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General Concept

I think the big picture in our experience is that EMDR is/was like…an intensifier for the kind of headspace/internal system interaction processing work that a lot of systems do naturally, at least a little, especially if they have decent internal communication. This has both upsides and downsides/areas to be cautious about.

A lot of EMDR pre-work (often called “resourcing”) is about making sure you have a good toolbox of “mental tricks/techniques” to be able to handle unexpected intense emotions, feelings, and/or imagery etc that often comes up when you get into trying to work with traumatic stuff. This is in my opinion very important, and something your therapist should take at least a few sessions to talk with you about even if you already have good tools for it already, just to make sure they know your strategies and you’re all on the same page. Also super common and normal to spend some time developing extra ones if needed—stuff like “the box” for temporarily containing crisis emotions when needed, having a mental “safe space” that you can come back to, etc. Also, EMDR specifically tends to often be a little rigid/scripted in the types of visualizations and metaphors you’re “supposed” to use, but in my opinion a good therapist should be flexible enough to adapt to equivalent images/techniques you may already have (like, “imagine you’re viewing the traumatic memory on a movie screen, or out the window of a train going through a tunnel” is a common instruction; if, say, your headspace has a lot of fantasy elements and it makes more internal sense to be viewing the memory via…scrying in a dish or something, your therapist should be down with you doing that instead, if you want to).

As for the sessions themselves, a big thing we don’t hear articulated a lot is that, in our experience  and that of some other folks we know, EMDR has a tendency of being…like, sneakily intense: It doesn’t necessarily hit you all at once in the session, which may just feel like “ok, that was Some Therapy Work but I’m chill”, but then over the rest of the day and maybe even the next few days, it’s not uncommon to keep feeling a lot of emotional intensity/vulnerability, having more intense “internal conversations and/or realizations”, etc. For this reason, EMDR is generally supposed to start with a very mild memory-to-process, like 4-5 out of 10 max.

Notes of Caution and Stuff to Keep In Mind

Especially for folks who already heavily dissociate from emotional trauma, it’s super easy to think you’re “going too easy” only to find that the memory has a lot more emotional baggage than you realized—really go easy on yourself when you start, EMDR is like psychology power tools and you absolutely can hurt yourself. (We’ve heard from plenty of systems who had bad therapists who did not adequately support them in doing EMDR, and absolutely fucked them over by starting too big and retraumatizing the hell out of them— this isn’t meant as fear-mongering, especially if you really like and trust your therapist, but just genuine “hey, EMDR can be very volatile stuff, which is part of why it can be so helpful, but also means that it’s important to not skip out on the safety precautions and self-care”.) What this means in practice is often stuff like: (our recommendations at least) - trying to schedule breaks/easy days immediately after - possibly getting someone to drive you home, especially if you know you’re going after a Big Thing, because the dissociation hangover immediately after can be pretty real - start with a memory that feels "too easy", and scale up if a week later it still felt trivial/like you’re fully over it, because it’s way easier to ramp up than try to do damage control.

Our personal experience, in tl:dr form, was that it felt like the core of the technique was really useful for us, and mirrored some of the most useful instances of self-processing we’d had before while also kind of serving as a “shortcut” to it—but, it was pretty intense and we didn’t really like/fit well with the therapists who we were working with at the time, which is why we stopped (didn’t want to keep doing an emotionally intense thing with folks we didn’t trust).

Finally, a bit about EMDR and "maybe I'm plural but I'm not sure, and/or may not have great in-system communication": yeah, this is a case to be especially slow and careful, for all the aforementioned reasons; what my instinct/recommendation would be in those cases is to: 1) make sure you learn a lot of resourcing techniques 2) try to check in with yourself(s) frequently and with compassion/intent-to-collaborate, "ask the inside of your head how it's feeling" and even if you're not sure whether the "reply" was just your own thoughts or a headmate, listen and try to engage with/respect those responses and emotions 3) if you start getting warning signs/back-off signals/sudden intense feelings, listen to them and lighten up, pause the session if you need to, do some self care etc, even (especially) if you don't know why you felt that way and it seems 'odd/random', and really you're super curious about what's going on and just want to figure it out. Like...you and the inside of your head and/or other system members are trying to navigate a complicated D&D maze together, in the dark, and you each only have part of the map--so you have to work together and trust each other, especially listening to warning signals even when your "part of the map" doesn't show anything to worry about there. And the more you work together and trust each other, the better everything gets, including therapy work.

