Will Therapy Ever Be Safe?

[Sandstone]

I read others experiences with their therapists and I'm filled with sadness. It's been 6 months now since I've had a therapist. I did like and trust the woman I was seeing, but that didn't stop me O/D-ing and crashing the car when we went near the traumas. We agreed it was too risky to continue, because as she said she had nowhere to admit me and keep me safe.

I sent her a document outlining the stablisation stage of work, and she responded "What the author describes would seem to be standard practical advice to therapists working in this field, and she seems to me to understand the issues. However as I know you are aware the paper is addressing the therapist's techniques, rather than its being a patient resource. As such, and because your situation/history is complex, it is difficult to advise or recommend that you work through the material totally on your own" So I haven't done that or anything else.

So what do I do? If it's standard, why didn't she do it? Why has no-one done it, and why did no-one support me? I've had six months of nothing, and in some ways I'm more stable, but the box is open and won't be closed. If it's too dangerous to work through it, am I destined to remain in this limbo fro the rest of my life? On a good day I can go into the garden. Well wowee. I've lost my whole life and there's no prospect of getting it back, but I'm trapped staying alive because I've been faced with the distress that dying would cause my family.

 

[Jane.l]

I am in practically the same position - can't get stable enough to shut the open boxes but my T seems to have no answer in how I get the stability I need - well only now it's worse because he has effectively given up on me .

I am going to talk to a new T and see how that feels - mainly because I can't see any other sensible options.

What type of therapy were you doing ?

 

[Sandstone]

She defined herself as a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. I went to her because she was supposed to be the most experienced and highly qualified in our rural area.

I have emailed another woman who describes herself as a specialist in treating trauma, anxiety and Depression and says she provides CBT, EMDR, Interpersonal Therapy, and Counselling and can help decide which is the best approach . She hasn't responded yet - perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned my failures to date quite so clearly. But putting aside the problems of two buses, and a train to get there, how do I know it would be safe to try again?

Maybe not working on stability is a UK phenomenon?

 

[Jane.l]

Yes , I am thinking stability issues in other countries seem to taken a lot more seriously.

I don't know much about your previous therapy - I have worked mainly with CBT but the fact that this T you are looking at specialises in trauma would sound very hopeful - I would at least go and have a chat with her and see what you think.

The last thing I want to do is go and see this T tomorrow but I am not looking at in any other way that it's just a one off meeting just to see if I think he could help me - I am not thinking about trusting him or building a relationship - I am just seeing if doing more work to heal is going to be a possibility. It's just a talk about the overall situation no major disclosures - gently gently

Maybe we both just need to take baby steps

 

[Casper1018]

I'm sorry you are feeling frustrated. I saw a psychodynamic therapist for 20 years and we never once went near my traumas bc I was too unstable and acting out to do so. I just started seeing a trauma therapist 16 months ago, and I have grown more in those months than I thought was possible. The truth was, I was no where near ready to deal with my traumas before that. I was cutting, OD'd and crashed my car, and acting out in a myriad of other ways. It would have been a disservice to me to go near the traumas, even though I knew that eventually had to happen to get better. Please be patient with yourself. Healing can begin just in the establishment of a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship. I wish you luck in finding someone who is a good fit for you and hope the therapist you e-mailed responds soon.

 

[digger]

A lot of the focus of my therapy has been on making the relationship with my therapist and the space we work in 'safe' enough to move on to other things and also on me trying to feel safer with life generally. I'm not sure if this will make sense, but it's like every time we move the level or trust and work up a notch, we kind of have to go back and establish safety again appropriate to the new level of work/disclosure/trust etc.

I'm not sure it will ever feel completely safe, but it is safer. I don't think we will ever get to a point where we are able to stop working on safety and coming back to it as part and parcel of therapy.

I've been seeing my T for nearly two years, and I'm sure there are people here who would be horrified at the pace we work at! But because safety and trust are such massive issues, I don't think we could have gone any faster without me crashing.

So yeah, there are therapists in the UK who will put the time into stabilisation stage, but I think you need to look at the private sector for it (although it sounds like you are doing anyway?) A lot of NHS support seems to be time limited which I guess makes it harder to give it the focus it needs.

