I don't know. He has said he has done elements of it before, for several years, so it's not all new. In response to something I said at our session, he said, "haven't I told you about _____?" (a recent LI workshop). The way he said it made me think he had told other clients about this. (What, I haven't told you about this? It seems like I've told every Tom, Rick, & Harry client about this already--how could I have missed you?) However, I do think I have ready capacity to do this therapy and maybe that might be why he would want to try it out on me; I think it would be too "out there" for some clients. I know when I pilot curriculum at work, the very first pilot group is the most able teachers. You work out the kinks with them, and then move to a bigger group with more diverse abilities and classroom challenges.

Yes, MissC, I think he wants to help people faster. He has told me before he doesn't like to see people suffer unnecessarily and he knows that emotional pain borne of trauma can be agony. That's why he likes EMDR so much, because he says with that technique he can really speed up trauma work so much, compared to what might be years of talk therapy, and he likes to give people relief and healing. I don't think he wants to avoid relationships, but from the way he talked, they are secondary to him, whereas relieving trauma seems to be first. He seems to have placed value on those 2 things in therapy, and he has placed a higher priority on healing trauma. I feel like hey, I'm a player here too, and it's my therapy and I value our relationship more, so that's something I am not willing to give up, trauma be damned. At our very first session, he gave me a speech about quick and healing therapies, and at the same time he said "I don't do longterm therapy," which he defined as greater than 3 years. He told me that up front, and here I am, nearing the end of my 3 years, and he whips out this new, fast technique. Maybe he is just trying to get under the 3-yr wire with me. I wonder what happens after 3 years? Does one of us turn into a pumpkin?

The truth is, I feel very disillusioned by our session. It's my own fault. I thought T and I had a really special relationship. But somehow this experience has really made me feel like "one of the pack."

That's another thing about this that's hard for me. I am still really occupied with the D. I would find it hard to begin (or return to) work in therapy on my childhood or teen years when I am still enmeshed in the D. We use a lot of our session time to debrief from what's happening in the D, and that has a lot of value to me. T has a lot of insights and has been very supportive. I feel like I need to finish up the D before beginning on a new venture into my timeline (integration of ego states across the lifespan). Also, I like having multiple ego states. Why do I have to integrate them? I feel fairly integrated. I don't have DID. And T has already taught me to comfort child ego states that need that. So I feel like some of what he described in LI is work we've done. And that makes me feel like he's forgotten or is minimizing my past experiences and accomplishments in therapy. He can't even remember what we've done together. Things that were really significant to me. Another question I have is about the lifespan ego states. What about ego states that are not younger versions of myself? Are they accommodated for in LI? If we start doing teen work, I know my male is going to be there too. And he can get very defensive if he thinks someone is trying to "eliminate" him, which is what "integration" sounds like to him.

I just remembered something. At the session before the LI one, I got very frustrated at more grief coming up for me about something I felt I should have been over with by now. T kept encouraging me to let out my sadness, but I was impatient. We talked about this sorrow and I was sobbing at one point. And then I got kind of angry at him and said, "why are we evening doing this? why are we even talking about this?" That, to me, sounds like a client who is frustrated with talk therapy and wants to be done with grieving and wants to move on. And voila, next session, her T brings her a new technique that has promise for getting her through this long, long grieving phase much faster, and he tells her it is gentle and can really help. He offers her this, because wasn't she really asking for something besides "talking" at their last meeting? Wasn't she?

Thank you, MissC.

And thank you, PC, for letting me process by writing these reeeeeally long posts.