Does Joel have to tell Gail what happened for therapy to work? (A look at EMDR therapy).
Added 2025-04-22 09:22:27 +0000 UTCAn off plan bonus video for you all! Hope you find it interesting.
Link to reference : The Development and Uses of the “Blind to Therapist” EMDR Protocol
Comments
I mentioned my experience with EMDR in the last live stream and realized I may have unintentionally characterized a negative view on EMDR itself. While it was not helpful for the issues I was working on, my husband has seen tremendous benefit with EMDR therapy. His sessions focused on traumatic events and themes he experienced in childhood. He had at least a year of talk therapy with his provider before beginning EMDR sessions, and so went into it with a foundation of trust. They were able to strategically order the focus of sessions as well, starting with “smaller” events and working up to more difficult ones. I’ve heard you speak on that topic in other videos. I am very lucky in my life experience; as far as I understand it, I’ve never had to endure an event that would qualify as traumatic in the clinical definition. I’ve struggled to understand what that line is and have felt differently in the past. I have found your content tremendously helpful in expanding my education in several areas and feel better equipped for supporting my partner. Circling back to the topic of this video, a friend of mine received EMDR therapy after surviving a near-fatal car accident. The transformation she described blew my mind - banishing nightmares and conquering a paralyzing fear of getting back behind the wheel. Unlike my husband, she had never worked with the practitioner prior to the session. She mentioned that they hardly even spoke about the accident itself. That still seems so crazy to me, our brains are fascinating!
Sarockinon
2025-04-24 21:03:51 +0000 UTCWow, thanks for sharing that ! This is such an interesting methodology! I’m going to geek out ( and wait for the video in the other channel ) to know more about it !
Carol Grein Ericson
2025-04-23 09:32:16 +0000 UTCYeah exactly, and its that purposeful dissociation and avoidance of the memories that maintains the symptoms. That is why the EMDR blind to therapist protocol is so helpful.
Lenny
2025-04-22 10:46:37 +0000 UTCI think we have to take into account context. It’s not a real life context. We are talking a situation where there are very few choices of how to access anything that might be beneficial at all. Yes in an ideal world you wouldn’t have Gail as the therapist. But this isn’t an ideal world. It’s also not a hidden fact that Joel killed her husband. It sounds like they were both there. Joel would have known that when he first approached her about seeking help, so he made that decision to engage also. We also don’t know that Gail has lost her purpose - that’s an assumption. What we do know is she is struggling to cope with the loss of her husband, and she has also aired her difficulties with Joel. It wasn’t a random disclosure, it was said in a lets acknowledge the elephant in the room here and get it out in the open - that’s a well known therapeutic technique if something relational is potentially getting in the way. She also modelled how to speak about something difficult. Of course, it could all be nefarious, but they are 5 sessions in and Joel seems to be getting something out of it because he is returning. I personally think (outside of the fact that this is a Tv show so might have plot twists etc) that it’s quite a rigid and inflexible view to hold that she is up to no good based on the context and what we have seen so far. By this I mean up to no good to indicate she is purposely harming Joel. Could she also be using that session as a way to process her own trauma wounds? Potentially. Is that the main function of this relationship? Maybe, maybe not. Is it also a potential by product, again probably. But countertransference is a known thing, is common and should be considered - it pops up in many therapeutic relationships. The difficulty here is that Gail doesn’t have her own therapist as a way to unpick that. But again, she doesn’t have any choice given the context. edit to add - if you havent heard of countertransference before then it means : Countertransference in therapy refers to a therapist's emotional reactions and projections towards a client, often stemming from the therapist's own past experiences and unresolved issues. It's the therapist's emotional response to the client, which can be both positive and negative, and can significantly impact the therapeutic relationship if not recognized and managed.
Lenny
2025-04-22 10:32:01 +0000 UTCOn Patreon i'm subscribed to 2 channels, yours and another therapist- the first i subscribed to... i had a deep conversation with the first Patreon therapist about Gail, about her (maybe dark self, if she had enough, or if she was planning some revenge on Joel) the therapist said: "I’m worried Gail has nothing to lose, is seen as a wise and important person, but has so many scars. When a therapist loses sight of their purpose, the time with clients becomes about the therapist healing themselves through their clients…..not good at all, that’s really messed up from a therapist perspective….so I’m worried she’s not ultimately concerned about Joel because she shouldn’t have brought up what she did if it’s in the best interest of Joel" " When a therapist loses sight of their purpose, the time with clients becomes about the therapist healing themselves through their clients"... that line was wow to me This can be true yeah?
eleana UwU ShadowWolf
2025-04-22 10:08:14 +0000 UTCquite true... my sibling has PTSD for YEARS now and they told NO ONE what happened to them, not to their psychotherapist, not to their psychiatrist all these years and not even to me, (my sibling loves me more than anyone in this world and i them and they trust me with their darkest secrets, but not what happened to cause them ptsd)... but i always have these words from my sibling: "you are the only one in this world that really understands me and i love you the most, no one will ever be close to me as you are, nobody ever understood me as much as you" and whenever i get these texts my heart melts because i love my sibling more than anyone in this world even if we have 10 years difference... i am always there, even if they don't want to talk about their trauma experience, they will tell me WHY they can't do it... from what my sibling told me, when they have the memories of the traumatic event, they make their brain instantly shut down (purposely) so they don't panic or re-living the memory.. they purposely dissociate to the point they don't understand some words that might trigger the ptsd panic response... but i know my sibling, i have 2-3 "scenarios"(is that the right word in English?) of what might have happened to cause them ptsd but i don't ask, i respect the privacy and my little marshmallow is only 21 years old and is so protective of me, more than i am to them.
eleana UwU ShadowWolf
2025-04-22 09:57:21 +0000 UTC
