EMDR Victims Page

This narrative is by Dave Ross from Canada

I am writing this note to support your website as I too, had a horrible experience with EMDR. I contacted a lawyer in regards to suing them [something I've never done before in my life], searched high and low for answers, was, in my opinion, permanently scarred from my exposure to this process, and also received less than cordial help from Dr. Francine Shapiro, the founder of EMDR. To explain this last reference: I was so disturbed and "out of my mind" from the EMDR experience that I phoned the California institute from Canada, which is where I live, desperately searching for assistance. After being told by the institute that the technique was most likely "improperly applied", I emailed Dr. Shapiro and told her what pain I was in and what my overall experience was. She returned my email with a callous and terse, "You didn't process it enough." I then replied to her with something in the nature of, "If this is the kind of response you give to a person in pain then I can see, by your obvious lack of compassion, how you would be attracted to a method such as this." But, I digress.

In order to keep this a decent length I will try and stick to the main points, but it has been six years since my experience and as I have never been the same since then it's hard to contain some of my feelings. Simply put, and without melodrama, my life was destroyed in many respects since the day I had EMDR. I lost my fiancee, most all of my friends and my relations have never been the same with anyone or anything. I seem to have been put in a complete and continuous state of shock and hyper anxiety. People whom had known me for years couldn't figure out what happened to me.

To give you some perspective on myself, I was no stranger to therapy. I had cried during sessions in the past because of sadness or hurt, I railed about angers I felt and I also felt love and caring towards people. I say this in order to give the reader a sense that it wasn't just that I was unable to cope with my feelings. I had many positive relations in my life, some for twenty years or more, but I was going to see a psychologist mainly around my profession - teaching - as I was struggling with it and often felt drained and frustrated.

So, after meeting this therapist and after a few months of boring conversations with him he suggested the EMDR, even though there was no traumatic incident in my life I was trying to come to terms with. He was very interested in my doing it and I must say I was most reluctant - and these were concerns I made very clear to him. He pushed some literature on me and he wanted to schedule a session. I explained my reluctance but agreed in principle. When I arrived for the first session I had a gut feeling about it, so refused. During our next therapy session he badgered me about it some more, so I asked him, "Will this make me more in touch with my feelings - as if it does I'm all for it? If it doesn't then I don't want to be a part of it." He pushed more articles at me; he was very gung-ho, to say the least. Never allow yourself to be pushed into anything, as it was my responsibility to say "No!" - and I didn't - as it was his responsibility to respect my feelings - which he never did. I can still feel myself get angry as I write this last statement. The worst day of my life was about to begin.

We went ahead.

After I was finished I literally tripped out of his office into the elevator and have been disassociated [the clinical term I've heard for my experience] since then. I could barely talk, I have been in a constant state of arousal 24 hours a day for years and years, I could not sit still and was upset with everything and everyone around me and eventually pushed away those who cared about me and those who grew tired of my talking about my horrible experience. No one could understand the pain I was going through or the hypnotic kind of state the EMDR put me in. If I heard a word similar to the EMDR or saw a building like the one it occurred in I would "zone out" for days at a time. Certain colors set me off. I mean, I was nuts! I went to seven or eight different therapists after that, trying to get some help, to escape this dreamlike haze I seemed to be in. My body had turned absolutely rigid! My chest felt like it was exploding. Now, I was not like this before I went in there, trust me. I wasn't the happiest person on this earth but I had great friends, good relationships, pride, as well as a good deal of confidence and self-respect for myself. I've always felt what my girlfriend said summed up my horrendous time the best when I went back to the "Dr." who administered this technique. She said, "Tell him to give me my boyfriend back." It's like I wasn't "there" anymore, I was out of my mind. And then we began to fight like crazy after the experience. After a year she eventually couldn't put up my continual struggles anymore, and understandably, left.

My life was ruined at that point and has never returned to normal. Not even for a minute. From the bottom of my soul and heart I tell you that. Maybe God has a reason and I will eventually learn why I've suffered in this way, but that experience was the worst thing I have ever been through in my life. Ever. And I'm not some sheltered guy. I left home after high school, supported myself with a myriad of jobs and had many diverse experiences; I traveled parts of the world and also have seven years of post-secondary education. I have felt pain and pleasure and like to think of myself of having some level of courage. But trust me, what went on there was wrong. People fooling around with things they don't have a clue about. Messing up people's minds and then saying, "Oh, it must be your fault."

To backtrack, after the session I complained to the therapist that administered the technique, he sent me to someone else and eventually to someone else. I tried a kind of primal therapy, anti-depressants...nothing worked. I could not connect with my feelings; I could not feel like myself, I could not relax.... I was in a constant state of panic and anxiety. It was hell. Absolute hell. It never stopped, not even in the middle of the night. I contacted the administrator of the counselling that provided these "services" to our school board and he barely supported my feelings. I eventually informed him I would go ahead with a lawsuit, but in the end did not, mainly because I realized how hard it would be to prove. I'm still considering it as the expert in Vancouver in EMDR told me he thought it was inappropriately applied, but he was also a good friend with the man who did this, so would he have testified of his friend's incompetence in court? Possibly not, and neither my lawyer nor I could afford the risk. So, he got away free.

I've had some minor progress in the last two to three years from a therapist [who probably would testify to the technique being inappropriately administered], so at moments have had some hope. Yet, I'm not the same. I'm still "wound up" like a ball, am reclusive most all of the time and have strained relations with most everyone. People that do show me some concern I have a hard time reciprocating to. People who used to know me don't know what's wrong with me, and I'm afraid I can't really tell them, either. All I know is it's been a very sad experience for me. Six-and-a-half years of it. And that's wrong.

Well, those are the nuts and bolts of my story. I've regretted this experience more than any one thing I've done in my whole life as I don't really know if I'll ever "come back". As I said, one of the most painful things for me was that I couldn't seem to feel anything; it was as if someone made my body horribly rigid like a zombie. How sad and how mad it made me and still does. I keep trying to work through the 'feeling' of it though hoping for some success.

I will stop here as sometimes it's scary writing or talking about it as it brings the experience back, but I've often wished there were a group of people I could talk to who also went through the same thing so we could listen and support each other. No one else understands how nutty and surreal the whole thing was. It's made me so sad and helpless over the years.

As a final note I'm so glad that you've done what you have in terms of suing Dr. Shapiro and talking about your situation. They take no responsibility and have no accountability; you at least, stood up for yourself.

Best regards and good luck to all that suffered.

David Ross [Rosenbaum]

DECombs@attbi.com