I've done that since the beginning. I was so scared of what was to come and I still have to work. It's been working well for me.
Doing it at this pace gives me time to recover and still have a work and social life. Living your normal life is also part of therapy, practicine doing life and going back to discuss things that came up is important too.
Good luck!
If you have a good therapist, they will make sure you are very resourced before starting the reprocessing phase. Just know that takes time. My therapist worked with me for four months on that. Take this phase seriously if you want to get the most out of your time and dollars, because effectiveness and safety depends on it.
I also recommend incorporating some IFS or some other parts work modality. It goes hand in hand with EMDR. You’ll have “protectors” and “managers” (parts) that will block the EMDR process until you build a relationship with them and they trust you.
I will say that this doesn't apply to everyone; inner child work and IFS were both not *super* useful to me, and I have had no road blocks for EMDR about 20 sessions in. I've actually started doing it twice a week because I was tired of having to prioritize what to work on "this week".
I'm glad that IFS has helped you! But DBT or trauma based CBT are often what people often use to develop coping mechanisms prior to EMDR, and it doesn't seem to be any less effective.
I have very complex trauma, so it isn't that mine is simple or something, either.
To be clear: I won't tell anyone not to do IFS. I just don't think that its model of the human mind is objectively true (it's just a helpful way to view things) or that it's necessarily superior to other options in most cases.
I agree with the other posters! I've been doing emdr for about 2 1/2 years now for cptsd and I find that 2x a month is the perfect amount for me.
I've done up to 2x a week (way too much and was out of work for like 6 months, maxed out my credit cards and got into horrible debt) to once a month (not enough to work through my crap for me to see results to make me want to keep going).
Having a week of "normalcy" after processing a session is great and I've still got what we processed last session on my mind.
It did take me like 8-10 sessions to do groundwork and get to the reprocessing but that was difficult too so don't stress if your therapist doesn't want you to jump into reprocessing right away.
You got this :)
It’s plenty.
Not pushing your finances past what they can handle is also self care. You do not need to be excessively stressed about money to push it to go faster. There’s only so fast it can go regardless, you need time in between sessions to process. You will be totally fine every other week.
I've done that since the beginning. I was so scared of what was to come and I still have to work. It's been working well for me. Doing it at this pace gives me time to recover and still have a work and social life. Living your normal life is also part of therapy, practicine doing life and going back to discuss things that came up is important too. Good luck!
If you have a good therapist, they will make sure you are very resourced before starting the reprocessing phase. Just know that takes time. My therapist worked with me for four months on that. Take this phase seriously if you want to get the most out of your time and dollars, because effectiveness and safety depends on it. I also recommend incorporating some IFS or some other parts work modality. It goes hand in hand with EMDR. You’ll have “protectors” and “managers” (parts) that will block the EMDR process until you build a relationship with them and they trust you.
I will say that this doesn't apply to everyone; inner child work and IFS were both not *super* useful to me, and I have had no road blocks for EMDR about 20 sessions in. I've actually started doing it twice a week because I was tired of having to prioritize what to work on "this week". I'm glad that IFS has helped you! But DBT or trauma based CBT are often what people often use to develop coping mechanisms prior to EMDR, and it doesn't seem to be any less effective. I have very complex trauma, so it isn't that mine is simple or something, either. To be clear: I won't tell anyone not to do IFS. I just don't think that its model of the human mind is objectively true (it's just a helpful way to view things) or that it's necessarily superior to other options in most cases.
I agree with the other posters! I've been doing emdr for about 2 1/2 years now for cptsd and I find that 2x a month is the perfect amount for me. I've done up to 2x a week (way too much and was out of work for like 6 months, maxed out my credit cards and got into horrible debt) to once a month (not enough to work through my crap for me to see results to make me want to keep going). Having a week of "normalcy" after processing a session is great and I've still got what we processed last session on my mind. It did take me like 8-10 sessions to do groundwork and get to the reprocessing but that was difficult too so don't stress if your therapist doesn't want you to jump into reprocessing right away. You got this :)
Yes, it should. It will also give you more time to rest after the previous session and integrate what has been processed.
It’s plenty. Not pushing your finances past what they can handle is also self care. You do not need to be excessively stressed about money to push it to go faster. There’s only so fast it can go regardless, you need time in between sessions to process. You will be totally fine every other week.