I have tried EMDR two time so far and it was a positive experience. I do 2 hour session and have dealt with two different tramic experiences in my adult life. I reprocessed the 1968 event when I became a victim of police abuse for protesting at a George Wallace rally.

The other event was me getting fired from a great job in 1993. I was able to reprocess these events and draw a different conclusion. I haven't tried EMDR on the CSA events yet.

Tom

vda - from your post it sounds like EMDR was used very soon after an abuse experience:



My experience of EMDR was with addressing "old" trauma that had resulted in PTSD symptoms. I've never heard of it used to address "fresh" trauma before. I'd suggest you talk with that therapist and others about whether it was appropriate at that stage or not.

Mike

EMDR is used for fresh trauma. For example the New Orleans disaster. Teams of Ts went there to do EMDR on the people.

Post 9/11 New york was another early-application of EMDR.

I shall chime in to share that I have had the good fortune of EMDR as a regular part of my Therapy, it has been very helpful in dealing with my varied trauma experiences --which include some brutal CSA experiences--. I feel it has been a beneficial component of my recovery... IMHO; Therapy, 12-step, and the support of other male survivors are key.

In my training for EMDR 15 years ago, we were told that it should be done no sooner than 6 weeks after the trauma. However, since that time, I've seen where EMDR professionals go fairly quickly to places where natural disasters have occured as well as some fresh war incidents. So, I'm not sure what the current thinking is.

You might contact the International EMDR Association (not sure what the acronym is or if that's the correct name for the organization) to see what the protocol is for new trauma.

Ken

My T has done EMDR..i had a lot of blocked memories and traumas...I felt it worked...at least in some occasions i do not hurt so much...It was weird istarted to think of a pleasnt feeling and suddenly i started to cry like a baby..i was reliving that particular experience and i cried and was shaking all over...but at the end i felt good...

EMDR was absolutely wonderful for me. It was the best thing for me for relief of symptoms from CSA. I have another T for talk therapy who says that EMDR is becoming almost a preferred treatment for it.

Some of the sessions were indeed very intense. They took me right back (in my memory) into the emotional heart of the abuse. I felt and reexperienced the abuse. That may sound horrible but as an adult I was able to bear it. EMDR reconnected my childhood abused self to my adult here-and-now self. I think that is where the healing comes. I think that in terms of my brain it was actually reconnecting certain pathways in my brain. This freed me from the strong symptoms I had. It took me several hours in some cases to come down from the sessions. But a few days later I was genuinely feeling better. All in all I had EMDR for about a year. It was definitely well worth it.

Allen

puffer