Thank you for the replies to the questions and the added information. It helps a lot in understanding what the situation is. I believe I can now be of help with this issue.

Okay! So we have the likely cause of this. I'm sure it's even more disturbing to her than to you and it's clearly excruciatingly hard for you to go through this, so it must be torture for her. She's fortunate to have you there. You're clearly a loving and caring husband. Tell her I say you get an extra hug and kiss of fondness and love from her, okay?


I'm glad it was trauma and not a sleep disorder we're dealing with. Primarily because the sexual content is much more consistent with trauma. Sleep disorders usually are about talking in one's sleep and sleep walking, etc. So we're talking about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The threesome, etc. is not what the therapist thought in that primitive way. Dreams and subconscious acting out is almost never literal as the therapist seemed to think. It always mixes in things we've read, seen in movies, etc. This is because of the reason that these emotions and anxieties are kept in the unconscious to come out in dreams, etc. Because they ARE too painful to deal with on the conscious level. So the subconscious communication is always "warbled" because of the painfulness of the literal problem. That's why PTSD exists as a disorder.

I mentioned PTSD but I don't want you to get frightened at the word "disorder". Your wife had childhood events that have traumatized her and she needs to treat it. That's all.

Psychotherapy that is helpful for PTSD is some form of Exposure Therapy. I have found EMDR can be very useful especially for one time traumas. It is a type of therapy specifically for PTSD originally. Here is the International Society's website:

http://www.emdria.org/

On the web you will find many opinions on EMDR both for and against. I am trained in it and have found it useful. Exposure therapy is also very helpful. I have found that you need to combine these types of therapy with a more introspective, humanistic or psychodynamic approach. If we actually look inside, we can find great relief and meaning. And we can feel whole in ourselves in ways that we haven't for decades. But many EMDR practitioners and therapist working with Exposure Therapy do not take the time to insure the emotional safety of the patient and so that's why you need someone who is more humanistic or psychodynamic in approach.

If you don't have a good referral source, here is the web address for Psychology Today's therapist directory. You can sort by zip codes and when you see someone who seems like they might be helpful (you can see a photo of the therapist!) look at the listing and see if they list working with PTSD and EMDR and also some form of psychodynamic or humanistic therapy in their orientations. And make sure you are both confident in them as a therapist and they share your values.

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/

Okay, I wish you the very best!

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