YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

My main question is: Can you do EMDR with a therapist you do not like or feel safe with or trust? More specifically, should I stop going to this therapist? I'm willing to keep going even though I don't like her if I will get benefits from doing EMDR, but if it won't even work, then I'm going to quit.

I just started with a new therapist. I don't like her. I didn't feel comfortable with her the moment I saw her. But I thought I'd give her a chance. My second visit, she decides we're doing EMDR. Which is what I want. What I think I need. She begins by telling me to visualize a container where I can put my emotions if they come up at an inopportune time. I told her I don't want to do that. Why? First, because I am a PRO at not feeling emotions... where I have trouble is actually feeling them. Second, this hokey exercise bugs me and I just don't want to do it. She says, "You have to. It's part of EMDR. You can't do EMDR if you don't do this." Fine, I tell her.

The history here is that I grew up under controlling, shaming parents, and I often felt powerless. One of my strategies to get through life was to just tell them I was doing what they wanted me to do but then I'd do whatever I wanted to quietly. And I'm now doing this with my therapist. I grew up feeling powerless and I am filled with rage now as I go through the same thing with the therapist, just telling her what she wants to hear because when I tell her the truth she won't listen.

This week, I went back. She asked if I practiced with my box. Yes, I lied. How did it go? Fine, I lied. Ok, next up, we are going to do a relaxation exercise in which I describe a place I feel safe and relaxed and then she reads it back to me and I close my eyes and imagine being there, and then we do the eye movement stuff. I don't want to do this either. But I do. I tell her about a place I like in the Sierras and she writes it down.

Then she wants to read it back and have me close my eyes. I said I don't want her to read it, that I won't be able to focus on the place if she's talking. The truth, which I don't say, is that I'll be focusing on how much I can't stand her. She puts up a fight, saying that scientists have come up with this protocol for EMDR and we must follow it and it might not work otherwise, but... fine. We'll try it my way. So I close my eyes to try to envision being in my place, and I realize I cannot relax. I can't relax in a room with this awful woman, where I am uncomfortable and don't feel safe.

I tell her it's not working and we go back and forth, and finally I just decide I'll go through the motions and lie to her so we can get this done, so I convinced her to read the stuff she wrote and then we'd do the eye movement stuff. But as she reads, I am seething and shaking with rage and a few tears roll down my face. So she asks how I feel, and I tell her the truth. That I can never feel relaxed around her. She concedes to skip this part of EMDR, but there wasn't time to move on to what comes next before the end of my appointment.

I'm upset even as I recount this. I don't want to have to see this fucking woman again. But if it's possible that EMDR will be effective even though I can't stand her, I will. Will it?

Also: she's the 4th therapist I've tried in the past year. Two of the previous 3 were awful (one had no empathy, one gave no eye contact) and one was sweet but did not have the right expertise to really treat me. So I'm starting to wonder if I'm being too picky.

Thanks.

I think it depends on whether you think you can get what you need out of it, despite not liking her. It sounds like you can't. (Which is totally understandable. I don't think I could get past that either. I had a therapist I didn't like once, and while I liked that she challenged me more than others, I found her to be harsh and judgmental, and that our sessions just made me mad.) It sounds like your dislike of her is keeping you from being an active participant in the process. You're not doing what she's asking you to do, and I think whether you like the therapist or not, you're not going to get everything you can out of it if you're not doing what she's asking. It's a waste of your time and hers to continue going to therapy if you're not getting what you need. Therapy is so interactive and so personal, that I think it would be super difficult to do if you're not relaxed and you don't want to communicate with this person at all.

If it were me, I would try finding a new therapist who specializes in EMDR if that's what you want to do. Good luck!

I don't have much experience with therapists and none with EMDR, but from what you said, it seems to me you will struggle working with anyone who is giving you instructions in any way shape or form. If you don't disclose to your therapist that

I grew up under controlling, shaming parents, and I often felt powerless. One of my strategies to get through life was to just tell them I was doing what they wanted me to do but then I'd do whatever I wanted to quietly.

, I fail to see how they can begin to help you, because it would be like an English speaking person going to a French or Russian or whatever speaking doctor - you will simply not be communicating effectively with eachother. Now, it may very well be that you are just not in a place in your life where you feel comfortable even going there just yet, I don't know, but it seems to me like that's the major element of your situation. SO perhaps it's not that you don't like all these therapists but that they have failed to see through you and you don't feel like you can just speak up about what your issue is, so you continue to try to get on anyway, but of course, it doesn't work.

there is probably some really very obvious work around for your issue but I don't know what. I really hope you get a breakthrough!

EMDR can be intense, and triggering by design. You deserve a therapist you trust and like to take you through EMDR.