Hi RussH
As a supporter of a man with deep trauma, C-PTSD and Bipolar Mood Disorder and / or Borderline Personality, I have witnessed how extreme the emotional flooding can be some days after a therapy session with a clinical psychologist. My Husband would attend a session on a Monday afternoon, be feeling somewhat positive and relieved almost, to get some heavy things out there into the open, but then come the rest of the week, he would almost go into an emotional and physical decline.
He does not hold down a job at present, so he would be sitting at home, trying to keep himself busy with housework or writing his journal, and would start crying uncontrollably and go huddle on the floor in a corner and be flooded with terrible memories of his abusive childhood, for example.
He talked to his therapist about this, and the therapist agreed to receive some emails from my Husband during the week. Unfortunately, somehow there was a miscommunication, as my Husband was expecting the therapist to reply to his emails during the week. However, this never happened. Eventually, it got too painful for my husband, the therapist went away on leave for a few weeks, and my husband never went back. I was so baffled about the offer to have email communication (in my mind, nothing in life comes free of charge, and I was wondering how this "email therapy" was going to work!), that I contacted the therapist about this, and he said that it was just meant to be a one-sided thing so that my husband could offload more and more of his issues via email, and then they would address these things during therapy the following week.
Without trying to make a long story out of this, yes, emotional flooding, flashbacks, nightmares do get unlocked after therapy. In my view, the therapist should address this from the start and discuss ways to deal with the "aftermath" of therapy between sessions.
Or maybe the client should initially have say, two sessions per week (if money allows), and then gradually the sessions can be further spaced out in between?
I also feel the therapist can guide the client through some self-soothing skills and distress tolerance skills, distraction, etc, before unleashing the really heavy stuff.
There is a lot of helpful stuff to be learned via different therapy approaches like Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for example, on how to manage emotional pain and distress. I am trying to get hold of some of this information currently for my spouse. Practical skills he can implement when the distress is sky high!
Good luck to you and you sound like a very brave man RussH.
