Posted by antigua on January 20, 2004, at 14:48:04
In reply to Re: EMDR femlite » antigua, posted by femlite on January 20, 2004, at 13:16:48
Absolutley. I am especially sensitive to smells. I'm hypervigilant all the time and I also have that "startle response" in which I am always on edge.
Today in EMDR we worked (again) on moving my fear through my body. It's trapped. My fear literally paralyzes me (I couldn't move my arms or legs for a long time, no matter how much my mind said to move!). I still can't move the fear through. This is a big part of EMDR--moving feelings through your body and out--as is replacing negative beliefs about yourself w/more positive ones through visualization. That part was fun today. My T was trying to convince me that my father deserves the lion's share of my feelings of shame and humiliation and that as a child I had taken on his. As an adult, I visualized giving it back to him. I envisioned cutting a pie into thirds and giving him 2/3 of the shame & humiliation and leaving 1/3 for me; then, I watched my third slowly dissipate into nothingness. Sounded good, but I don't know if I believe it yet. I think the idea is that if my piece of the pie isn't too big, then I will believe I can handle it. As it is now, I fear (like a child) that my fear & anger would overwhelm me if I let it out and then I would lose control.
Like I said, I'd be interested in how other people use EMDR. I don't have a clue if I'm even doing it right! But whatever I'm doing, it is definitely helping as an adjunct to my talk therapy.
antigua
poster:antigua
thread:302126
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040116/msgs/303321.html