Any had experience of unlocking blocked memories?

[chocolateworshipper]

Some awful stuff happened in my childhood. My mind has blocked out most of it, and I only know what my family have told me - I can't actually access my own memories. My counsellor has told me that she wants to use a technique with me that will force my mind to unlock the memories. She said I will get better before I get worse. I'm scared. Has anyone had anything similar?

Yes, as part of treatment for PTSD. I saw a psychologist, who bought a lot of things to the surface, definately made things worse, much worse. I'm under the impression that he then told me he wasn't sure he could help me and that he might just make things worse (he later told me he didn't intend to give that impression). So I went to see an NLP therapist I know privately. He used a techneque called Eye Movement Integration which unlocked and worked through difficult memories from present back to early childhood all in an 1 hour session. It wasn't traumatic at all, didn't make things worse, and I've not had any furthur PTSD symptoms since that session in the beggining of Jan, I also have my memories back. They are still unpleasant and I've had a bit of a cry at times, but I dont feel any of the trauma, fear or anxiety that I had with the PTSD. I went back to the psychologist once more after that and was able to talk through all my returned momories, he discharged me.

Before this I completely believed that things would have to get worse to get better and thought I was prepared for it, I wasn't I couldn't handle it. Having seen the nlp therapist and having a completely different and not at all traumatic experience, I no longer believe that things need to get worse to get better. I would hightly reccommend EMI to anyone, and will be going back to that therapist first if I need to see someone in the future. There is another similar therapy called EDMR which seems to be more mainstream and available on the NHS. Oh and some of the memories I unlocked were pre verbal, I didn't know I had any memories that far back!

Hope I've not been too off putting with my experience, and that you find it helpful.

Oh and the EMI was completely exhausting, was glad to have DH driving me.

Thank you so much for sharing that - it's really helpful.