When it's "Death By A Thousand Papercuts"-type Trauma Instead

If you're not sure where to start because there aren't a lot of obvious "Big Bad Memories" that feel like they adequately explain the issues you're having, some recommendations:

-> First, note that "no Big Bad Memories are immediately coming to mind, idk" is super common in systems and also in CPTSD, way more than I think most folks realize, so know that you're not alone and also that it doesn't mean you don't necessarily have stuff deserving of help and support.

-> So yeah, there's kinda two things imo you can try. The first is, if your therapist is on the more flexible side, you can try doing EMDR with either "this specific memory wasn't too bad, but it's representative of an ongoing pattern or theme that wasn't great" (say, loneliness at school or something, and you pick a specific lunchtime memory, which wasn't really That Bad in the moment, but you were kinda sad and/or upset about it and it feels representative of the overall trend you're trying to process/heal). Or you can try just doing the EMDR process on the theme itself, at the abstract level, and see what comes up--again, I'd really recommend starting with a much lower-stakes issue/theme than you think you need, just because it's really easy to underestimate, especially for systems and other folks whose brains dissociate a lot. (And especially if you know your system has episodic amnesia--e.g. event-amnesia/blackout amnesia--as well as emotional amnesia.)

Content Note Heads-Up: the following fictional anecdote describes an experience of switching in a fair bit of detail, so take that into account if reading that sort of thing makes you switchy! Fronting. Headmate Red is fronting: he's got control over the body, he's experiencing his internal self-narrative in first person (presumably), and if there were no other headmates nearby at the moment, his experience would essentially be interchangeable with a singlet's. Red then gets a little mental ping: the verbal thought "ooo, hey can I front for the social event coming up?" that feels separate from Red and doesn't feel like his thought, and instead, it has the characteristic 'internal voice'/vibe/'internal direction' of Blue, one of Red's headmates. Red thinks about it and decides he's fine with that, so he thinks "yeah sure, why don't you come hang out in co-con while I get ready" back 'towards' his internal sense of Blue.

Co-Con. As Red gets stuff together for the social event, he can 'feel' Blue come up next to him into co-con: even while he is thinking about other things, like the stuff he needs for the event, he also has the persistent mental sense of Blue being 'mentally nearby', and is aware of more verbal thoughts, nonverbal emotions, and simulated sensory-motor stuff (e.g. not only 'mental images' but also 'mental audio clips', kinesthetic 'echoes' of expressions and movements, phantom tactile sensations, etc) that feel like they're coming from Blue (they're "Blue-flavored", if you will), and together form a coherent mental dialogue with Red's own thoughts and emotions. For examaple, he might see mental images of Blue sitting backwards on a gamer chair in the Rainbow System's fronting room, feel little internal "kinesthetic echoes" of her idly tapping her heel against the chair leg, and hear her mental voice commenting on his style choices for the outfit he's putting together for them--and when he rolls his eyes at her teasing, he might feel her amusement, separate from his own emotions but still within his awareness. (Note: the "mental channels" through which this conversation might happen, if it would even be possible at all, could change a ton from system to system, especially for aphantasic systems, systems without headspaces, and systems without much/any internal communication ability at all! In this particular case, we're describing a hypothetical experience that has some key similarities with our own.)

