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Originally Posted by peaches100
I have not been diagnosed with DDNOS, but think that may be what i have. My t and I have done some parts work but my experience is that the adult side of myself usually becomes overwhelmed with the pain from other parts and i can't tolerate it. It usually leads to getting stuck in the pain and not being able to escape or feel any relief. For awhile, my t worked to try to get my adult self to rescue and soothe the hurting child parts of self that would get engulfed in pain during trauma work, but this did not work for me. i was not able to have the adult self present at the same time in order to do it. Therefore, trauma work always led to child parts feeling like they'd been retraumatized again with no one to rescue them. I couldn't rescue them, and my t didn't feel comfortable intervening in a physical way to bring them an awareness of safety and comfort either. So it was a bad, bad experience nearly every time.
Lately, when my t has done parts work with me, she has specifically asked parts to be present, but not to blend with the self. This has actually worked pretty well for me, in that it enables me to keep my composure and stay in my adult mind, so the pain from other parts doesn't flood into my awareness. But what I'm wondering is, is it best to keep parts separate then, and not to have the goal of integration? Does it sound like my t's goal will be not to try to merge the parts of self together?
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to me it sounds like your therapist is doing Transactional Analysis. the basic idea of it is every one has with in them parts of their self known as the Parent, Adult and Child. these parts of self are a completely different thing then having alters with dissociative disorders. A person doesn't have to have been abused. completely normal people have these parts of self. the parts of self instead of being alters are times when people act as their own parent nurturing and taking care of their self, times when they are thinking like a logical responsible adult taking care of adult matters like paying bills, housework, going to work. and theres the child self where all people react as a child would tempter tantrums or unable to take care of their self, reacting from pain of past abuse.
The goal of this therapy approach is to teach the client about these parts of self and teach them to tap into the Parent self and the adult self when encountering problems or issues that cause them to react from their child self. Instead reacting from someone saying something you don't like, like a child would have the parent or adult self step in and say ok thats their opinion and go about business. when feeling pain from past abuse tap into the parent or adult self and think ok that was then this is now, your ok and your safe now.
Sometimes it takes the therapist suggesting that the child self feelings and pain stay separate from the adult or parent self or suggesting to the parent self and the adult self not to connect with the child self so much that they can see the problems from the parent or adult self point of view. the way my professor explained it is when a woman has a baby they bond so strongly with their child that when the child crys out of hunger or pain the parent sometimes doesnt do whats right for the child. example teaching the child to sleep in their own crib after being in the parents bed for a year. you put the child to bed in his own bed, she screams to be back in the parents bed. instead of holding out a few minutes to see if child will settle down the mom runs in grabs the child and puts her in the parents bed. the end result no one in the house gets good sleep for fear of rolling over on the baby, lack of sleep causes many problems. So the mom has to be taught that its ok not to be so connected to the child to the point of not being able to see the whole picture and then be able to dot he right thing let the child sleep in their own crib parents get sleep and are able to take care of their family.
In TA sometimes the same thing has to happen, the client needs to learn to tap into the adult and parent self and be able to self nurture and act and react like an adult not the child. In order to do that sometimes the parts of self need to not be so connected to each other that they cant see the whole picture.
In TA there is no blending and integration of the parent child and adult self because its normal to have these parts of self. Everyone even those with no mental problems have them.
