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Applying EMDR to TMS healing

mindbodyfactor

mindbodyfactor

New Member
For the past several months, I have been following a regular EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) routine to attempt to heal any childhood trauma and repressed emotions as a result of it.

First of all, it works. I don't have a lot of experience with trauma therapy, besides reading about it, but it definitely provides a Cathartic release as powerful as an intense journaling session. It also helps that the EMDR tool I am using gives a structured set of questions you write responses to before every session (so its almost like a journaling-lite session, depending how much I write).

But, the days I choose to do the EMDR protocol are days that I am 100% not journaling in the traditional sense (too tired or lazy). So, I consider it as a separate activity in my healing routine, rather than a substitute for normal journaling.

Onto the good part - the results:
  • I have uncovered several critical formative experiences of my past, which I had completely blocked out of my memory (some related to sexual trauma which helps explain my pelvic floor pain)
  • Through the EMDR process, I have gained a practical, hands-on understanding of repression and how my Subconscious is simply trying to protect me by hiding certain thoughts until I am safe and ready to be with them. This is different than my experience with journaling, which for me, can be so action-packed and emotional as I "pour out" my emotional vat that I can't really take a step back and understand what's going on. With EMDR, during the actual bilateral stimulation phase - I am not actively writing or moving so it's easier to take a step back and notice what's happening psychologically. This has helped me "buy in" to Sarno's original thesis more (I already bought in, but the more proof the better) consequently fear pain less, etc. all the good stuff from the normal education process.
  • Take it with a grain of salt but my "emotional distress" has consistently decreased from an 8+/10 to less than 3/10 after every session.
  • The conscious focusing on a "Target" emotion or experience has given me a better understanding of my personality and biases that I have not received from traditional meditation (where I am trying to keep my mind empty) or journaling work. The structure of the EMDR program helps here I think, as it encourages me to keep fixating on my Target emotion / experience for the entire 10-20 min session, as opposed to journaling where I might be tempted to jump to the next A, B, or C emotion and so on. It really gets all the juice out of the squeeze.
Has it made a noticeable effect on my pain symptoms? It's hard to say, as I have already succeeded in healing my pelvic pain to at least an 80% return to normalcy. I do believe that I can heal 100% though, which is why I am reaching for further healing modalities like EMDR and maybe even real therapy if I can reach a point of financial stability and have the balls to do so :D

One key callout is my TMS seems to be "moving around again"... with increased bruxism at night and during the day. So maybe I have it on the run again. I hope one day we can just happily jog together.

See my full experience here: https://www.mindbodyfactor.com/p/the-lazy-mans-guide-to-uncovering (The Lazy Man’s Guide to Uncovering Repressed Emotions)
 
EMDR was infinitely helpful to helping overcome many subconcious issues (many which happily remain subconcious… it gave me awareness and helped file those experiences as “past” in my mind). It did not cure or treat my physical pain but helped end my suffering).
I utilize the skills learned and the science behind the alternation of left and right (for myself the visual alternation does not work as well as physical sensation of alternation) to continue to work through new insights but also to deal with unravelling the old patterns of the physical pain in a unique and creative way. I believe that it can really assist in people who identify as or have presented as what is currently labeled as a “neuro divergent” person too.
The method can be used with people who are less verbally motivated, don’t like therapy much (or can’t relate to traditional methods) and I think it could have great use in people few language skills or who are not verbal communicators.
 
Cactusflower said:
EMDR was infinitely helpful to helping overcome many subconcious issues (many which happily remain subconcious… it gave me awareness and helped file those experiences as “past” in my mind). It did not cure or treat my physical pain but helped end my suffering).
Click to expand...

This rhymes with my experience as well Cactusflower - the application to chronic pain / flareups still requires using TMS knowledge to quelch fear and regain control of the body. But it definitely helps everything "click" into place for me, especially when it comes to admitting I have repressed emotions about certain areas.

As I go deeper down the rabbit hole of traditional and alternative mental health therapies, it amazes me how in depth and useful some of them are... and yet few touch the topic of Chronic Pain. It's like we have collective amnesia as a species about the Mind Body connection.
 
I think EMDR helped me as well to recover. I think I would have made it out of TMS without it, and I would say reading Sarno books coupled with the SEP on this wiki helped me the most, but I'm also glad I did EMDR as I had never done any work with a therapist in my life before, and it taught me some valuable lessons about psychology and my own self/personality.
 
I tried EMDR and it made me worse.

It was a guy waving a stick in my face, it cost me a lot of money, it's a scam

Makes me angry that they're taking so much money off these vulnerable people and giving them false hope
 
mindbodyfactor said:
See my full experience here: https://www.mindbodyfactor.com/p/the-lazy-mans-guide-to-uncovering (The Lazy Man’s Guide to Uncovering Repressed Emotions)
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to give this thorough and informative info on EMDR. (I’m sorry I missed this earlier!) I especially appreciated your blog story of your personal experience. I’ve tried EMDR twice with a therapist. Once was amazing and once was terrible. It made me gun shy of it, but I’ve been wondering lately if it might be useful to try it again. All this information is really good —thank you so much!
 
