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Stumped
Client is 13 year old female with history of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse by father over a period of six years from early childhood. Father does not have access to client. Client received information about ART and has stated she wants to do ART however she consistently reports no sensations regardless of what I have tried. I am thinking she may be dissociated if she is actually seeing her seen, or she is not seeing her scene. I’ve never had a client where I could not find a way to help them resolve blocks. I have several thoughts about what may be happening including client feeling too unsafe with her feelings, to wanting to retain her pain and anger to use against her father. Mother disclosed at the last session that other therapists have given up saying client is not ready to process her trauma. Client has history of suicide attempts, self injury, fighting, enuresis, being bullied at school, and other symptoms common to trauma. Any ideas on how to use ART to create a sense of safety for doing ART? Other thoughts?
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4 Replies
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I’m sure you have tried many things so this might not be helpful…but have her notice when she is having any small positive sensation in her body and show her how to do the EMs at home when she catches herself feeling any positive body sensation. She can imagine spreading this feeling over her body. This might open the door to further sensation.
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I’ve had two client’s with this. I’m very curious how to help a client process the lack of sensations too.
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Yup I have had clients who either don’t report much sensation or none at all. I thought it might be that they feel unsafe feeling anything. I have clients do somatic exercises at home if they can. One client is highly hypervigilant with multiple traumas from childhood to adulthood. She lives in her head a lot and could talk about the emotions she experienced but had no sensation (just a bit of anxiety in her chest). We went through the basic script and she did cry after going over the bridge with her younger selves. (I just have the basic training).
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I am new to the IS-ART group and am looking at old questions to gain insight. This post is from November, so I am curious… What did you end up doing with this client?