EDMR

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

has anyone done EDMR therapy to help heal from PTSD from your experiences with a pwBPD?

I am looking into it and am curious about some feedback on the boards. thanks

[yellowbutterfly]

has anyone done EDMR therapy to help heal from PTSD from your experiences with a pwBPD?

I am looking into it and am curious about some feedback on the boards. thanks

[I Am Redeemed]

Yes. It works great for me.

I’ve done several EMDR sessions for complex trauma. Some of it was for childhood trauma, some for my abusive marriage to xubph.

I’m currently preparing for my teenage girls to do emdr as well. It may not work for everyone, but it does help me. I’m still processing some of the trauma so I will probably do some more sessions in the future.

[Rev]

I have not, but do know people who have.

Depends on the practitioner and the client = generally favorable results.

I have participated in "tapping" as a way to deal with trauma. I had good results with that when I was coupled with CBT.

[yellowbutterfly]

Thanks Rev and Redeemed

Looking into these modalities as my PTSD has gotten very severe!

[NarcsEverywhere]

I never tried it in a therapy setting, and the online only stuff didn't help or did only minorly, I did try tapping, on my own and it helped a bit. I used to have a lot of disassociation and depersonalization disorder, from all the abuse. It's hard to deal with.

I think what helped most was learning to not fear all of my feelings, and to learn self love and wisdom techniques, grounding can help too, but it's hard to stay grounded with all that trauma being stuck or processed. It's still possible somewhat. I know today, when my mind was racing with anger, and I couldn't handle it anymore, I just focused on the feelings in the body and it slowed my mind down enough to deal with it.

If you've got a lot of resistance to emotions, then meditation can help, but it can also cause too much stuff to come up. If you did any meditation, I'd suggest something like a self love/loving kindness meditation focused on yourself.

[Rev]

Thanks Rev and Redeemed

Looking into these modalities as my PTSD has gotten very severe!

Sometimes it's an "every little bit helps" approach ...

Hang in there.

Reach out any time.

Rev

[BigEasyHeart]

I'm actually just starting this with my therapist so I'm curious to see how it goes myself. We've only done one preparatory session so far but he explained the process a bit. Here is my own personal experience so far.

So, the motivation for me is that my breakup sort of re-opened some core issues of my own self-worth, lovableness, and basic trust (in myself and others). I've been experiencing anxiety in a way I never have in my life as a result. We've been working on these issues from various angles, mostly cognitive and family systems/inner child work. My therapist suggested we could try EMDR (he is trained in the procedure) as a way to perhaps resolve deeper parts of these issues that are not so easily resolved via traditional cognitive approaches.

1st Session - He started by having me recall a specific current event that was related to my core issue(s) (for me, it was when my ex accused me of not being 'there' for her and then broke up with me out of the blue). Then, he had me reflect on the emotions associated with the event. Then he asked me to reflect on other events that I've been through with similar emotions. With each event, he asked similar questions. By the end of the session, we probably had discussed 10-15 related events throughout my life. My 'homework' is to continue this process on my own.

2nd Session - Next week, we'll go over what I came up with. He will also be screening me for dissociation. He thinks it should not be a problem because he doesn't think there is much of a risk for me and we've already been working on various tools to stay in the present moment. My understanding is that this is part of the standard prep because EMDR requires the client to mentally put themselves back into these traumatic situations. So, as part of the procedures the therapist needs to assess the risk beforehand.

3rd Session - This is where we'll actually do the EMDR procedure.

I didn't realize it would take that long to actually get to do the EMDR but I'm open to trying it and curious to know what it is like.

I hope this helps some. As I said, this is my own personal experience. I'm not sure if every therapist has the same approach.

Good luck and please let us know how it goes for you!