BLT is good with this stuff.

Yes, I have experience with it. My T doesn't practice it, but I do some on my own and I have facilitated it for other people (not professionally, just for peers.) If you are leaving therapy feeling down after working with needy and sad parts, maybe it means you haven't gotten to the stage yet of reparenting those parts and unburdening them, and so you are activating them but they don't feel better yet? Does your T help you unblend from those parts and put them away before you end your session?

Yeah, I definitely haven't gotten to the reparenting stage. I think my T tries to help me unblend and talks about being able to sit with them if they come up during the week. But...I don't know, maybe I'm having trouble separating out my sad and needy parts from my Self, but I feel like I am sad, not just my 10 year old parts. Like, my adult self is sad and feels needy (which is embarrassing and causes the shame). I never grieved past stuff, never got attention for what I went through. So now, it's like I want my T to give me that attention..and maybe my parts feel like I can't do that myself? I don't know if this makes sense. I'm just tired of feeling so depressed in between sessions. I'm not usually depressed, so it leaves me wondering if therapy is not exactly working right now.

Thanks for your reply, BLT!

Erica, I believe you are correct. If you feel like YOU are sad, it means that you are blended to some degree with parts that are feeling sad. Self by definition can feel compassion but it can't itself be sad. Furthermore, if you're not in Self, then you aren't capable of giving your parts the nurturing they need, which is why they are looking for attention and love from your T. That is quite natural to happen, because your therapist will be in Self most of the time, and your parts will see that and gravitate towards it because they know that Self energy is what they need in order to heal. As you learn to unblend better and have more access to your own Self, you will be better able to give your parts what they need. It isn't easy, though. In the mean time, you might ask your T to teach you some ways of unblending from and soothing your parts during the week. She might have ideas, like finding a meditation you could listen to, or drawing a picture of your parts to help separate from them, or letting THEM draw or write something so they can feel like they expressed their feelings.

yeah, it is hard work! Thanks again for replying. It's frustrating because intellectually, I totally get it, but that insight seems to not matter so much. I still end up feeling so down. Although, I've been feeling a little relief today and think maybe I'm starting to be able to unblend a bit. I'm trying to visualize the parts separated out from me.

It's also frustrating because when I feel so sad (or I guess I could say, when I'm in contact with my sad young part), I so badly want to cry. That's all my part wants to do and it gets stuck there I think. It wants to cry in front of someone, anyone (but obviously now I'm concentrated on my T)...but I never do. I never ever cry in front of people. So I hold it in and then go home and cry alone. And because of this, I never have been able to be comforted by someone. I don't know what is stopping me but this has been going on for 2+ years. So yeah, I'm frustrated all around and my T keeps using IFS and I keep being stuck. Maybe I'm making really minute progress, who knows. Thanks for listening to my ramblings!

Hmm, that does sound frustrating about only being able to cry alone. I used to be the same way. I couldn't cry IN therapy but I would start crying as soon as I left. Maybe you have a protector part that doesn't think it's safe to cry in front of someone else? Just a thought, there...

How did you get past that? Like, just one day, you cried in therapy? Did you talk about it with your T? I almost feel the more we talk about it, the more stubborn I am and hold back...

It's a model of therapy that says we all have a multiplicity of mind..meaning that we all have subpersonalities or parts. It breaks the parts into two major categories: protectors and exiles. Exiles are the parts of us from our childhood that are painful and shameful. We tend to bury these parts (or at least try to avoid feeling them). So like, our needy parts are exiles. We try to avoid feeling needy, but certain experiences in the present bring our neediness into awareness. Protectors are parts that protect us from feeling the exiles. The goal of therapy is to talk to these parts and really understand where they came from and their function. And to be able to help the parts relinquish some of their extreme natures. This probably sounds confusing or really foreign..but there's lots of information online about the model. Those sites can probably explain this better than I am trying to. Basically, it's a theory about our minds and how our minds are structured. It's pretty fascinating stuff! Sorry you are feeling so ashamed and needy.

Erica, it did kind of happen that one day I just cried in therapy, but I'm sure there were other things that happened earlier which allowed that to be possible, though I'm sure these would be different for you. One is that when I would come out of therapy wanting to cry, I tried to listen to what that was about and not just force it down. I would email T after and say "I was crying in your parking lot, it sucked, how can we prevent this in the future?" That led to her trying to talk less and leave more space for my feelings to come up in the session.

The other thing I had to do was that I needed, on my own, to develop relationships with some of my protectors who were opposed to therapy in some way but were willing to talk to me as Self. There turned out to be one protector in particular whose job it was to prevent any exiles from getting attached to someone like a therapist, since they had been hurt because of that in the past (by my previous T and also other people). I talked to that part and validated its concerns. Then I tried to negotiate with it about what would make it willing for therapy to happen. Amazingly it dictated a list of rules it wanted my T to follow, which amounted to:

1. No mothering (like no hugs, affection, or expressions of caring), and no contact with exiles from her without explicit permission.

2. She had to understand she was not in charge of deciding what kind of work needed to be done.

3. She wasn't allowed to have any hidden agendas.

Although it felt really weird, when I was ready I went and read the list to my T. She agreed to all of those conditions, and the work started to get much easier from there because she started to have an alliance with my protectors instead of them feeling like she was a threat.

I hope that made sense, somehow...

BLT- that's really fascinating what your part asked for, but it sounds like it made perfect sense because of your past experiences. That's great your T was so receptive to that and was able to provide that. Sounds like your therapy kind of changed after that.

My T is just so great. She totally gives me the space to feel and doesn't always fill the space. Though, she does talk more when I'm upset and can't really talk much, which I appreciate. I've been horrified reading what some other Ts have done and it's really sad and shocking. I deeply feel and know that my T is so good and I do trust her (I think!). I just have this thing with control and having to control myself always. We've worked a little with this control and I know exactly why it's there and what its role is. I just feel stuck- I have this insight and feel compassion toward it, yet I can't seem to let go, ya know? I don't know what it'll take, but leaving almost every session feeling like I'm about to burst with tears isn't so pleasant. My T talked about thinking outside the box, like maybe us watching a sad movie in session to bring out the tears..but I don't see how that would actually happen. I guess I just have to keep going and keep trying to break down my wall of control so that I can get some relief.

Cat- So sorry you are feeling so much shame and humiliation. I've read your posts and I am SO sorry for what you went through. Know that you are not being judged here. Your experience sounds really difficult and demoralizing. I obviously don't know your whole story, but just reading what you've shared, to me it makes sense that your needy and shamed parts would be so overwhelming now. But just like BLT said, these parts are not all of you. They are just parts and right now they are loud. It can sometimes help if you sit with these parts and ask them to tell their stories and to tell you what they need from you at the moment. I try to do that with my needy and shameful parts. Doesn't always work (I'm still struggling) but sometimes it gives a little bit of relief because I can really see how distressed these parts are.

Anyway, rambling on now...

quote:

I guess I just have to keep going and keep trying to break down my wall of control so that I can get some relief.

I think that might be the root of your problem right there. You can't break down your protectors or force them to change. You can ask them to ease up, and they will either agree or not. If they don't, you can try negotiating with them. But trying to get around them will just cause them to trust you less and be even more rigid in their roles, in my opinion.

hmmm very interesting BLT. Food for thought. Thanks.