Do We Ever Get To Stop Dealing With Trauma In Therapy?

[whiteraven]

(Trevor Noah has a hilarious bit about the difference between US 911 & South African “911” that speaks directly to that.

Oh, this was hilarious! I remember seeing it a long while back.

As well as to get someone in “authority” to validate pretty much every single step of our lives.

Yeah...I think this is at the core of many issues. I don't think we will ever break free from our dependence/need for people like therapists until we start raising children in a different way, with different values.

I want a certified electrician wiring my house, rather than a meth head named Sparky, doctors with mad skills, engineers whose buildings don’t fall down, in short?

Yes. But, as with so many things, people think they need a "specialist" for everything. So many things can be learned and/or handled on our own.

 

[No More]

Having the authority, & self confidence to decide upon a course of action, without anyone else’s say so, approval, or validation… isn’t an innate skill. It’s a learned one.

This is something my industry has been having major discussions about recently. There’s basically been an alarming trend of the younger people coming through having been spoon fed and given instructions and hand holding every step of the way. When it comes down to it, and they’re on their own, and they have to think and react for themselves with no one in their ear, shit hits the fan. And it’s actually dangerous for some of them at this point, because they aren’t developing natural skill & feel.

I kind of have the opposite problem. No is my favourite word, and I get irritated if people are all over me too much. I like to work things out in my own way in my own time.

I’m probably one of those bloody minded idiots that needs to think something is their own idea before they’ll try it, even if someone else has suggested it till they’re blue in the face

 

[anthony]

countries that have more psychologists, psychiatrists, and/or social workers per capita than the U.S

Yes, and most of them likely have social healthcare, less privatisation. Getting into a psychologist in Australia is pretty easy. You can get an appointment that week, no worries, even next day or two, more often than not. Psychiatrist is harder as there are less of them available because here only they can officially diagnose for anything that will require funding as an outcome.

@anthony, many people benefit from therapy. Also prolonged therapy. You can't judge an entire nation based on your own personal preferences.

I don't disagree. I'm also not judging a nation, just making an observation.

Therapy is a tool. It is not something to be clung to. Clinging to therapy because that is all you have, says more about your lack of drive to help yourself than anything else. Lets be honest, most don't even properly do the homework a therapist assigns. Laziness. Motivation. Depressed. All symptoms which the only way to get past is doing something yourself, not having someone tell you to do it, or a magic pill fix.

The amount of people here to dismiss CBT, yet the experts (latest PTSD science and practice) state it still to this day has the best outcomes for PTSD success. I use CBT principles in my everyday life. The people I helped and personally and thought they would never function again, all used those same principles to get past their road blocks. They had to change. No power of positive thinking BS, just knowledge and doing. That is the magic trick to recovery for PTSD/CPTSD. Every single person who I helped personally that did this, all moved onto having a better life. Not cured. Managed their symptoms, understood themselves better, what they can do, what they can't do. How to manage themselves when the slightest inkling of negative feeling begins, ie. don't ignore and get on top of it quickly to avoid disaster.

I'm not a therapist. I just read the expert texts, understand what works for PTSD and its all out there. No secrets. People just refuse to do this work themselves. Everyone with PTSD, whether a reader or not, should buy Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy book, and understand the basics of CBT and slowly work through that book and apply it into your daily life. Then branch out into others. Remember, the majority of PTSD therapies are CBT based. Their foundations are CBT and then they just expand into other techniques and knowledge. EMDR, TF-CBT, CPT, PE, all CBT therapies.

Start at the basics, know them inside out, which takes a good year or two to do, then branch out. All done yourself, no therapist required. Once you master the basics you then have a solid foundation to fall back upon for the rest of your life. This is all coming from a person with the worst grade of PTSD and told I would never function normally again. Low and behold, many years later, I was able to start functioning for most normal tasks. Not all, but most. That dramatically improved my life, hence I'm not dead. It was live or die and still is at times due to PTSD. No regular meds, just a solid foundation of knowledge and experience implementing it into my life. A therapist could not do any of that for me or the people I helped in the same situation who now live a better daily life. I can't help everyone, it burnt me out helping those I did, one-on-one. The knowledge is here.

Join up with other members and push each other, learn together, call each others bullshit and push for truth, no secrets, help each other in developing solid technique and foundation to stand the rest of your life. Once you have these initial skills, you will use them in taking on every single memory or issue in your life.

