EMDR with post traumatic stress disorder – Sexual abuse on ship continuously for seven days

This is a case history of a 34 year old married Indian Man, working as a Captain on a ship, who came with symptoms of intrusive flash backs, extreme pain in the jaw, excessive vomiting and insomnia for 3 months. He came with symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which were present since 3 months. He had to be lifted by two family members to come to my clinic, as he couldn’t walk on his own. He had been sexually abused by seven men on the ship; this barbaric act continued for eight nights. He then was threatened that he will be killed if he asks for help. The ship docked after 3 days and he flew down to India in a bad shape and after 1 month started exhibiting symptoms of chronic PTSD. He also mentioned that he was contemplating suicide everyday as he couldn’t take the emotional and physical pain anymore. It was difficult to start EMDR protocol, as he would refuse to maintain eye contact with me. But with help of his family and using the resource work along with psycho education I started EMDR. EMDR tools were applied to help get rid of his horrendous traumas and it was instrumental in making his life normal again. We worked piece by piece on all the disturbing memories as well as future fears he had developed that he won’t be able to work again. Stabilization techniques and lots of resource work through EMDR protocols were used to avoid any kind of abreactions. I am proud to say that this man is back on ship with no symptoms of PTSD or Depression. He is leading a very normal life, as if this incident never happened.

Conference

English

Seema Hingorrany

Hingorrany, S. (2014, January). EMDR with post traumatic stress disorder ? Sexual abuse on ship continuously for seven days. In EMDR for offenders/perpetrators/violence (Atara Sivan, Chair). Presentation at the 2nd EMDR Asia International Conference, Manila, The Philippines