What's your earliest memory?

[Ankh]

What type of therapy did you go through? Was it exposure and desensitization (awful name).

I have no idea of what the name of this therapy was. I was told that it was specifically designed for people with complex post traumatic stress disorders. I went through events/memories of the past traumatic events, using "I" word, like it was happening now. For instance: "I am in my room. This and that is happening..." Then I was asked to describe my feelings, using "I" form again. For instance: "I am feeling guilty and ashamed of my self when this and that is happening". Do you know the name of this therapy?

I work with PTSD and chronic trauma clients using EMDR.

That's wonderful, rie! (Although I have no idea of what EMDR is. =)) You do a fantastic job/service and it's needed! I have only good things to say about my therapy process. It made to realize how hurt I was and how much it made me to suffer, every day. It was the start towards the spiritual awakening. And I can not thank enough all those people who helped me and was involved in my healing process. My doctor, my psychiatrist and my psychologist.

Thank you for doing what you do, rie!

Trauma impacts the way in which we view ourselves and our world, thus creating a sort of distorted, erroneous or skewed perception of self and interpretation of the world. The trauma event is stored, locked, and unprocessed; a protective mechanism to prevent total psychological deterioration. The unprocessed (not examined and worked through... not fully understood & accepted) memory then gets connected to other memories we retain, like a complex web of a spider. It's a bit like a virus that infects other memories and self-understanding. It impacts the way we feel, think, act, interact with others, etc. We try to process the locked memories thru our natural healing mechanism -dreams- but we are not sufficiently able to do so, thus the nightmares.

So traumatic memories changes the way we see ourselves, our world, how we interpret things, how we connect various events in our lives, and how we respond to the world.

I don't know such things. You are the expert in this one.

But it doesn't sound completely wrong to me. What I do today is to process dreams if they feel significant, and I meditate.

In EMDR we start with a traumatic image and allow the mind to 'wander'... so people recall images, feelings, thoughts, sensations, past memories... and allow the brain to 'just do its self-healing thing'. We use instruments to stimulate both sides of the brain to quicken processing. When treatment is successful, we'll find that the original traumatic image has less emotional charge and we change the way we view ourselves and how we view the world.

What kind of instruments do you use to stimulate both sides of the brain to quicken the process?

What my psychologist did is to, when full memory of traumatic event has been recalled and accessed, asked me if I could see this situation from my current perspective and current point of view? For instance, if I as a child was feeling guilt and ashamed of myself while being physically abused, he asked me to return to my current self and understand that guilt, and if it was really something to be guilty and ashamed about? Then he asked me to look at myself from another self's perspective. What if what happened to me, happened to some one else, what would my emotions then be? Because usually we are more harsh towards ourselves than others. If the same thing happens to another self, then we feel deepest compassion, while being unable to give the same compassion and understanding towards ourselves.

Benign early memories, as mentioned in earlier post, the accuracy doesn't matter. It won't matter if the event never occurred or if it did. There is ample information in the memory itself to be used as a tool for understanding self.

I agree.

@ Monica: mine too! My two earliest memories are heavy. Memories are powerful calling for healing tho. Used creatively it may yield gold

Even the most unhappy of experiences, shall we say, which seem to occur in the Catalyst of the adept, seen from the viewpoint of the spirit, may, with the discrimination possible in shadow, be worked with until light equaling the light of brightest noon descends upon the adept and positive or service-to-others illumination has occurred.

Aahhh..... Raaa...