Therapy success stories?

[Han82820]

I've been talking to a psychodynamic psychotherapist for about a year (I did have a break of a few months). I've tried a couple of therapists before this but this one I seemed to gel with and she's got good experience etc. However...I just feel 'stuck' and actually I feel worse than when I started. We've gone into great detail of my childhood which is very traumatic...yet my therapist still wants to talk about my childhood and says I haven't processed the feelings yet I've just told the story. I feel like all I'm doing is processing feelings as my anxiety is through the roof. We've started doing some relaxation techniques which is better but she still wants to do EDMR and last time we tried is just dredged up very painful horrible memories and made me feel worse.

I'm beginning to wonder if repression is better as I feel things are getting worse and like I'm endlessly picking at the problem. My childhood was rubbish but I can't change that now. She says I'm feeling like this as the moment (highly anxious) as I'm reliving / regressing to the child that didnt feel safe. But how do you begin to feel safe now? I just feel stuck on it.

I did 4.5 years of psychodynamic therapy for my traumatic childhood. I'm still not 100% certain on how much it helped. I don't think it did to be honest. She did help put some events into perspective but there was an awful lot of me using the sessions for long term moaning and that made me feel worse. I was quite stuck during the period of my life when I had therapy. I don't believe it was worth the money I spent. I was sometimes having it twice per week. The therapist thought I should continue long term so that I can have an attachment figure in her, someone to trust, as I'd never had that before.

I did dozens of sessions of EMDR. It completely broke my nervous system and because of the stress I developed an autoimmune problem

@bibop I'm so sorry to hear about your autoimmune problem. This is my worry as after 2 sessions of EMDR I felt all over the place and actually had auditory hallucinations which I've never had before in my life. I can't understand how that can be good for anyone...but I know it works for some people

I can't categorically say the EMDR helped me either. It was quite re-traumatising. If I were to go back and do it again, I don't think I would.

I've since read some things which suggest that EMDR is great for PTSD from a one-off event, such as an assault, but not as effective for C-PTSD from a bad childhood. I don't know what to believe.

The thing that I found really helped me was Remmert/timeline therapy. It finally put the past to bed. Having said that, it was stressful like EMDR, but not as bad.

The thing I did find helpful about EMDR was that the therapist did "parts work" where I connected with inner child during the session. That was great and I still do it daily myself. But you don't have to do inner child work only with EMDR, you can do it with an internal family systems therapist instead.

Wish you all the best with whatever you decide and well done for the doing the work.

You need longer, a year with months gap is nowhere near enough to process what you're describing

Say you've done 25 hours - isn't that a tiny amount compared to the hours of your life you suffered?

I feel like all I'm doing is processing feelings as my anxiety is through the roof.

Anxious feelings suggest you’re not processing your feelings, it’s often the case that feelings are so repressed following trauma that anxiety is the only emotion that registers so to speak. Processing feelings means letting the fear, hurt, anger, sadness, grief etc surface - which is really hard and the part that people often avoid. Your therapist should be able to pace things so you don’t feel everything all at once, and should be able to help you cope with the feelings as they come. Talking about what happened is only a small part of the process.

As far as I’m aware EMDR can be retraumatising when dealing with multiple or complex trauma.

@bibop thanks and wishing you all the best as well. I haven’t heard of timeline or parts therapy so will ask my therapist about this as that sounds interesting.

@Jellycatspyjamas maybe that makes sense then. We’ve definitely talked about some specific bad memories and I’ve cried, become angry etc so feel like I’ve been processing. However I have a feeling that there’s a couple of things I can’t quite remember but have a vague impression that they’re really bad, and I’m worried about them surfacing to be honest and actually questioning whether it would do me more harm than good. I’ve had hints of memories before but it’s more a memory of a feeling rather than any details.

That makes sense, it’s not uncommon in complex trauma that the person doesn’t have clear memories. Sometimes the memories do become clearer - I think our system works together to protect us from things we aren’t ready for yet. It may take some time for you to remember, a good therapist won’t rush or force that process. As you process one thing, another might come up - or you may find that resolving one part settles everything else too. Trauma is a funny, sticky, unpredictable thing to treat and does need a therapist with a good toolbox of skill, technique and experience to support recovery.

Have you asked your therapist about their understanding of trauma and their approach to working with trauma? There are lots of different approaches and ways of working some of which are more effective for different people. I’d suggest reading Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery - it gives a good pattern for working with trauma and might help you understand what’s meant by “processing” better. She writes beautifully about complex trauma in particular.

@Jellycatspyjamas thank you I’ll check out the book and also ask my therapist what her approach is. Maybe you’re right and I’m not quite understanding the meaning of ‘processing’ very well.