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Comment by theGnuMe | Hacker News Reader

EMDR will help if you’ve not tried it. I am assuming you have though since you mention complex ptsd.

I’ve been lucky enough to suffer from both covert and overt depression. Behind my anger is sadness and that is depression. We learn a lot of this from our parents who probably suffered similarly themselves which is a form of chronic ptsd.

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Similar experience here. EMDR with a practitioner who knows to apply technique was life changing for me. Shedding decades of stress, anxiety and unprocessed baggage via this technique has opened the way for further self improvement.

For anyone who has tried CBT or other traditional therapy and hasnt seen results it could be worth looking into. YMMV as I know people close to me who have dealt with similar early-life trauma and have been better served by other techiques

Yeah it’s a great way to reprogram the brain.

I got close to nothing from EMDR.

The only thing that works for me right now is running, but it's working fairly well so hey.

similar, any type of therapy has been a waste of time and money for me. Exercise on the other hand just makes me feel good.

Exercise is a long term solution for sure. The act of doing vs thinking can be liberating.

Exercise is essentially the same as EMDR (bilateral movement) plus heroin (endorphins as in endogenous morphine peptides). Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise, otherwise you too will be a common churchgoer.

Weird claims you are making.

Not that weird. Factually correct.

EMDR is fantastic for PTSD and helps with some C-PTSD, but for a lot of people with C-PTSD, it only retraumatises, and a lot of EMDR practitioners seem unaware of this. Internal family systems can be a better choice for C-PTSD sufferers.

I’m firmly in the “retraumatizes” camp.

EMDR felt like magic when dealing with the aftermath of a car accident, but sent me into a tailspin for any subject even tangentially related to my past.

YMMV.

Weird. That sounds rare.

Not as rare as you might think. EMDR is not widely accepted or recommended as treatment for persistent/long term complex trauma, when it is, such treatments are modified to fit a broader treatment regimen. Even then, it continues to be a controversial form of treatment for trauma.

This isn’t to say that people should not consider EMDR, but if they do, don’t just seek out an EMDR practitioner and expect a quick fix, but ensure the practitioner is trauma-aware and skilled in adapting treatment to the specific needs of patients with trauma histories, and it’s part of a broader treatment plan.

EMDR is well accepted and not controversial.

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/docs/mhp_veterans...

You're confusing CPTSD and PTSD. Your link talks about EMDR for PTSD, not CPTSD. The post you're replying to is talking about CPTSD. They can be quite different.

As the sibling pointed out, C-PTSD and PTSD are not the same thing. When EMDR is incorporated for C-PTSD, there are some aspects that are modified based on the trauma history, and some cases where EMDR cannot be attempted until dissociation issues have been addressed.

It is this need for modification and the prerequisite work (sometimes the long/hard kind of work) that makes it less clear-cut as a treatment for this form of trauma.

The EMDR practitioner I worked with made me aware of this as did my regular therapist, and most C-PTSD-aware EMDR info you can find online will also explain this distinction and the necessary modifications/prerequisites.

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