Switching. After Red's finished his prep for the social, he and Blue decide to try to switch. He pulls up one of her favorite fronting-associated songs on their phone, and sees the mental image of Blue going over to their headspace's "fronting pilot rig" (a mental metaphor/mechanism that they've developed and/or discovered that helps them switch intentionally) as he stretches and puts on their headphones. As he relaxes and nods to the beat, letting his attention and 'mental hold' on their body loosen, he continues to feel and be aware of Blue's thoughts, emotions, and internal experience as she gets into the "pilot rig". Some or all of these thoughts may be "first-person POV" thoughts, from Blue's perspective, but/and Red is still aware of/witnessing them. He may start feeling internal-simulated-sensations of his own "headspace pilot rig" starting to metaphorically un-link from front. Also, he may start feeling the system's body starting to take on Blue's characteristic posture and resting expression instead of his.

:: Pause Button ::

Right now, just from this scenario as-written, is this system polyconscious or monoconscious? Is it possible to tell?

If, when they try to recall the memory of the events in this narrative, Blue and Red both "see" the same memory (let's say it's the narrative above, as-written), is this polyconscious or monoconscious? Is it possible to tell?

If polyconsciousness is having "a separate camera angle" on the events, wouldn't that require either Red or Blue being unable to remember/access some aspect of the "camera angle" of the other? Because otherwise, if Red is aware of Blue's 'camera angle' in addition to his own, and vice versa, isn't that....Effectively, isn't that the same as one camera angle that includes both their perspectives? Do the two "camera angles" have to be simultaneous in parallel, like split screens on a multiplayer game, or can they "go back and forth" rapidly like a movie cutting between different shots from different cameras? How does a system tell whether they have parallel screens vs one screen alternating showing different perspectives? If we take the original example of polyconsciousness as "POV: Headmate Red of the Rainbow System watching his headmate front while in co-con", what happens when Red is fronting the next day and tries to pull up the memories of what happened during that time? Does he only recall the events from his "backseat" perspective? Can Red remember anything from the first-person-POV of Blue, who was fronting at the time? Was Blue, at the time, aware of Red's POV? In first-person, like Red himself, or only in the 3rd person? Both? Can she recall Red's "first-person camera angle" on the memories, but only when she looks back at them later? If Red can only recall events from his "camera angle", that would mean that there's an amnesia barrier between his "backseat" memories and Blue's "driver's seat" memories, right?

The slightly longer version: 1) Let's say headmates Blue and Purple want to switch who's in front. If currently it's Blue; the first step is for Purple to come up to co-con as much as possible, and specifically tune in to awareness of the external world and their IRL body. 2) Next, while keeping a handle on that external awareness, Purple also grounds themself in their awareness of their own internal body map and position in space--we tend to do this via projection, so Purple would use a specific spot IRL as an "anchor" for their sense of self: (say, standing close behind their IRL body, feeling the mental sensation of the body pressed gently against their front, their own posture and internal proprioception, etc). This may be in a 3rd person POV, a 1rst person POV, or a mix of both! 3) Once this state is stable, now it's Blue's turn to take their awareness of their own sense of self, feeling where it is roughly centered around the IRL body's location but/and including any phantom limbs etc that may not fully "line up" with the body's outline. 4) Blue then takes their sense of self and "gets up" from their IRL body--if standing, step forward or to the side or whatever feels natural, if sitting, try "standing up and out" from your IRL body's position in space, so that now you're in a projected state. (Again, this may be in 1rst-person POV or 3rd-person POV or both, whatever works well for you). Then, Purple moves their sense of self forward into the space where Blue used to be--you may want to play around with this and whether it's easier for you to do it sequentially vs simultaneously. 5) Purple then lines up their own internal body map to roughly coincide with their body's IRL outline, and does their best to "reach into" the body's limbs, look through the body's eyes in 1rst-person POV, etc, kind of like putting on a jacket or linking up to an exosuit--feel free to play around with the mental metaphors to find one that feels right to you. 6) While Purple does this, it may be useful for Blue to "let go of some Brain RAM", if possible, so that Purple can use a bigger chunk of active cognitive processing. (If this concept doesn't translate for your particular system, don't worry too much about it).