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Rusty Red said:
That's true of any therapy. One type is never going to work for everyone. Unfortunately it's a process of finding the right fit.
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Yes, and finding the right therapist. I think some therapists are better than others with it. I think the one I went to wasn’t trained right. I’m very curious about doing it yourself. That might be a good idea.
 
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Rusty Red said:
That's true of any therapy. One type is never going to work for everyone. Unfortunately it's a process of finding the right fit.
Click to expand...

100% - I mentioned in another thread that this mirrors my experience. I used a few TMS coaches that did not resonate with me. I tried a few psychologists/psychiatrists and even if their method resonated with me, something about the experience did not. However it eventually taught me to have faith in myself in finding the right fit, and I eventually did with my EMDR therapist who also had some opposing views to a strict TMS perspective and we made that work by focusing on what we did want to work on together and I learned that I have very good intuition about what is a good fit, and that it's OK to say no when I feel something isn't working even if that therapist does not want to end the relationship - I also learned to explore my resistance vs intuition about what methods might be helpful for me by allowing myself to be more curious.
 
Lee222 said:
I tried EMDR and it made me worse.

It was a guy waving a stick in my face, it cost me a lot of money, it's a scam

Makes me angry that they're taking so much money off these vulnerable people and giving them false hope
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience - as the others have emphasized, it's important to find the right fit with any therapist, coach, or mentor.

I hear you on the $$ side. An important paradigm shift in the mental health space, in my opinion, is empowering people to take control of their own healing. Unfortunately, a lot of providers and influencers in this space seem to be against it... presumably it can be "dangerous" to explore your inner psyche on your own. It also is dangerous to drive your car alone at 80+ mph on the highway at night, yet no one seems to have a problem with people driving at night. I struggle to think that the most outspoken critics of self-healing don't have some level of self-interest in not enabling people to heal on their own (credentialism, gatekeeping knowledge, potentially losing clients).

Regardless, I would recommend starting with a book, whenever learning or trying anything new (there's also countless free resources on YouTube). Most books cost $10-20 (and can be found cheaper used). Most $100+ courses people sell, are just their book in video form. Most providers you see, except for the dedicated ones pushing the limits in their field - are learning from those same books available to you. Of course seeing a provider has its own unique benefits. But books provide a cheap pathway to figuring out if a particular therapy may work for you.

I say this having paid over $5000+ over the years on various medical expenses to get out of chronic pain. Good luck!
 
Diana-M said:
Yes, and finding the right therapist. I think some therapists are better than others with it. I think the one I went to wasn’t trained right. I’m very curious about doing it yourself. That might be a good idea, as Ellen points out.
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I think doing EMDR at home is worth a shot and pretty low risk, especially if you set time aside before and after to warm up / cool down the bodymind (grounding) with meditation, yoga, or time for yourself. [redacted]
 
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mindbodyfactor said:
I think doing EMDR at home is worth a shot and pretty low risk, especially if you set time aside before and after to warm up / cool down the bodymind (grounding) with meditation, yoga, or time for yourself. [sales information was inserted here]...
Click to expand...

Interesting. I would find that sort of app difficult because of the nature of EMDR and all the "pre-" treatment questions (generally two sessions) that a licensed, properly trained EMDR therapist does. It is only a somewhat generalized approach, but at the same time it is deeply personal and individual as are all our experiences. Part of the therapy is having the therapist witness your physical reactions so they know when to progress in the timing of the eye movements and moving to deeper levels.
If a person has been trained to do their own EMDR by their therapist (which mine did, and she also took insurance which is a privilege I was lucky to have) at home, it can really work. Randomly doing it after doing something like watching a video probably isn't going to get the results you might hope for and you have not had the opportunity to build a trusting relationship with someone, especially if you don't have a trusting relationship with yourself.

To that end, @mindbodyfactor you might want to paruse the forum rules especially point #6 https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/welcome-newcomers-here-are-our-forum-rules.16460/
 
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Noted :)

That's a great point on needing a trusting relationship with yourself - I think if I hadn't journaled relentlessly for months using Sarno's and Sachs' methods, then I probably would not have had the same level of success following the EMDR protocol by myself.

Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to do EMDR with an in person therapist so cannot compare the efficacy of at home vs. with provider. I definitely would not recommend diving into it after "just watching a video" though, and there are ample resources out there to do those pre-treatment questions and find the right form of bilateral stimulation for you (I have even heard of people getting better bilateral stimulation from running or various forms of cardio).

Something to think on - Sarno's work in and of itself is a form of self-therapy. So is Sachs', Schubiner's, and the SEP program here. These are the good guys / gals in my opinion, not the gatekeepers, and they encourage us to explore our psyches and start healing ourselves, today, with or without a therapist. And I think everyone here can speak to the results of their methods. There is space in the healing world for all avenues of healing :)
 
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