I think it's worth you talking to this new therapist. You know better what you need now from a therapist so are in a better position to find the right one than you were before because you can ask some of these questions beforehand.

 

[Sandstone]

I just pushed myself to phone the new woman, to see if she received the message I sent through a listings site. Her answerphone says she's on leave for a fortnight, so I can stop beating myself up about having put her off by writing the wrong things.

But it doesn't overcome the problem of how I can make myself safe and stable enough to deal with the whole process. Everything I can do - and that is limited - relies on blocking stuff out and not thinking, but I need to be able to face it, think and feel. I know that moving my thoughts in that direction will immediately make me feel self destructive. It needn't even be related to the traumas. When I was still at work, any suggestion of reflective practice would immediately tip me into self-hatred.

It seems impossible get beyond my core belief that I am a useless, stupid, pointless, valueless waste of space who shouldn't be allowed to exist, who should be taken outside and shot and even if they did that I wouldn't be fit enough to dig my own grave beforehand.

So I focus on listening carefully to classical music or drawing intricate patterns, which stops me thinking but doesn't equip me to tackle the actual problems. I'm not used to being unable to grit my teeth, plunge in and fix things, so acknowledging that I can't tips me back again. There should be a way out of the loop, but I can't find it. Off to do some drawing and listen to Classic FM

 

[Jane.l]

Well done for phoning at least you can expect her to get back to you ASAP.
Your T will hopefully have ways to work on your self beliefs, that needs to be the start of your therapy and however unlikely you think it is to change the way you feel about yourself she is an expert at helping you with that . Try not to jump ahead to catastrophic thinking ( which we tend to do with ptsd) just go and have a chat and take it from there .

 

[joeylittle]

I have emailed another woman who describes herself as a specialist in treating trauma, anxiety and Depression and says she provides CBT, EMDR, Interpersonal Therapy, and Counselling and can help decide which is the best approach

This is awesome and I really hope it works out for you. Because this:

Everything I can do - and that is limited - relies on blocking stuff out and not thinking, but I need to be able to face it, think and feel.

Sounds like you are really seeking trauma therapy and that you are ready for it. Personally, I found that a psychotherapist was the worst fit in the world for me - and I'm still not totally sure why - but it really did have a lot to do with the philosophy of "wait".

Even if this other woman doesn't work out, keep looking for a trauma therapist.

 

[Justmehere]

I met with a t who was very psychoanalytic. It was massively de-stabilizing. There was nothing done around how to be stable and stay that way through the work.

I too actually crashed my car. I did it in a severe dissociative state that was triggered by talking of the trauma with her.

I left and did DBT and CBT therapy for quite awhile. It was so helpful. It really gave me a lot of my life back. I'm just now getting into the trauma with a trauma therapist, but it is slow and we are constantly using cbt and DBT skills even in the sessions.

I think you are on the right path to call the new person who does dbt and cbt work. It is not easy, but it tends not to risk de-stabilizing but actually tends to increase stability and lesson symptoms over time.

Even though that new therapist is gone for now, there are a lot of self help materials out there about cbt and DBT that you could start working on until you can do it with a therapist.

 

[Suzetig]

I've been seeing someone for nearly a year now, and it's been slower than you could possibly imagine. We've spent a lot of time building the relationship and like @digger, it's been one step forward, one step back to look at safety and then move on again.

It's really worth taking the time to establish a therapeutic relationship, which in and of itself creates some level of stability in day to day life. You'll get to a point where your T knows when to press on and when to hold off, when you're feeling overwhelmed and when you are doing ok. You will get to a point where you do feel a little more stable and can start to process things and while you can learn grounding techniques etc getting to the point where you can talk about and process trauma is not something you can force.

 

[Sandstone]

here are a lot of self help materials out there about cbt and DBT that you could start working on until you can do it with a therapist.

And I know I should be doing this, but I'm too afraid even to try. I bought a skills workbook that someone on here recommended, but when it actually come sto doing anything with it, my mind announces that this is much too dangerous, shuts down and leaves me fighting not to hide in a corner.