By Susan Packrood, LCSW
EMDRIA Member in Sugarland, TX
I wanted to share with you all a great moment in therapy that happened today…so we can all remember what a wonderful therapy EMDR is.
I have been working with an 11 year old boy for almost a year regarding a bullying and sexual abuse incident that happened to him by a 15 year old boy and his friends. This is a verbally expressive boy who cried often and was very humiliated by the incident. Within a couple of months we had done a safe place installation many times and had begun to work on the assault with EMDR.
He had a very clear memory and image of his safe place. But after Christmas he took off a couple of months and didn’t return until it was close to the trial date. He was acting out badly at school and at home and we spent most of the last two months trying to contain that behavior and doing family therapy due to lots of chaos and his acting out with parents.
Today he came in smiling and seemed to be a foot taller due to pride. He told me he had given his impact statement today to the judge and the boy had been found guilty. He said, “The funniest thing happened…I was scared and I started to read my statement and was shaking and really scared, then I took a really deep breath and all those things about being safe came flooding over me that we had done with the tappers and I raised my head and looked at the perp, finished reading the statement and got back to my old self.” His demeanor, affect and even his physical stature had changed.
Thanks Francine….I feel so lucky to have been part of this child’s journey and the EMDR community.