Some people are assholes. That's a fact of life whether you're one or many, but it's harder to live with the assholes when they live inside your head. Maybe they hurt your body. Maybe they drive away your friends. Maybe they go on tirades about how awful you are. I could go on- there are a lot of ways to hurt people that you share a brain with, and all of them suck.

Headmates have reasons for hurting people. If they're lashing out at you or the people you care about, then they've got some idea or feeling driving that behavior. There are some common ones:

They're in pain. They're carrying rejected emotions, self-hate, or some other form of suffering and don't have the coping skills or outlets to handle it safely. Lashing out, hurting themselves, or causing other problems might drown out the pain, or it might project it out onto you. They may not even realize the pain they're causing belongs to them if they've buried it deeply enough. They just know that they feel better if they lash out.

They're frustrated and don't have a better way to process or express that.

They're responding to a trauma trigger. Something's happened that's called up the need to fight, flee, or otherwise do whatever it takes to deal with the situation. They might not know that it's a trauma response, or they might know but have no better way to deal with the need to act.

They're hiding something and hurting you is better than that thing being uncovered. Hurting people is a great way to discourage coming any closer to whatever they're hiding- if you poke the brain bear and it bites you, then you're eventually going to stop poking the brain bear.

They're avoiding something. It's easier to be a jerk for a quick rush of power than it is to admit that you feel powerless or alone.

It's also easier to think of yourself as inherently evil, bad, cruel, etc. than it is to admit that other people's decisions to hurt you weren't your fault.

They're bored and nothing else is any fun. They might not have hobbies, jobs to do, or much else to waste a day on. Getting a big reaction out of you is entertaining and free.

You're not going to pay attention to them if they don't hurt you. They might not have a place in your life, or their place might be conditional on doing whatever you want to do instead of what they want to do. If you've tried asking nicely, begging, screaming, manipulating, and whatever else it takes to get heard without any success, but being an asshole works, then you're going to keep being an asshole.

Your life sucks and they know it. The friends they're trying to drive away might be abusing you, codependent, or causing problems. Your family doesn't feel safe to be around. Your job is crushing you. Something has to change and you're not listening, so they've taken matters into their own hands regardless of the consequences. They're trying to help you, though it looks like they're hurting you because you don't have the context.

Someone they care about is being threatened (inside the system or outside), and they're doing whatever it takes to make the threat go away.

They hate themselves and believe that they deserve to be hurt. They might be taking it out on themselves and catching you in the crossfire, or they might be trying to goad you into hating them so that you hurt them and cause the pain that they think they deserve.

There are plenty of other reasons that someone in your system might be hurting you or others. If you can, ask them why they're doing what they're doing. They might tell you, or they might not, but it lets them know that you care what's bugging them. Keep checking on them from time to time, and they might open up more.

Sometimes You're the Asshole

It's easy to blame other people for hurting you, but sometimes they're being reasonable without your realizing it. You might be causing or perpetuating patterns in your system that hurt all of you, yourself included. Changing these patterns is more likely to stop your system from hurting you than almost any other action you could take.

If any of the following situations feel true, then you might want to consider whether your own behavior is contributing to patterns of pain and control in your system.

The others are only allowed to control your body when you give them permission, and they don't like this arrangement.

You know exactly what's wrong with the others and how to fix it, even if they think otherwise.

You are actively trying to kill, drive away, control, or get rid of the others, especially those that you don't like or don't want around.

The others aren't allowed to have friends, hobbies, or experiences for themselves. They're only allowed to hold beliefs that you agree with, and they can only act in ways that you approve of.

You might believe that limiting them is the best decision for your own safety, and it may be, but you don't place equal limits on your own behavior.

All of your spending money is yours. If the others spend any money, they're stealing from you.

You make major life changes that your headmates strongly dislike; their protests aren't important enough to affect the decision.

You regularly sell, donate, or destroy things that your system members bought or made.

Even moreso if you do this to punish them.

You do your best to ignore your headmates or convince them that they don't actually exist. You make a point of tuning them out, pushing them away, or trapping them inside.

