Yesterday I tried to get everything else on my list done before I did my writing or editing. All I ended up doing is one task and then flitting the read of the day away on who knows what. So I got no writing done and no editing done and still most of my list remained unfinished.

Today I jumped right into it and knocked out another scene in OUR DAUGHTER. It focused on a psychotherapy technique known as EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Now that’s about $40 worth of words. Apparently this is gaining ground in the fight against PTSD of all sorts of situations.

I watched a few sessions on Youtube and even skipped through a video diary of a girl who did not have much luck with the therapy. The more she talked the more crazy she sounded – talking about her different “splits,” naming them The Monster and The Caretaker, etc. Bottom line, though, she was unable to get the quick results from EMDR supposedly because she had a mechanism in her mind that would not allow her to process traumatic events/memories. She recounted that the therapist said if you grow up in an environment where you learn to block out abuse, etc then as an adult you have a mechanism developed that will stop you from processing those emotions/memories, etc. She called it a tick that would not allow her to finish the eye movements required.

Then I looked up on Google if EMDR is just a legitimized version of Scientology because they share many of the same “code words” like “cleared.” Really, the whole concept is very much like Scientology. Apparently there is much debate over EMDR, but it is getting results so the scientific community has – for one reason or another – at least halfheartedly, embraced it.

It actually worked out well for me, since, whatever therapy my character was going through, it couldn’t work. This video from the “split personality” girl worked great because it gave me a reason for why the therapist would think it isn’t working, even though there is an entirely different “mechanism” keeping her from “clearing” the memory.

I really love this part of writing.