Wynne

SCORE!!!!!! Sounds like this may be a match. You have worked so hard a persevered. You deserve this and I'm so happy for you.

PL

Also? *gonna stop chatting and go to bed soon, I swears* He had That Thing, that Calm Thing? That Tfella has. Like, if I knew him better/trusted him, I feel like I'd get calmer just sitting in the same room with the dude.

S'goodtimes.

I agree Wynne, you do sound different and so much better. I don't feel like you're trying to convince yourself that this guy is ok; he really is OK. I was thrilled to hear about CalmTfella and how you felt about his calm. I remember experiencing that incredible sense of peace when I met my T. It kind of comes off of him in waves. This guy sounded really good; more importantly, you sounded calm and happy and attracted to him. I don't mean that in any kind of a romantic sense but in the classic "drawn towards" sense. Like you would actually like to get to know him better and trust him so that you could experience that calm. I am SO glad that your perserverence is paying off.

AG

Hi Attachment Girl, haven't chatted with you for a while. Hope all is well. It's an interesting point about the therapist being calm. If neuroscience continues to suggest it, there's a good chance that the a calm therapist does indeed calm the client as you imply.

It was suggested by a famous trauma researcher (Bessel van der Kolk) that "you're only as good a parent as you are an affect regulator". He means that if you're able to help your infant contain and manage emotions, he or she will flourish and be happpy. In the same vein, it's very possible that you're only as a good a therapist as you are at helping clients manage affect.

I certainly noticed that as I became calmer in my work that my clients progressed at a faster rate. The two correlated.

Unfortunately, it's confounded. I don't know if this result was because as a body psychotherapist my skills got better (and I know they did) or was it because I became more balanced.

I'm tempted to think if might be a combination of both. I certainly feel body psychotherapy helps speed things up.

Anyway, food for though,
Shrinklady

Hi Shrinklady, it's good to hear from you!

I think my T's calm has had a huge affect on my healing. I wasn't going near my emotions because the affects were so terrifying and overwhelming that on some level I really believed that I would be annihilated by them. But no matter how I behaved, no matter how scared I got or how badly I melted down, my T stayed calm and NEVER showed any kind of fear. So if he wasn't scared, why was I? He taught me by example that I could feel these emotions and that they wouldn't overpower or destroy me.

When I'm doing really intense memory work, I can get pretty scary. I have spent large chunks of session, doubled over, sobbing, eyes closed, with my hands over my head. For some reason, acting like that tends to upset some people and make them not want to be with you. But through it all, my T would very calmly soothe me with his voice (especially in the beginning) and whenever I opened my eyes, there he sat in no way looking overwhelmed. He showed me compassion for my pain, but never any fear of my behavior. I learned to trust myself by watching him trust me. I needed his calm, sure, stability so I could learn that such a thing existed. So yeah, I think it's a big factor.

But I would also agree with you that your increased experience helped also. I remember once, after hitting my T with alot of displaced anger, asking how he managed to stay so calm and non-defensive especially in the face of anger he didn't deserve. He smiled and told me that earlier in his career, he wouldn't have handled it so well. And that clearing out his own stuff over the years had made a big difference. I owe a debt of gratitude to his former patients because everything he learned from them, he uses with me.

AG

AG, that's a really powerful argument for putting as much work as I'll admit I did into finding a T. I can't imagine doing any of that with the Ts I moved on from.

And, you're really brave? I can't imagine doing any of those things in therapy atm. I mean, even with Tfella it'd be really hard. I'd have to really trust someone to do that.

I might also need to be a slightly different person, but I hear that happens in therapy, too.

Wynne,
It wasn't so much brave as desparate. I've penned up the emotions and been scared of them for so long that the only way they come out is to burst out so to speak. But it was such a relief to know I was somewhere safe enough to let them come out and that my T could help me not be overwhelmed by them. And I'm pretty much a drippy faucet everywhere, I'm a cryer. So crying in therapy isn't the huge shift it would be for some people.

I remember my husband once asking my T is he wasn't doing therapy right because he didn't do all the gut-wrenching crying I did. My T told him that he did fine expressing his emotions and that I had been storing mine up for a long time which really fed the intensity. So there's no virtue in doing that, I just think its the way it comes out for me.