The others claim that people in your life are actively hurting them. You maintain the relationships even if given concrete proof that these people are hurting your headmates.

If you see yourself in any of these situations, you're not a bad person. You're doing the best you can with what you've got. But doing these things makes it a lot more likely that your system is going to lash out in your direction, and you might benefit from trying to change your own behavior. Getting along better with your system makes it a lot easier to live your life, and making some space for the others' needs and wants helps with that.

It might be worth asking your system what they think about how you act and really listening to the answers- not blowing up if they're upset, but getting into a position where you can hear out the underlying needs and make a plan to do something about it together.

The Art of Being Nice

If someone in your head is hurting you, then you don't have to put up with their shit, but you also don't get to hurt them back. It's tempting sometimes. It can feel good. It can give you a sense of control or power over them, and it can feel like you're getting payback for what they've done to you. It might even scare them. But hurting them isn't going to make them stop hurting you. It's just going to make them think you deserve it, or it's going to drive them to hurt you worse in hopes you'll leave them alone, or lead them to lash out in hopes of re-establishing their "scary alter street cred". Hurt people hurt people, and attacking them back perpetuates the cycle.

You know what makes the assholes willing to change in the long run? Being nice to them.

I'm serious. Being nice to the asshole works. It can suck for a good while because they're going to keep being an asshole right back for a while, especially if they don't know how to handle people being nice to them, but it's the one thing that can get through to people. Yelling at them or locking them up in your head for hurting you won't fix any of the problems leading them to hurt you in the first place. It just teaches your headmates that they can't trust you to respect them. Being nice eventually rams it through that they can have their needs met without having to fight for it.

The best tool you have for preventing harm is your own support. Offering comfort, redirecting aggression, and working with your headmate instead of against them can be very effective in reducing how much harm they do. You may find that offering support is enough to stop them from causing harm in the first place.

I know it's tempting to yell at them, rant about them to friends, or throw them in brain jail so you won't have to think about them. You might be pissed off, scared, or confused yourself, and that makes it easier to do hurtful things. Try to find outlets for those emotions that have nothing to do with the person hurting you. Draw pictures of what your feelings look like- they don't have to be good. Punch a pillow. Write a note and then burn it. Do what you've got to do, but don't do things that might loop back and hurt them. No one likes to find out that their friends hate them because someone else badmouthed you to them behind your back.

It can be hard to offer aid to someone who's hurt you. Other headmates may be able to step in and give support more comfortably, and it might be worth asking inside whether anyone is willing to do so. If they're not willing to do so, then you may have to find ways to offer help without overwhelming yourself. You might be able to leave resources for them, create tools that they can redirect harm onto (such as a stuffed doll they can destroy), or find external friends that they can talk to about their feelings. Having any form of social support is an enormous help.

Harm Reduction

Sometimes headmates can put you or others in serious danger. If this is the case for you, then you may need to find ways to reduce how much harm they do until you can get to the point where they'd rather not hurt you.

It can be tempting to lock them inside your head. After all, someone can't kill you if they can't use your body. This can be okay in dire emergencies, but locking headmates inside shouldn't be your go-to solution, and it should never be a long-term plan. Trapping someone inside their head against their will can do a lot of harm, and these tactics tend to make everyone suffer much more than they have to. Imagine being trapped inside of your own head for an indefinite time, stuck watching someone else live a life you hate while unable to do anything but scream at them or stew with your own pain. It's a deeply unpleasant experience that would be at home in a horror movie. Being hurtful doesn't mean that a person deserves to lose all autonomy; it means that they need support and care while they find other ways to meet their needs.

There are some situations where you may have to hold someone inside against their will for a short time. For example, if a headmate is actively trying to carry out a suicide plan, then you might have to take action to protect yourselves if nothing is working to calm them down or dissuade them.

There are ways to do this with compassion and care. Always ask the headmate if they're willing to come inside and let you handle the situation first. Let them express any concerns about coming inside and do your best to address them (even if you personally disagree with them). Be honest, but respect their opinions and try to understand where they're coming from. They may be willing to take some time inside to safely express themselves if you show that you can handle the situation in a way that they approve of.

