Hello Jennifer,

Yes, EMDR can be dangerous when the person administering it is not a trained therapist. That includes attempting to use EMDR on yourself. Frankly, you won't induce an IADC. There's too much involved a process for someone to do it even if you try.

However, beyond that, imagine that your mind is like a big house with many rooms. It grew over time and kept growing as you grew. The people in the rooms are all different parts of you. In the living room, where you receive guests and have wonderful conversations, your awake consciousness is in charge. That's what everyone knows as you and that's the part of you they talk to. It is pretty open to others.

In other rooms are you, but a different part of you, sometimes from a time in your childhood; the little child you were still lives there. Behind one door is the 10 year old who felt mom and dad didn't think you were capable. That's the room whose door you may open when you're very disappointed or feel rejected or feel unloved. The little child in that room takes over and you're very upset and afraid, just as you were at six or at ten.

Throughout your adulthood, you open different doors to these different parts of you when the circumstances take you to those doors. You are at your best as an adult when you're in the living room, but if someone makes you feel inferior or afraid, you may open the door and let the little child out that is still feeling fearful. You cry and become upset just as that little child who you were before did. The hurt or frightened children you were are stil in some of those rooms.

Some people were abused or otherwise mistreated as children. Those children are still in the rooms of their house. When a door opens to let one of these children out, the person becomes distraught and irrationally fearful. The abused child takes over and is feeling abused again, just as she did when 12 years old.

As an adult, you stay in the living room most of the time. You meet people there and carry on your life as an adult. The other rooms are locked. That's good in a sense. Your mind is protecting itself. It doesn't want those hurt, scared parts of you to come out when you're in the living room with people you know and love.

EMDR breaks down the walls. It unlocks those doors and lets out the children you were that have been locked away. Whatever the worst thing was that you have locked away in those rooms will unlock first in EMDR. If you were abused and you were keeping that distraught little child locked away so you could live your life, EMDR will break the lock and tear down the walls. That little child will come out and take over the living room. You will become that abused little child again and feel all the feelings. As a result, it can be very dangerous for you as an adult being consumed by these childhood feelings you don't know what to do with.

The good news is that with an EMDR therapist's help, you can unlock those doors one by one, let the frightened, dysfunctional little children out, and help them become a healthy part of you as an adult. EMDR can help eliminate the fear, emotional breakdown, and despondence by bringing the child out and consoling it, giving it the adult's perspective you now have.

If someone did EMDR on you who couldn't help you cope with the troubled children in you who would take over your adult life, you could have serious problems. You would have no way of controlling that child; that's why the room was locked. That's why we advise everyone not to try EMDR without a trained therapist present.

Craig