Being productive

I began therapy a little over a year ago for some trauma flashbacks and panic attacks. My G was very keen to start EMDR but having never looked at the past, spoken of my feelings or anything person for that matter, it just wasn’t working for me. It was retaumatizing me and sending me in to extreme stress and depression between sessions. I mentioned this for a while but EMDR kept being pushed until I spoke about it a bit clearer with T and we decided to focus on just becoming more comfortable just talking. I’m a very awkward person when it comes to talking openly about myself. I’ve just had no experience with it before now.

So it’s been about 3 months with no EMDR and the anxiety between sessions has eased. My only thing now is I feel that nothing really productive is happening. It’s kind of the same each week and feels like a mildly pleasant very expensive chat.

My question - what might I be able to do to get things moving along a bit. I don’t want to be in therapy forever! I can’t cry which I feel holds me back doing EMDR because if I start to get overwhelmed or upset, I totally shut down and dissociate and end up not remembering any of the session.

I’d really like to progress.... even if it means bringing up something or ideas with T at our next appointment.

I adore my T and trust him more than anyone in my life EVER. We started EMDR and I was struggling with it but it just wasn’t working, I wasn’t bothered or traumatized by it. Two weeks ago he let me know that we had stopped because he felt I did not trust him enough for the EMDR to be safe and therapeutic. I was floored, I never expected T to say he didn’t feel I trusted him enough. So we did more history taking which proved helpful but still didn’t get to the trust he is trying to achieve. My hyper vigilance is just too high... so next session he wants to play some games, card games and just chat (I suck at chat)... “just” relax and be comfortable together. We shall see how it goes. But it seems that EMDR takes much more of a therapeutic connection than a lot of people expect it to.

I have dealt with very similar issues with Emdr and disassociating. Emdr T and I also stopped for a while to work on my trust and build our relationship. Then things changed last year and the focus of our work went from her being just my Emdr T to being my only T. We eventually will get back to Emdr but we both have voiced apprehension. When we do the plan is to take very small slivers and not dig as deep. Plus the plan is we will do Emdr work for a short period of time in the beginning of the session then stop to work on grounding and other topics so I leave her office feeling fully present and in an okay place.

Not sure how it will work but that is the plan

Thank you for your experience. I agree, EMDR is so much more of a challenge than I had been brought to believe. From books and other info, it sounded like you do it, and it just happens. I’m so hyper award of absolutely everything around me including myself. Relax isn’t really in my personality.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. That does sound like a reasonable plan. We did that a little but it was before I was ready. It felt pointless at the time.

I guess what I’m wanting now is (knowing I’m not ready to jump back into emdr) is to know if there’s something more productive to do with my 50mins a week than just talk to T about basically nothing. I have a lot of childhood trauma, she knows a tiny bit of it. I have a lot of issues with emotions. She’s starting to understand that I think, although that the solution of “you just have to sit with your feelings and allow them to happen” isn’t helping me because I’m SO trained at removing them.

Can I just tell her “I want to be more productive and get something done?”
I’m afraid she’ll start a speech about how we ARE doing things and I’m just being to pushy on myself but I like to be efficient, I like to move forward! Maybe it’s my issue with giving myself time patience but therapy is weird and expensive!

Yes, you can just tell her that. And if she starts in on a speech as you predict, you can say you don't want to hear it.

Instead of your statement, you could say, "I'm feeling that I would like to be more productive in therapy. Can we talk about how that might get done in here, or options for moving forward with discussing my childhood traumas, which I haven't yet delved into but I think I'm ready to. Can you help me figure out these things?"

Sometimes just engaging people from a place of "help me with this" rather than a statement that implies the need for a defense can be a better way to go about getting what you want. But I think it's fine to just make your statement and see where that goes in your response.

The things that feel productive to me include talking about stuff that I have never talked about before, for example painful relationships or painful times in my life, as well as my childhood. Do you think it would help if you talked more about what happened to you as a child? I also find it productive to talk about my reaction to things my T does and says. So things that piss me off, or things that I find helpful. My view is: don’t look to your T to make it productive, experiment and try things yourself, I find being in the driving seat to be therapeutic in itself.

I think you can tell her you feel like you have stalled and not being productive. T may say that she feels you are making progress and point it out. I have found these types of discussions very beneficial