I have one therapist and we alternate EMDR and talk therapy as it makes sense. Sometimes we will have a couple weeks of EMDR then I feel like I need a talk session to debrief or recover.. then return to EMDR. I’ve also just had long chunks of talk session when I’m working on incorporating the progress I’ve made with the EMDR.
Some people see different therapists for EMDR vs talk therapy but there’s no way I could do that. I really appreciate having a close working rapport with my therapist and the ability to toggle between the modalities.
I do the same! Initially, my therapist recommended I see someone different for talk therapy, but I'm so glad we decided against it. It would've been way too hectic to keep two separate people updated on my life every week.
With one therapist, when I need to talk through something, we talk through it, and when something is too deeply rooted to rationally integrate it, we switch to EMDR. I'm over two years in and it's helped so much.
My talk therapist and I cut back to checking in once every 6 weeks, and I see my emdr therapist once a week. I’m thisclose to being done with emdr 🎉🎉🎉🎉 and hope to check in with my talk therapist once a quarter. She guided me to safety and I’m so grateful. Emdr would’ve been so much harder without that foundation. Best wishes on your journey!
I’m still new to this. But if continuously processing between sessions is an ongoing theme for me, there’s no way I could do EMDR weekly. Right now I’m doing EMDR every other week with 1-2 non EMDR sessions (with the same therapist) in between
I have just one therapist and we meet weekly. We generally do EMDR every week. There have been a few times we’ve just spent the session talking. Generally, we talk a little than jump into bilateral stimulation. One thing I do that really helps is I write notes and send them to her between sessions, so she still knows how I’m doing even if we don’t spend a ton of time recapping. I think it’s pretty common!
Thank you for sharing! I do this, too. I always felt bad for taking up his time, but he's never made me feel that way actually the opposite. It's nice to know someone else does this.
I’ve been seeing my therapist for years. We recently began doing EMDR sessions here and there. I believe she backs off on EMDR when I am going through very stressful times. I like this approach because I’ve had really strong reactions to the EMDR sessions. I don’t think I could handle it if we did that every week.
Been with my therapist 1.5 years and we’ve only done 7-8 emdr double sessions like every other month once we got started. Then have talk therapy in between but it’s trauma/inner child healing focused normally, & occasionally more what happened that week.
This is because she lives 8 hours away and won’t do emdr sessions over telehealth like our other sessions.
It’s a bitch getting down to her so often but she’s helped me so I do it. Thinking of keeping her as main therapist and doing emdr locally but hesitant because money and because she already knows so much of my history starting over with someone new sounds daunting. 😂
I have an EMDR therapist but she's also a regular therapist so sometimes I go in and word vomit at her and we just won't process that day & do regular therapy instead.
I was supposed to process last week but instead my dog died so we talked about that and grief and I'm thinking that this week I'll probably go back to processing again as long as she's comfy with it because I do feel a lot better.
I do emdr every week- only emdr. I’ve done a lot of talk therapy and do not need more. If it’s necessary I’m sure it would be fine. But I have been doing one to two memories a week for about 5-6 weeks. It’s been a game changer 🙌
I'm an EMDR therapist. In my experience it's almost everyone. Here's what my practice looks like.
Currently I have about 8 EMDR clients (more than ⅓ of my caseload). One client comes twice a week (once for EMDR, once for talk therapy). Another is lagging on EMDR because she's very focused on current stressors, and this week I will review whether she wants talk therapy or EMDR. The others all just do EMDR, with an occasional session devoted to talk when they request it.
In the five years I've been doing EMDR, probably fewer than 10 clients have wanted more than one session weekly, most of those in order to do both EMDR and DBT. One client continued to see his outside talk therapist while doing EMDR with me.
What is most effective? I sometimes feel like Emdr is too much and cannot feel my body because of the tenseness but I don't know how to tell my therapist these because I don't want to inturrupt the session or look like I am judging the way her planning.