Therapy should help you get to the truth, but most still resist to be truthful and honest, hence no forward recovery. Then you have those who are honest with themselves, but fail doing the work. The work does not stop. Its hard and takes years.

People need to stop complicating the healing process with this technique and that. The experts are the experts for good reason, and when the majority show that CBT has the greatest success for PTSD, everyone with PTSD should follow that line and work hard at it.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

@anthony, I don't as such disagree with that either (and good on you for coming this far, I too have come very far since joining this site in 2017). But this:

People just refuse to do this work themselves

doesn't sit well with me. I've yet to meet *anyone* (including Americans) refusing to do any work themselves, infact you could argue that many sufferers are working around the clock to just be able to function moderately.

 

[Friday]

I've yet to meet *anyone* (including Americans) refusing to do any work themselves, infact you could argue that many sufferers are working around the clock to just be able to function moderately.

Curious. I’ve never met anyone with PTSD who HASN’T refused to do the work themselves, at least once since learning of their diagnosis; more often quite frequently, if not cyclically, or regularly. Many, meanwhile, even have that built into their treatment plan, that they only “unbox” during therapy, and “box” it all back up again at the end of the end of the session.

Not including the first time I dealt with my PTSD (took me somewhere between 5-7 years to unf*ck myself), because I didn’t know that “this” was PTSD… I just thought “this” was who I was, now; cost of doing business?

But sticking solely to my major relapse back in 2012/2014 onward?

I’ve taken days, weeks, & months off for various reasons. Some intentional, I needed to lock shit away to force-function, knowing I’d pay the price for it, later. Some because I hit “f*ck it”. Some because depression is new to me, and I’ve yet to learn how to manage it, or even recognize it until it passes and I’m peeling myself up off my face. Some because I was eyeballs deep in a life threatening situation and all my everything (attention, time, energy) was elsewhere. Some because I was sulking or midtantrum. List goes on.

Many many many times in my own life I’ve refused to do anything in my own self interest, not just managing my PTSD, but definitely including it!

It’s one of the reasons I strongly prefer Eating Disorders treatment paradigm over addiction treatment paradigms. As one cannot just quit eating. (Well. One can. But that’s Kind of the point.). Instead? One has to completely rework / overwrite lifestyle, learn moderation & balance, and that takes time & practice & usually? f*cking up. Which is a LAPSE, to begin with, rather than a relapse. Catch yourself lapsing? Time to double down, or assess & adjust, and carry on. Or not. And dive headfirst into a total relapse.

Managing my PTSD? Is a daily thing. And sometimes I lapse. And sometimes I dive headfirst into a total tailspin, or refuse to assess & correct, and predicitble shit happens.

So you & I appear to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. You’ve never met anyone who has had a bad day/week/month/etc. and gotten stubborn/ hopeless/ busy/ balked/ etc. And I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t.

Talk about a birds of a feather bias, on both our parts!

 

[Deleted member 42984]

So you & I appear to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. You’ve never met anyone who has had a bad day/week/month/etc. and gotten stubborn/ hopeless/ busy/ balked/ etc. And I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t.

I didn't mean that or say that. Of course we all have bad days, or even bad weeks or months. But pushing through a bad week is work too. LIfe is a struggle, that's a fact

I used to have no concept of slacking off, my former T urged me to take a rest sometimes.
I'm better at it now. Not being preoccupied with the very reason I'm on this site in the first place, all the time.

But it got me far, for sure.

(and that included clinging to a therapist 6 years ago, because that was all I was able to do, at that point)

 

[Rose White]

Therapy is a tool. It is not something to be clung to. Clinging to therapy because that is all you have, says more about your lack of drive to help yourself

When you only use airplanes to get from here to there a boat can seem pretty worthless, but it’s a different journey. If you think CBT is the best because it’s statistically the most efficient then other forms of therapy may appear to be people clinging to their therapists. Some cases just take a long time, doesn’t mean there’s clinging happening. Quite the opposite, there’s often a lack of attachment that leads to slowed progress. And before you dismiss attachment as clinging, I am aware that CBT does not work with transference so really we are talking about apples and oranges, but I’ll continue in spite of myself.

Lets be honest, most don't even properly do the homework a therapist assigns

According to who?

