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Ehh, kind of. But at the same time, EMDR works. So revisiting it in a very particular way can help. However, I concede that there's kind of a hammer and nail
by chermi 1y ago
Ehh, kind of. But at the same time, EMDR works. So revisiting it in a very particular way can help.
However, I concede that there's kind of a hammer and nail problem in therapy. They learn about how much trauma and childhood experience effects a person and tend to laser focus on that because they feel confident doing so. I think there's a certain unhealthines to spending too much time dwelling on the past. Up to some level it's ok, but there should be at least equal focus on the present, future, and agency+self-confidence+self-discovery. Whereas a typical client would not be unreasonable to feel more like a victim given the focus on past experiences and traumas, which naturally reinforces a past-oriented victim mindset. Meanwhile, what most people need is a sense of being able to make things better now and work toward a better future, and practical tools to do so (agency).
Of course, for severe cases, you should probably focus on dealing with the trauma and get the client to a more stable state before taking off the coddling gloves.
- taeric 1y agoI would have to take more time to read up on Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The wikipedia intro to it isn't fully favorable, sadly. And agreed that "severe" cases are almost certainly special cases that should be treated as such. PTSD would almost certainly always qualify as severe? But the idea that people have "in the womb" trauma just feels patently silly.
- 47282847 1y agoFor an extensive critical review on research on prenatal trauma (“in the womb”) and theories around it, see Philipp Ployés “The Prenatal Theme in Psychotherapy”, available on libgen. Especially in the past 20 years with improved ultrasound, you can view a lot of what is going on inside, and reason about it. Of course there is no way to fully prove it, but the scientific consensus definitely is that factors like stress of the mother or substance abuse have a long-lasting and measurable negative effect on the child.
- taeric 1y agoStress of mother and substance abuse is very different from things like "cord wrapped around you." Similarly, some people have the cord literally cut off circulation and such. That is different, as well. Thanks for the link!
- 47282847 1y ago“Cord wrapped around you” can be seen in ultrasound and you can deduce level of stress from amount of movement/lack of movement of fetus. They can be seen to react to outside stimuli from very early on. Agree that it sounds questionable at first to come from symptoms 30 years later to some prebirth trauma situation but it’s a large field of study and not unheard of that in treatment symptoms find relief once a plausible story has been identified. The goal of therapy is not to hunt for historical facts but to find relief. Maybe it’s a made up story, but if it works, who cares? That being said it’s a large and interesting field of serious study, and “trauma from cord wrapped around neck” a real thing that ideally receives treatment closely after birth.