Your therapist is not your friend. I had a hard time with this. My therapist is a health professional, like a physical therapist, whom I pay to help me recover. She provides a consistent, even model of a relationship with limitations. I can trust her, but I don't always like her.

Your therapist is your therapist. Stay with her. Don't journal everything out, that just lets you intellectualise it more. Mine had to stop me from this. Instead, write down two sentences, or even just a couple of words. Stop TALKING about what you feel, and start SHARING what you feel.

It's hard, it's hell. I know this. My therapist refuses to be dazzled by my intellect and the result has been that i stopped trying to do that, and therapy's gone better since i opened up. If you journal too much that becomes an alternate means of communication, and therapy is about learning to tolerate talking about it.

Why not just pick ONE thing per session, one feeling to talk about? Sometimes make it good feelings, too. I know how bad it can be to be overwhelmed- my whole last session was spent learning to deal better with that.

But the journaling? Yeah. We do it to protect ourselves, not always to get into our emotions but to get out of them. Painting is good. Exercise is good. I use crayons and a sketchbook- i'm awful, but they work.