The amount of people here to dismiss CBT, yet the experts (latest PTSD science and practice) state it still to this day has the best outcomes for PTSD success. I use CBT

There are good reasons why people here dismiss CBT. It’s not geared *on its own* to deal with the complexities of years/decades of developmental trauma which may have begun when the client was in the womb and be generational, or may have been years of medical trauma overlaid on dysfunctional family dynamics, or may have been stacks of adult traumas that only came to light after decades of repression, or??? Some cases are complex with an enormous C. Can CBT help? Yes. But often not without layers of other treatment modalities woven in, and sometimes it doesn’t help at all. There is no universal magic trick for any disease treatment, just statistical observations, which can be both helpful or harmful depending on the individual’s symptoms and etiology.

I think that’s awesome that CBT helped you in a profound way, so much so that you helped countless of their people by teaching it to them. That level of influence and transformation is inspiring.

just knowledge and doing. That is the magic trick to recovery for PTSD/CPTSD. Every single person who I helped personally

This is uncomfortable to read because of the implications of anyone unwilling to learn said magic trick.

Join up with other members and push each other, learn together, call each others bullshit and push for truth, no secrets, help each other in developing solid technique and foundation to stand the rest of your life.

Excellent advice! This site is amazing; I and countless others are deeply grateful for your creation, continuing updates, input and engagement, and mods’ tireless work to make it smooth and protect us from trolls and other bad agents! Thank you.

most still resist to be truthful and honest,

According to who?

the majority show that CBT has the greatest success for PTSD, everyone with PTSD should

Majority is not everyone, and for those that it doesn’t work, continuing with it would be self sabotaging. Like saying such-and-such medicine/chemo works for most people with your condition so if it’s not working there’s probably something wrong with your body.

I’ve heard it said that as a provider the worst evidence that something works for a patient is if it worked for you because that’s the ultimate form of bias. It’s understandable that you would feel like CBT is what everyone with PTSD should do since it was so transformative for you.

 

[anthony]

doesn't sit well with me. I've yet to meet *anyone* (including Americans) refusing to do any work themselves, infact you could argue that many sufferers are working around the clock to just be able to function moderately.

Well, I didn't for many years. I was too busy making excuses. No secret in that, I've posted it all over this forum. That is called honesty.

What you're saying is more down the line of the victim mentality. When the going gets tough, people often stop. Working hard from an individuals definition, does not necessarily mean they're working hard on their recovery. I read it time and again, day in, day out, here. I read excuses. I read progress. I read set backs. I read PTSD.

PTSD by nature within a person holds them back from easily doing hard work. The moment symptoms flare, they stop and rest. You will never get past trauma or PTSD symptoms with that approach. Again, I've never made that a secret here either. Said it lots. You have to suffer and endure a lot of pain in healing trauma and working on symptoms in order to get out the other side. The pain is often worse than the original experience. It sucks.

If a person with PTSD hasn't read a single book on CBT, and there are many of them, that is the first hurdle in their recovery. Also typically denial, because they tell themselves they don't need to read, or can't concentrate, or some form of excuse.

Reading books about trauma is useless. Read books that teach you how to fix the core of your problems. I've done atleast 50+ of those books. I got much better after probably about 10, the rest was curiosity, self-education, to help others. I read books that solved problems I didn't have to help someone else, back when I did that one on one, because they wouldn't do the work themselves.

People want the easy option. Go to therapy, that will fix me! Nope, it won't. It is just one tool in the journey, and not a big one at that. Therapy is great to help with certain aspects. Its good for professional support. You can learn things from experience gained. Its a good sounding board. But the biggest part of healing is the self-work. The more you do, the more theory and practical, the better the outcome for yourself. That means a lot of suffering and pain to push yourself past the symptoms and memories, and towards your goal to recover.

I've confident that this forum is covered with me saying, healing is harder than the trauma, or words to that affect.

 

[anthony]

Can CBT help?

You're still missing the point. You seem to just want to argue. CBT is the foundation. I've said that numerous times. CBT by itself is not the solution. It solves the basics, which you will need your entire life.

According to who?

Definitely my experience from one on one helping people for 10 years. Every single person ended up eventually spilling secrets that they were ashamed, or other feeling holding them back. Status, wealth, none of it has anything to do with recovery speed. You do. Trauma depth can affect it, but its actually more the severity of your PTSD, as trauma is not what's stopping people, its the symptoms trauma causes. They're interlinked, but different.