If you truly have no other choice than trapping someone inside against their will, then do it for as little time as possible, and as transparently you can manage. Give them a clear time duration for being kept inside ("we'll let you out in one hour- we get home then, so we can sit down and talk to help you feel better") and commit to that. Ideally, they shouldn't be locked up for more than a day. If you can get away with a shorter time, then do so.

Have someone in the system sit with them inside if possible, and check in on them yourself as often as you can. They may yell at you or lash out. Let them. Take turns if it's too much to tolerate, but having someone to talk to can help a lot with preventing fears of abandonment or rejection. It's easy to be afraid that the people who locked you up plan to throw away the key. Let them know that you have no intentions of abandoning or ignoring them, and that you'll let them out as soon as you can.

Ideally, you'll never need to lock someone inside. There are better ways to prevent serious harm from happening. One of the easiest ways is to make a contract with that headmate. In exchange for hurting you less or limiting themselves to certain kinds of hurt, you can give them something that they want without making them fight for it.

Making this contract shouldn't be a one-sided process; work with each other to find an agreement that works for everyone. They might veto some of what you ask for. If they do, rework the contract into something that both of you can follow. There's always a good reason behind the veto, and talking about it can help you figure out how to handle the situation.

If your headmate asks for something that you can reasonably give them (time in control, a physical object, support, tools, etc.) as part of their contract, then give it to them. Getting what you want makes it a lot easier to decide to be nice, and feeling cared for can help folks who lash out because they feel ignored or overwhelmed. This can be scary if they're asking for time in control, especially if they have a history of hurting people, but give them a chance to follow your agreement. You might be pleasantly surprised.

If your headmate asks for something that you're not willing to give them, then explain why you're not able to provide what they asked for. Let them explain why they want it and what will happen if they can't have it. Some things can simply be dropped from the contract if they turn out to be minor requests. Others might have unexpected importance. Keep an open mind and try to find another way to meet the underlying need or want behind the request.

On pocket journals: we prefer A7 journals for this, as they're small enough to actually fit in our pockets. A6 can work if you have extremely large pockets or keep your journal in a bag instead.

Cheap, buy-in-bulk mini composition books are perfect for this, though we've fallen in love with the Midori MD series (like the stationary nerds we are)- that said, there really is no choice that's perfect for everyone. You might prefer top-bound memo books, sticky note pads, or printer paper cut to size and stapled together. Use what works best for your group.

On constructed scripts ("conscripts"): these are not a second language. They're more like an alternative writing system or alphabet for an existing language.

For those who are interested in learning an existing conscript, omniglot.com has a ton of them. There's probably one in your native language that you can make use of. Pick something that's easy to remember and use if you go this route- keep it practical! Our conscript of choice has a key that can be quickly written out with nothing more than 3 tic-tac-toe grids.

Practice is key with conscripts. We spent a while writing in only our conscript of choice to make sure that we would all remember it. We can write near-fluently in it now, though we're still working on improving our reading speed.

On decoy pages: the goal here is making the journal look too mundane to be worth reading. If you work and are allowed to take notes, then work notes might be an excellent choice for the first few pages of a journal. Shopping lists, TODOs, and similarly mundane things also work well.

Alternatively, you could say "I don't care if someone reads this, but I need to get past my own tendency to self-censor" and do what we did with our more private journal: write everything that you absolutely do not want other people to see on the very first page. Nothing else you could write in the rest of the journal would be more exposing than that, so why hold back?

On journal tampering signs: none of these are going to be perfect. If it's windy, then that hair could be blown out of place. Someone might move the journal without opening it because they need the table space. Elastic slides around on its own. A pen set diagonally across the journal can roll around too.

We use multiple tricks in hopes of having as many cues as possible to inform us- if the majority of our tampering signs are set off, then we might have cause to think the journal was opened and potentially read by someone. We'd strongly suggest doing the same. One sign on its own is unreliable; five signs might say something together.