SE is, and has helped me more than anything else I've ever tried (meds, talk therapy, animal therapy, EMDR, yoga). Gotta wonderful amazing trauma-specific therapist who keeps normalizing things for me by relating how she went through her own trauma and can speak from actual experience. My sessions are 60min weekly for the past 9 months and apparently I've got a while to go in this process, which stinks.
How it goes is usually the second my rear hits that couch at the beginning of the hour she asks me what it feels like to be sitting there on the couch (and I always start by rolling my eyes and answering "Uh, good."). She then asks how I know it's "good" and makes me define in words what sitting there on that couch feels like. She prompts me to go through from my feet on up, trying to form words to identify each body section with words for texture, temperature and shape (so like: "my toes are scrunching up in my sneakers, they feel hot & stinky; I can feel my elbows resting on the arm of the couch, it feels soft; I can feel the couch against my back; my throat is tight" etc). I usually fight this pretty hard; not intentional. I just really don't know half the time I have feet until someone reminds me I actually have a body and it's supposed to feel things. I struggle with this weekly exercise and she calls me on my b.s. each time I try to give a pat answer. She observes me very closely and I feel like a goldfish most times.
This is called Scanning or Tracking. She urges me to scan the body between sessions and just notice what I feel. At home I go out to my tomato garden and just breath, inhale & smell (I love the smell of the plants!). Then I pause, stand still and just notice what I feel and where in my body. Like if my feet are tapping, not try to stop them, not try to make them go faster. Just say to myself, "Oh gee, I notice my feet are tapping. Okay, cool." And be curious about it. That's it. The idea of this is to train my neurons during times of calm that when I get anxious to try and just notice what I'm feeling. And recognize that I'm no longer in "danger" no matter what my body might feel like.
So then after the awful weekly couch-drill, she asks what I want to work on that day (and being the ever pain-in-the-arse I always answer with, "I dunno"). So we usually go into Resourcing. She gets me talking about something pleasant: for me it's usually nature. This week I was walking the dog and I spotted a tree made out of birds! There was this huge flock of green-belly birds (no idea what kind) that looked like some sort of hummingbirds, like 300 of them, just fluttering all together inside this huge beautiful magnolia tree. I sat there for several minutes just watching all those birds flutter there together all at the same time in harmony. It was so peaceful. I felt relaxed, the sky was beautiful, clear blue sky, even the dog was calm sitting there watching them (probably thinking, "Please let one drop, yay bird-lunch!"). Then in a moment they all flew away in a massive cloud of birds. It was great. So I retell that story to the therapist yesterday and she gets me to dissect what I felt in that exact moment. And she directs me to pull that image up (or try to) when I get anxious at home. Some people have lots of resources, some people have one or two. I've got 4 identified so far in my 9 months (my tomato garden, a story about ladybugs, couple of others). I have a hard time 'resourcing' or calling up my image on my own in session sometimes. She prompts me there, and directed me to print out some pictures of birds, ladybugs on my wall at home, and also use the images as the screensaver on my phone.
Titration we usually do next. She asks me to think of something mildly upsetting, not verbalize it, just think of it and let her know when I have it set in my mind. Sometimes, I'm perfectly fine. Sometimes we talk about it. Other times she watches me very close and tells me I'm not breathing, or she saw my jaw tighten, or asks what I'm noticing. She calls it getting "activated" and I usually give a b.s. response just to have something normal-like to say. She then asks where I feel the activation in my body, to name it, going back to the "feeling/scanning/tracking" exercise.
TMI-warning... don't know how it is for others but I mentally check-out when I get activated. I do this "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm totally good, really, nope-no problem... ... ..." [now I'm no longer verbally responsive, I'm no longer mentally in the room, still sitting on the couch, probably look normalish enough but my monkey-mind totally takes over and I do the stop breathing-bit]. I can still hear & physically respond to most directions but apparently I stop making eye contact and completely go mute for a few minutes I'm told. My vision gets "dim" and it takes a bit to shake it off and come back to the room & into my head enough to speak again. I stutter sometimes for a bit afterwards. Yeah, yeah, I know it's called dissociation and she names it as that but I just really hate that word.
So when this happens she verbally guides me to keeping my eyes open, she stays calm & constantly talking with a warm yoga-rich "it's all okay" voice, and she reminds me to think about my resources. When I regain speech again I usually start babbling about my resource and then I end up feeling foolish... but then I'm okay. Mentally back in the game. She tells me this is common with her clients and not to judge. We haven't really tried with too terribly much hard-core trauma memories yet. This is the goal but for now we're just working on simple stuff.
Which leads me to Pendulation. The idea behind this in SE is to swing back and forth from something upsetting to your resource, being able to calm yourself. I really haven't shared any awful trauma details with her (not like I need to as my situation was newsworthy), but she doesn't ask me to go into anything awful yet. She only brings up a little upset at a time each week. The idea is not to become overwhelmed because when I check-out she says I'm not processing anything.
This week she we had a intellectual discussion about Container and Compartmentalization of self. The analogy we talked about was that 9 months ago when I started with SE I knew I had this big beehive of a mess of trauma that I only knew enough to stay away from. Now, I've progressed to the point that I can see the inside of the hive, I know the internal honeycomb is there, lots of little containers of trauma all with one string woven through them all. And I'm progressing to the point of being able to take one container out at a time, deal with it and put it back, knowing I won't become overwhelmed or fall through the floor or something else stupidly melodramatic. I can actually see the progress I'm making in SE as opposed to all the other therapy types I've tried over these past few years.
Don't know if this is for everyone but SE is seriously working for me. My issues are many; never an official diagnosis label other than symptomology of anxiety, nightmares, bad insomnia, super-bad migraines, non-specific joint pain, hyperventilation, yacking at work, isolating from everyone, the mentally checking-out bit. All I've heard (or wanted to hear) was you gotta "trauma history"; childhood, adult DV, disaster, ex-ff/paramedic.
I really fight the putting words to what I'm feeling bit. Therapist tells me it's due to my being young during my... traumatic situation... so that I didn't have the words back then to express what my body was going through. She talks all about how amazing the human mind is that it can "dissociate from perceived danger" (yeah, b.s.!) and how we're working on my learning how to reintegrate the self and learn to be "okay" with the checking out stuff, to learn to "make friends with it" (yeah, more b.s.!) and learn that I can soothe myself (sometimes better than others). I came on here tonight to see if I can make myself a little word list/cheat sheet with a bunch of 'feeling' words to use in session. Which is why I figured I could offer a bit of my personal experience in SE if it could possibly help anyone else.
Sorry for the book. Thanks for the opportunity to share.