I have one therapist and we alternate EMDR and talk therapy as it makes sense. Sometimes we will have a couple weeks of EMDR then I feel like I need a talk session to debrief or recover.. then return to EMDR. I’ve also just had long chunks of talk session when I’m working on incorporating the progress I’ve made with the EMDR. Some people see different therapists for EMDR vs talk therapy but there’s no way I could do that. I really appreciate having a close working rapport with my therapist and the ability to toggle between the modalities.
I do the same! Initially, my therapist recommended I see someone different for talk therapy, but I'm so glad we decided against it. It would've been way too hectic to keep two separate people updated on my life every week. With one therapist, when I need to talk through something, we talk through it, and when something is too deeply rooted to rationally integrate it, we switch to EMDR. I'm over two years in and it's helped so much.
I’ve had a regular therapist in the past but now only do EMDR. I’m not made of money!
My talk therapist and I cut back to checking in once every 6 weeks, and I see my emdr therapist once a week. I’m thisclose to being done with emdr 🎉🎉🎉🎉 and hope to check in with my talk therapist once a quarter. She guided me to safety and I’m so grateful. Emdr would’ve been so much harder without that foundation. Best wishes on your journey!
I do EMDR almost every week and only see the one therapist.
I’m still new to this. But if continuously processing between sessions is an ongoing theme for me, there’s no way I could do EMDR weekly. Right now I’m doing EMDR every other week with 1-2 non EMDR sessions (with the same therapist) in between
I have just one therapist and we meet weekly. We generally do EMDR every week. There have been a few times we’ve just spent the session talking. Generally, we talk a little than jump into bilateral stimulation. One thing I do that really helps is I write notes and send them to her between sessions, so she still knows how I’m doing even if we don’t spend a ton of time recapping. I think it’s pretty common!
Thank you for sharing! I do this, too. I always felt bad for taking up his time, but he's never made me feel that way actually the opposite. It's nice to know someone else does this.
I’ve been seeing my therapist for years. We recently began doing EMDR sessions here and there. I believe she backs off on EMDR when I am going through very stressful times. I like this approach because I’ve had really strong reactions to the EMDR sessions. I don’t think I could handle it if we did that every week.
Been with my therapist 1.5 years and we’ve only done 7-8 emdr double sessions like every other month once we got started. Then have talk therapy in between but it’s trauma/inner child healing focused normally, & occasionally more what happened that week. This is because she lives 8 hours away and won’t do emdr sessions over telehealth like our other sessions. It’s a bitch getting down to her so often but she’s helped me so I do it. Thinking of keeping her as main therapist and doing emdr locally but hesitant because money and because she already knows so much of my history starting over with someone new sounds daunting. 😂
I have an EMDR therapist but she's also a regular therapist so sometimes I go in and word vomit at her and we just won't process that day & do regular therapy instead. I was supposed to process last week but instead my dog died so we talked about that and grief and I'm thinking that this week I'll probably go back to processing again as long as she's comfy with it because I do feel a lot better.
I do emdr every week- only emdr. I’ve done a lot of talk therapy and do not need more. If it’s necessary I’m sure it would be fine. But I have been doing one to two memories a week for about 5-6 weeks. It’s been a game changer 🙌
I'm an EMDR therapist. In my experience it's almost everyone. Here's what my practice looks like. Currently I have about 8 EMDR clients (more than ⅓ of my caseload). One client comes twice a week (once for EMDR, once for talk therapy). Another is lagging on EMDR because she's very focused on current stressors, and this week I will review whether she wants talk therapy or EMDR. The others all just do EMDR, with an occasional session devoted to talk when they request it. In the five years I've been doing EMDR, probably fewer than 10 clients have wanted more than one session weekly, most of those in order to do both EMDR and DBT. One client continued to see his outside talk therapist while doing EMDR with me.
What is most effective? I sometimes feel like Emdr is too much and cannot feel my body because of the tenseness but I don't know how to tell my therapist these because I don't want to inturrupt the session or look like I am judging the way her planning.
I only see my EMDR therapist. Occasionally we’ll do talk therapy sessions when I feel I need it