EMDR - Any Experiences?

[JimMN]

My uBPw finally agreed to go to couples therapy, but canceled on me the at the last minute for the first session. So I had a chance to meet with the therapist and discuss her behaviors. She joined me for the second session and that turned out to be all about her as she described the trauma she's experienced in her life (including from me, of course). The therapist recommended that she see someone else for EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy and actually introduced her to a colleague of his. She agreed and has scheduled several appointments with this new therapist.

So have any of you had experience with a pwBPD and EMDR? Does it work? She still doesn't see that she may have a PD, but I'm hoping that if she can deal with the trauma, that might impact her behaviors.

[georgew]

I had EMDR and of course it depends a lot on the skill of the practitioner, but it did me some definite good and I'd do it again (and may).

My uB/NPDgf also had EMDR with a different therapist for months for her bad childhood trauma, and she thinks, and I concur, that it was not good for her.  I think this was because her therapist had no clue about the PD probability, and was focused on the low-hanging specific trauma, but the PD resolution needed a different focus.

Couples counseling was a sham for us -- we mostly talked about my problems -- which was safe -- and never my problems with stuff she had done -- because then she'd escalate outside the office.  The therapist I think didn't have a clue, and I knew lots was difficult but didn't have a name yet... .   Also her behaviors are the same as I read about here, but just subtler enough to be deniable, so I didn't even know how to start bringing stuff up without sounding crazy myself!

[HoldingAHurricane]

I haven't had it myself but my husbands psychologist is an EMDR practitioner. He is extremely experienced as a therapist, has experience with personality disorders, and in this technique, which I am sure has a bearing on things. My husband has reported that it has been an extraordinary experience, particularly around events that he feels very angry about. He says it neutralises the intense feelings he has about whatever has happened. I don't want to overstate, I think it is probably much like everything else, works for some and not others. I figure, if it doesn't hurt you, it is worth exploring. 

[patientandclear]

There is a link posted by a member here on another board to a long talk by a leading BPD specialist about the link between childhood trauma & BPD.  After the talk, during Q & A, he is asked about EMDR & BPD.   He says what I have heard elsewhere -- that EMDR shows excellent results for trauma based on specific traumatic incidents (e.g., a stranger rape, a natural disaster, loss of a loved one to random violence) but not so much for relational traumas, i.e., attachment wounds, such as those often suffered by people who develop BPD.  It seems to me the same logic would mean it might not be very effective for the relational trauma we experienced in relationships with pwBPD.

I have tried it, and didn't find that it got at the source of my trauma-like anxieties, probably because there was not an incident or even a series of incidents that inflicted the trauma -- it was the demise or abandonment of a core, trusted, intimate relationship.