Posted by Toby on February 25, 1999, at 14:16:52
In reply to Re: Is Toby still with us (I hope)?/EMDR?'s, posted by Chris A. on February 12, 1999, at 15:16:52
I have not heard of medications causing memories to surface that were previously buried. Some medications do cause nightmares and an increase in dreaming. If sexual or any other kind of abuse occurred in childhood and either the memories themselves or the coping mechanisms that were learned at the time to deal with them have outlived their usefulness and are now causing difficulties and distress, it is not generally useful to ignore them (old psych saying, "more of the same does not lead to improvement"). Trying to deal with past issues is almost always difficult, but if it is causing even more dysfunction in your life than before counseling, you and your therapist may need to look at improving your coping skills and safety issues before dealing head on with the traumas. EMDR can certainly speed up the process and a good EMDR therapist will insure that you have addressed these safety issues, will help you improve your sense of self worth and coping skills and whatever else may help you deal with the past before actually tackling the past. If you never had memories of abuse before the medication-induced nightmares, I would be wary of automatically coming to the conclusion that the events in the nightmare are real unless you have other evidence or other independent memories of this (just a caution).
poster:Toby
thread:2918
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990201/msgs/3229.html