I've tried EMDR and had a bad experience, I am not sure I am ready to try it again, though it is my understanding that it speeds up healing. I've also done DBT, which I liked, it allowed me to validate emotions and experiences in the present, however there is a lot of stuff it didn't heal. I am trying to come up with other things to try, was curious what other people found worked for them and would you be willing to share how it helped?
Simultaneous somatic (vagus nerve stimulating) and cognitive (psychodynamic) therapies supercharged with a psychedelic substance such as cannabis or psilocybin. This is what healed my attachment trauma.
Now if only it wasn’t damn near impossible (due to illegality) to find the few therapists out there who do psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions.
If you hold tight for a couple years, MAPS.org is paving the way for prescription based MDMA assisted therapy that will become widely available due to the extreme success of their trials. Also if you are in or near a cannabis friendly state, that can be used as a psychedelic substance for therapy purposes. That's what I used after I convinced my therapist to conduct an "experiment" with me.
Then there's the option of traveling for a week of Ayahuasca ceremonies if you are adventurous. There are multiple options for skirting a gov't that wants to keep you traumatized.
Yes, I've heard of MAPS! However, I have little faith that MDMA-assisted therapy will become widely available any time soon in the U.S. -- especially with the current administration -- but maybe you know something I don't?
The FDA has given MAPS.org fast track status for their therapy. Considering that ketamine asst therapy is already legal, and that it promises to shave years off of therapy I can see it becoming legal in order, if nothing else, for the VA to save a ton of money.
Also consider that we are looking at 2020 or 2021 when the administration should be different than it is now (God willing!).
Can you please tell us how vagus nerve stimulation helps?
Rather than me trying to explain in a comment, it's best if you google it.
In order of dealing with difficulties from more severe and intrusive to deepest of "lived with it for so long I thought it was normal"
Sensorimotor Psychtherapy - a form of somatic/body based "while still talking" therapy that helped me gain control over my triggers, dissociation, and affect. Bessel Van der Kolk says that 75% of working therapists underestimate the importance of affect and teaching clients to manage affect (especially through the body). The body will actively prevent "talk" or cognitive therapy from being effective if it isn't able to return to a state of calm when exploring things like traumatic memory
Family Systems theory based talk therapy- if you trauma is caused by abusive or emotionally dsyfunctional family, this helps you so much find who you are and how to get yourself out of the patterns you were raised to respond to
EMDR protocols- direct processing didn't work for me because of my dissociation but EMDR practices , such as bilateral stimulation while being mindful, and other protocols often helped me "unstick" when something had triggered me or I wasn't able to figure out what I need to do
Internal Family System Model- A "new" (it's actually almost 40 years old now) model for dealing with things like Anger, the inner critic, wounded inner children, etc that promotes long term solutions and a self maintaining inner ability to heal and cope. Also good for attachment issues and can be done on your own. Seriously this shit is the bomb, but you should have some affect management skills first, so that you can you come back if your body hijacks your mind. (Becaue IFS deals a lot with parts of you hijacking the whole of you)
Mindfulness with CBT- good for filling in the gaps.
A note about EMDR, DBT ad complex trauma: there is a seperate protocol for dealing with long term trauma issues via EMDR. It's a fairly new structure (2014 it think) so if your EMDR is not keeping up on the latest trained, it may not be effective for CPTSD or trauma issues with dissociation.
DBT also requires the cognitive mind to remain "in control" so it often becomes useless when triggers or similarly unprocessed material hijacks the nervous systems. Because the DBT skills become "locked out". The result is exactly what you described. For more information looks up dissociation and amygdala hijacking. (Van der Kolk is all over that stuff if you need a place to start)
For me it was neurofeedback (NFB) with a clinician who was trained by Dr Sebern Fisher, a therapist who wrote NFB protocols for working with clients with developmental trauma. The book she wrote that I found to be the most beneficial to my recovery is 'Neurofeedback for the Treatment of Developmental Trauma, Calming the Fear Driven Brain'.