I still to this day read people holding back, taking years before they spill just one little truth here. Yes, that is progress, but still causing self-harm. The faster a person becomes honest with themselves, holds nothing back in relation to trauma and healing, the faster they can move forward. Yes, it comes with pain and often to the point of wanting to kill yourself, but that is living with PTSD every day for anyone with it in severe form.

Oh, and over the years, I've had psychiatrist and psychologist friends help me with information and understanding, and it was their experience too. Most of their patients aren't honest with them. Shame. Fear. Pain. Many emotional reasons.

Be honest. Have you been totally open and honest, 100% with your therapist? I wasn't when I did mine. I held things back.

 

[Deleted member 42984]

PTSD by nature within a person holds them back from easily doing hard work. The moment symptoms flare, they stop and rest. You will never get past trauma or PTSD symptoms with that approach. Again, I've never made that a secret here either. Said it lots. You have to suffer and endure a lot of pain in healing trauma and working on symptoms in order to get out the other side. The pain is often worse than the original experience. It sucks.

I don't know who "you" are, but that is 1) not my experience, and 2) you are preaching to the choir here. I've been through the most excrutiating pain imaginable on my healing journey. I did the work. But that doesn't give me the right to judge others for not recovering "the right way". Nuff said.

And thank you again for creating this site, it has helped thousands of people, including myself.

 

[anthony]

@ziter you're making it personal. That to me means maybe some denial? I spent a long time in that. I never said there is a right way either. People are people. We're flawed as f*ck. Our flaws hinder us. I still have denial about some things. Everyone has issues, even after healing.

Here is the simple truth on healing. If you're still suffering the same outcome as when you began, or very similar, then what you think you achieved hasn't been achieved at all. I never said there wasn't useless suffering either. Done that too. Lessons learnt. I found that I had to be super honest with myself. Nobody else can do that for me. I had to be super honest with me in order to fix me. I'm not a magic bullet for people, I educate myself from the experts and did the hard work.

I have helped people who lets just say, they suffered from birth til adulthood. My trauma pails in comparison. They too thought they had worked hard, then they had conversations with me, which pushed them, pushed them towards self honesty and self reflection. I don't know if anything anyone says is the truth, only they do. Leave anything out, add things that aren't true, emotional conflicts, all little things we do when talking / writing. When you just go balls to the wall honesty with yourself, that alone often helps more than most things. Then you pull that apart to identify the issues and solve the problems one at a time.

When people tell me they're still having nightmares most nights, after a decade of therapy, my answer remains the same: they haven't done the hard work in all that time. The hard work is breaking point difficult, hitting the bottom of the barrel more often than not in my experience, then rebuilding upwards and onwards. Nightmares, for example, are a reflection of the trauma. That means, the trauma, components of the trauma, are not solved. That could be from any or all of the things previously mentioned. Solve the root, manage the root, the outcome becomes much better day to day.

Take it personal. Or not. I would opt for the not, because its not personal. We are our best and worst enemy in healing.

 

[Freddyt]

When people tell me they're still having nightmares most nights, after a decade of therapy, my answer remains the same: they haven't done the hard work in all that time. The hard work is breaking point difficult, hitting the bottom of the barrel more often than not in my experience, then rebuilding upwards and onwards. Nightmares, for example, are a reflection of the trauma. That means, the trauma, components of the trauma, are not solved.

Came to and did that before I really knew what the hell was going on in therapy. That's when I found this site because really? With not much more than the basics from therapy, the whole sh$tstorm went off and I was struggling for many months. A bit crazy because when I solved what was really terrifying about my worst nightmare - it was maybe 10 days until boom....there's trauma one, and the nightmare was gone. Haven't seen it since. Then I realized other "bad dreams" were nightmares too.

That was one of the hardest things to learn though - when to say NO - no EMDR work today. It takes stopping EMDR work long enough to get tot the end of reprocessing to go - oh hey - this is nice, what changed? Taking a break? Good stuff. Feel where you are, breath. Then dig in and go to work again.

But really - build your toolbox, learn to live your everyday, get the tools to deal with PTSD and whatever therapy you do go after the bastard. Because until you face it head on and deal with it? It's there, making life hard.

I know for some it feels like it may never end - right now I really understand how it begins to feel like that. But like eating and elephant - one bite at a time......