And yeah, you may become a slightly different person, but here's one of the paradoxes of therapy, the more you change the more you'll feel like yourself.

AG

Well CalmT hasn't chased me away yet, second session.

He's wondering I think what we're going to work on, and I've told him a fair bit about my dad and my experiences there, and I mentioned that there are some times that I sorta had to "bracket" (avoid) for my sessions with Tfella, and he spent a fair bit of time this last session trying to... trying to figure out the shape of them, I guess?

It's this weird thing that all the Ts so far have done. I'm like, "hey, there's this set of experiences I haven't really talked about, they pretty much sucked," and they keep....they keep _picking_ at them. "What _kind_ of memories are they," those sorts of questions. What the heck is _kind_ of memory? I pretty much got him to throttle back on these questions, but... well, I didn't feel threatened. That was good. I'm going back. That was good, too. But I don't know why CalmT can't just let that stuff rest, for a bit, and stop poking at it. I know him to the tune of two hours or so. I'm kinda not ready to talk about that stuff yet. I'm a bit surprised he keeps asking.

*Edit* I'm trying, by the way, to not let him push on this in order to not disclose too much, get scared, and run away. I don't think that would be a Good Idea.

Wynne,
Glad to hear its still looking good after the second session and I think trying to handle things so that you don't feel the need to run away is a good idea (coming from someone who spends a LOT of her time wanting to run away.)

He's asking because the usually the most important stuff for us to talk about is the stuff we really don't want to talk about. We all save the most painful stuff for last. So telling a T there's something there you're not willing to talk about is like telling a kid to stay out of the drawer, there's chocolate in there. They're trying so hard because really the best thing for you is to be able to talk about it.

But seriously, I would consider telling him that you need to get to know him better and form some sense of trust before you're willing to go there. If he can't accept that, its not a good sign. But something tells me he'll get it. Its your information and you should be the one to decide when and to whom it gets told.

AG

quote:

So telling a T there's something there you're not willing to talk about is like telling a kid to stay out of the drawer, there's chocolate in there.

I'm at work, and I lol'd.

Thank you, AG. I think asking for a bit of time should work well. It _was_ just the second session, and all.

Hi Hummingbird, that was interesting. I think a lot folks do the same thing. They vent some of the deepest stuff in the first session and then never come back.

It's to your credit that you didn't let it stop you.

In my work as a therapist, I'm amazed at how much change can occur for the client without going anywhere near the heavy stuff. That's been a big part of my learning curve in the last few years.

Shrinklady

So, I guess this'll be my last word on finding a T. I think this new guy's gonna work out. Three sessions into it, he hasn't done anything that's scared me off, and he seems like he knows which way is up. He saw how skittered I was getting last session talking about talking about things I haven't talked about to anybody before (follow that one 'round a bit), so we talked about the effects they had on me. Dreams. Nightmares. Triggers. That kinda thing.

And when I'd gone into some nice scrummy detail about the nightmares, and I mentioned that doing that pretty much ensured I'd get some tonight, he went through (without saying he was doing so much) how I'm safe at home, how I can be safe at home, asked what works to make them go away, and whatnot. All subtle-like, not that I didn't catch on after a while. <---slow. But it was good. Like, the idea of me writhing in terror for a night was clearly a not-okay thing, so we talked about ways to make it not happen. Serious plus.

Found a T.

Oh Wynne I'm so happy you found a T! He sounds smart and sensitive and empathic. I can tell he is going to help you from your post. I think once Tfella understood what you needed he sent you in the right direction.

TN

quote:

Found a T

Hurray for Wynne!!! Seriously I've never done back flips before and you should've seen me soar into the air for you over that!!!

Now the fun REALLY begins. Bwaaaaahahahahaha! (pokes self in head, "stop that!")
Sorry, my bad.

No really I am truly happy for you. This has been a long quest and I am certain it is going to pay off. If you work half as hard IN therapy as you do trying to get INTO therapy, you got it licked! No doubt!

Many thanks to ya'll for the well-wishes; I appreciate. I'm practically excited, too - though I know I'm looking down at the road at some serious pain and discomfort. As you said. Thanks.