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

Dear all, this my firts post here after a couple of years following the podcast. The firs of many, I hope!
I was wondering if anyone has tried EMDR to treat childhood emotional neglect? It was recommended to me by my therapist who just got her certification to practice EMDR but as much as I true her a lot I am a little skeptical. Simply because EMDR tens to deal with very particular episodes of acute trauma and emotional neglect is often a "chronic" trauma made of daily abuse and indifference. I certainly remember several specific episodes but I doubt that just addressing these will solve it for me as it will not fill the void that emotional neglect left in me. I hope I am wrong!
What do you think?Do you have Any success or failure stories to share?
Thanks in advance!

I am using EMDR, not acute trauma, but for daily "mixed-up" thinking. It is working pretty well. You start with your earliest childhood memory of the "mixed-up" thinking, and vividly recall it as a movie playing in your head, while doing the alternating stimulus, eye movement or hand buzzers. This is very often enough to remove the energy from the childhood memory that is holding you back, and you can move on to the next thought.

Please take care, ask any questions you want, all the best!

I have been doing EMDR for about a year and half now for this very purpose and have found it very useful. It's helped to better understand what I was hiding from myself. It has also helped me to better understand how to look after myself. Since starting EMDR, I have become much more open socially and way less anxious. I have started to trust people more and have felt mentally freer. Before EMDR, I had been doing CBT for anxiety and depression and in CBT it became clear to me that I really needed to address some of the issues from my early childhood that I had been hiding from. As with any therapy it depends a lot on the relationship you have with your therapist.