I did NFB while continuing to work with my talk therapist, but got the most continued beneficial support during this time from my husband. It was the consistent presence and support from my husband (including him being involved in my therapy sessions) that I believe contributed to me being able to finally form and experience a secure attachment to another person. This was something that I never could achieve with my therapist (which I personally believe was due to the limitations of the therapy itself...time limits, boundaries, ethics, lack of trust, etc).
In the end, it was the NFB and the trusting consistent support of a loved one that worked best for me.
I had really good experiences with transactional analysis/reparenting therapy. It sounded a little hokey, but it totally worked. Part of it involved role playing with my therapist as a guide. We'd talk about a traumatizing event in my life (e.g. being kicked out of the house). Then we'd role play, with an imaginary inner child, my father, and me being my adult self. I'd be able to talk to my father as an adult and fight back (e.g. tell him that it wasn't fair or I didn't deserve this). I'd be able to talk to my inner child (e.g. comfort her and give her the support that I would have wanted as a child). In therapy, I practiced being this parent to myself that I always needed. During the week, I could think about these scenarios when negative thoughts came up, and I could use the same words to calm my inner child or silence the critic (which was my internalized father). Actually practicing how to do this with the guidance of the therapist was the key. You can read about it all you want, but until you practice it, you won't be able to put it in to action when the thoughts come up in real life. I'd suggest the book "Born to Win" as a primer for how it works.
Please see this earlier post . I have participated in, read extensively about (as in training manuals) and/or learned how to self-administer (to the extent such can be done) all the therapies listed in section seven. For me, DBT, MBBS, MBSR, ACT and the 10 StEPs + SP4T have been the most productive. (EMDR was almost meaningless, btw.) Likewise the workbooks listed in section nine.
My subjective units of distress are down from the eights and nines in the 1990s and early 2000s to the fives, fours and often threes now. My ability to deal with people is far better. I sleep better. I can be alone with much less anxiety than was the case back then. I am less triggerable and reactive. And a lot more conscious, appropriately functional and productive.
NOT "perfect," for sure, but vastly improved.
The therapy that helped me the most is called Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). You can read an article about this therapy here.
Hey, would love to hear specifically how AEDP was helpful for you! I know you wrote this six years ago but hopefully you're still around?
Hey, I'm still around. I would say the most helpful thing AEDP has helped me with was just having someone pay really deep and caring attention to my emotions. I wrote a post about childhood emotional neglect here a few years back that described the feeling of not feeling like a real or valid person as a result of not having my emotions paid attention to. An AEDP therapist really is trained to attune to your emotions and bring clarity to them.
Gradually, I started to internalize the way my therapist took my emotions seriously and be able to do that for myself: I can now recognize more quickly my own emotions and respond to them in healthy ways. Also, just the relationship that develops over the course of therapy helps you feel appreciated, cared about, validated, understood, and valued as an individual. These were basically the things I didn't get growing up because my parents were dealing with their own limitations.
If there's anything else you have questions about, let me know. :)
Hi, thanks for this. Reading your other post really helped too. My biggest deepest wound is definitely the emotional neglect piece. I’m at my wits’end with it and am actually inpatient in a clinic right now after a breakdown over the holidays. What I don’t understand is that I started figuring this all out ten years ago, set way more boundaries with my parents, got therapy, even actually trained as a mental health counselor which has been a wonderful job. It helped me understand a lot more and gave me some validation for emotions but it didn’t change the intensity of the abandonment feeling. I still constantly walk around feeling like a baby, like the only way I’ll be ok is if someone else is with me at all times. And like something in me is dead. Something therapy helped me identity is also a “plank of wood” in front of my heart. It’s a part of me that knows I desperately crave love/emotional resonance but also knows it has been disappointed too many times and doesn’t trust that whatever comes will ever be enough. I understand it, but also feel like it’s slowly killing me. Rough times. Thanks for your thoughts though, they at least remind me I’m not crazy.
Whoever treats us with EMDR really needs to understand and have experience treating CPTSD and/or Developmental trauma disorder. It's very easy to retraumatize someone if they don't know what they're doing. Even with an experienced therapist, I did have a strong reaction to my first EMDR session, but I was not retraumatized so I was able to continue. After a few months I've noticed a change. I'm less anxious, depressed, have less emotional flashbacks, more energy and confidence.