (I haven’t had anyone to further then one appointment with me in the past, deeming my trauma way too much to therapeutically cope with, besides one psych who used to fall asleep during the zoom sessions and when awake basically tell me I needed to ‘continue to work on my skills’, whatever that was supposed to mean!..hehe😉).
This new psychologist started EMDR on session one, after briefly explaining an overview of the goals and some of the methods/processes involved. I asked her to do that, so I could then see if it was something that I’d be willing to try… my brain is a very logical and structured organism: it likes some things but throws up questions and conjecture with others, so if I can’t see logic and outcomes, I don’t see value and therefore I can’t see how it would apply to me.. if that makes sense? ☺️🌺
So, my new psychologist said I get how you work, let’s do this logically… and from there, we have been working using the EMDR process.
So far (having done two sessions) I find it has potential to help, however I am only in the very early stages of it so far.
I have sessions two weeks apart, and I feel that my psychologist is very responsive when I give signs of not being able to manage what she is asking, and she then asks me if I’d prefer to try a different method to achieve the same outcome - she’s great at that..via zoom, too. I keep her very much in the loop of what I’m feeling, and I always verbalise where I’m at, what I’m able to cope with and what might not work so well. She’s ultra responsive to that, so I’m guessing it’ll work as we move forward.
At the beginning of the first session, I gave her a highlights reel of trauma from birth to the most recent, and she said that was helpful in guiding her where she will start when we work with the actual processing of trauma, but for now, I think we are about to finalise the ‘setup’ at the next session, and maybe start with some actual processing of some of the memories of trauma.
Does that help you Snowie? 🙂💜
I hope there’s something there that is of use - please do feel free to ask questions, I am happy to answer or explain more if I can 💜
The only other aspect is a good amount of trust in her technical and professional capabilities; I’ve had to make the conscious decision to trust her, based on her explanation of her approach in using EMDR as a therapy, and having done that, it is indeed making it a bit easier to move into the therapeutic space with her.
I know that if I didnt hold trust, it would be much harder.
I did openly say to her that I am handing you a significant level of trust, to enable engagement therapeutically, and she thanked me for it, smiled and said that was a really great thing I was able to do, which in turn helps with being able to engage in a therapy.
I wanted to describe these aspects for you, so you could also gently see what I have tried to do to be fully present in the therapy..because I know that with trauma comes a hardship in trust relationships, and if I hadn’t made that decision, I know my natural default is ‘no trust’, if that makes sense? ☺️🌺💜
Let me know what you think when ready if you’d like to 🙂🌺
