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Old August 1st, 2010, 12:45 PM
Sandra Paulsen Sandra Paulsen is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Bainbridge Island WA
Posts: 207
Default Re: emdr:nothing's happening

I can't advise you because I don't know you, haven't assessed you. But I'll make a few general comments.

Five sessions is not enough to deal with long standing reluctance or defenses against emotions. Five sessions is only enough to help someone who is basically in good shape to get back on their feet.

Some people (I don't know if this applies to you) learned, usually very early in life, that emotions are overwhelming or bad or for permissible and/or safe or for someone else. They may also have learned to cut them off (they are in the right hemisphere, to make a long story too short) and live with words and logic and analytic reasoning (in the left hemisphere).

Such people can come to terms with their ability to feel emotions and body sensation, but it takes time. It takes careful resourcing, sometimes through spiritual resources, or nature, or other positive and life enhancing experience. It also take working directly with self protective parts of self to get them oriented to present time and circumstances (example, present family is not the same as the original family, if the original family was dangerous and present family isn't). This can take a few months or can take years.

For many people, EMDR wouldn't be the first order of business to solve this problem, unless there was a specific single sexual assault causing the sexual avoidance. People who can't generate a "safe place" typically are not suitable to proceed with EMDR by definition. This is part of the training in EMDR. Such people need more resourcing, containment, stabilization, grounding, and increased comfort with body sensation and emotion before doing EMDR successfully. That's why the treatment takes a long time.

Don't know if any of the above applies to you. Good luck to you!
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