EMDR/TLE...Trauma stored in the body

[Cinnabar]

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a form of therapy where you can distance yourself from a remembered trauma as if looking at a snap shot. Sometimes, it brings forth a forgotten trauma. It's a very mild form of hypnosis where the therapist directs back and forth eye movements with his/her finger. My therapist chooses to use "auditory" stimulation where I wear a head phone and soothing music is heard alternatly in each ear. This causes a split concentration accessing trauma stored in the brain.

Recently, diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy, my neurologist said that my shrunken left hippocampal volume most likely had do to with very early on trauma to which I can attest.

When in one of my EMDR sessions I spoke a single word "Angel" and my body went into a physical abberation. A charge of electricity lifted my body off the couch (five successions) and each time I experienced an odd charge of electricity moving from the base of my spine, then upward and out each side of my shoulders, down arms, then traveling to my finger tips. Afterwards, I did experience a calm, a relief. My therapist said "The body never forgets"

I'll quote from EMDR Institute, Inc. "There is no indication that EMDR will cause seizers. One client reported that her EMDR experiece made her later seizures more managable"

Despite the above claim, I'll not be engaging in EMDR therapy, since seizuring.
There is much information out there yet to be digested. However, I think this is an interesting topic worthy of dialouge. Can EMDR therapy benefit those diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy of which emotional tramau could be the cause?

Always Laurie

[Bernard]

Emotional trauma stored in the body