I am a trauma patient, and I am trained in Compassion Focussed Therapy and use it for myself. My psychologist, uses whatever he thinks will work - mainly a lot of listening and supportive kindness at the moment as he is still trying to help me face and tell the traumas, they are so hidden and I run from them. to be honest, anything with compassion in it is bound to be a good thing. You said you have been working with your T a long time, so he will be gauging what works best for you.

Hi "sadly"
Yes I have been with my psychologist for a long time, and he uses like your mix of many things ,like your compassion and listening , but I struggle with talking about me trauma, I do trust my T 100% and he has helped alot , if we try to talk about it I cant look at my T and feel so terribly I want to curl in a ball .. I just dont understand why that happens ..

Hi anna,

I am glad you have been with your psychologist a while and that he is open to using a mix of things to help you, including compassion. But I wonder if the emotion that you are experincing in sessions that makes you want to curl into a ball and hide, is shame? For me it is one of the hardest emotions to overcome, is is so deep-rooted and personal that seemingly no amount of compassion and understanding on the part of my T, seems to counter. That shame will want to make you turn away from your T and not make eye contact, because the feeling of shame will ovreride the care and compassion being offered. I still feel great amounts of shame in sessions, but it has lessened over time.. the more I put myself out of my comfort zone and brave to tell T things that I am sure she will think badly of me for, the more she counters it with explanations and compassion as to why none of it was my fault. The hardest thing is taking that leap of faith to speak out in the first place. I have got things out by speaking in whispers; staring at T's shoes so intently for fear of having to make eye contact; have uttered one word; written down things that I could never say; and sometimes just looked at her and have had that unspoken knowledge that she has understood my pain without need for words.

My T sometimes asks me if I can look at her face after I have shared something really painful, in order that I can see she still looks the same, that there is no hint disgust or anger present....it's mighty hard to do, but each time I have done it a little of the shame falls away.

Please know you are not on your own with this, I hope you might be able to share these feelings with your psychologist.

starfishy

Hi ANNA,

Nice to meet you. I don't know what Compassion Focused Therapy is but it sounds interesting. Is it CBT based?

I find it hard to talk about certain things too and want to curl in a ball. It happens because it hurts and it's hard. Little by little, step by step and we will get there.

HUGS,

Liese

Hi
Thanks for your replays , we tried first to work on the traumas ( I have more than one trauma in my life) and we began on what was the most difficult and the deepest pain, first my T asked me to write it down and to it like 2 times, then to read it for him, oh my that was near impossible, The words were just stuck and it took some minutes for me to even began reading it, and I was not able to look at him , and I cried and all the time I was trying to read it, and yes I had/have some deep shame about what happened and feel like it was all my fault, but somehow I just can’t chance that , The T has asked me to go where it happened and first it was hard and then easier and now it’s ok, so it has some part worked for me , but there are words I just CANT say and the T has been challenging me to say it in sentenced and he print out something for me to read and still it is as hard as before to read the words I just somehow whisper the words and my stomach is up in my throat ..

Then we somehow had to abort the process because I see him most 1 hour a week and I need also help with daily life and my child, and just staying alive, so that became our focus before the traumas , but I feel sometimes like I have to choose between , getting over my traumas or getting help for life and staying alive, because the therapist has not more time than to see me 1 week for a hour and that is a lot( I can’t burden him with more of me, I feel like this is a lot) , because it’s both free and he is in a clinic, and I don’t want to go in therapy in the mental hospital (he is not working in that settings) , so I find it difficult to choose sometimes what to discuss in the session, I have been in bad place for past year and specially for past 4 months, and in dec I sent him e-mail what was hard for me because I feel like I have so many problems that I could not burden him with more of my problems again like the traumas ,if he was willing to try to help me with my traumas again , but he say yes and we tried again , but again we had to stop it because I had to have help with others thinks, so I feel so stuck and don’t know what to do , and in last session he said that I should try to put it behind me, and move on and try to look to the future , I said I could not really do that without like make what happened and I wanted to be able to speak these words I can’t , is the T giving up on helping me with the trauma ?
I feel like that a little bit...

here is link on the therapy
http://www.compassionatemind.co.uk