Posted by Aphrodite on February 12, 2005, at 11:29:09
In reply to is complete honesty essential?, posted by DustBuster on February 11, 2005, at 20:32:35
I have talked to my T about this very subject, and he is of the opinion that it isn't always necessary to be a complete open book. I am reserved and private, and therapy is a completely new experience for me in talking about myself so much. So, my T believes that I need to keep some things to myself because I feel more comfortable that way. Too much disclosure for me could cause a completely opposite reaction and cause me to run and/or be retraumatized. He is very patient about this and does not push me beyond what he thinks I can handle.
In addition, my T is trained in EMDR and other alternative therapies (hypnosis, energy therapies) and in EMDR philosophy, there is a protocol that as you process something, you do not have to completely relive the details. You can keep that to yourself during EMDR and only report on the emotional words ("This thing I'm thinking of causes me despair.") and the bodily sensations that go along with it ("I feel a tightness in my chest when I think of this thing.") Doing so feels like enough, at least for me. There is a lot of research about trauma therapy, most notably by Bessel van der Kolk, which says that talking about traumatic events in explicit detail can cause retraumatization. There is a movement to do things like EMDR that process the event without having to fully disclose and relive. I do believe I am one of those people easily retraumatized by disclosing, so these techniques are very helpful for me.
Having said that, there are some things that my T feels like need to be "said" in order to be processed and healed. We pick and choose these things. In order to be able to handle that *at all* I have to be hypnotized. That is really the only way for me as I am nervous and a bit high strung;) During hypnosis, which I always completely remember, he does resource installation in which we do visual imagery to bury the sadness and anxiety sometimes in the sand, or in a box in a closet, or something like that before he brings me fully back to the present.
Just thought I'd share some of the alternatives to full disclosure because it is a problem for me in therapy, and I think we're finding good ways around that defensive mechanism I have to keep things to myself.
poster:Aphrodite
thread:456521
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050211/msgs/456767.html