Quote:
Originally Posted by peaches100
Skysblue,
So. . .yes, t's want us to get in touch with our child parts. But then what? Soothe, help, fix their problems? If that were possible, we would have done that to start with and we wouldn't need therapy, would we? The only thing i can figure out is that therapy seems like a journey where our child self is lost or something, and t is only a guide to help us find her. Once we've found our child self, the t wants to step out of the picture. The problem with that is that the child part, once found, has hurts and needs and often attaches to the therapist with the hope that some of those unmet needs and desires can be healed and met in the t relationship. I don't want my t to pretend to be interested in the child part of me if she just intends to step aside and leave me with her to flail alone. I don't know if I'm saying this right. But i'm just discouraged.
The other point is how to get those unmet child needs met in an adult way. I do not know what is meant by this, or how that happens.
|
I'm still working through this process myself. I guess if you feel unsafe with your T and if she abandons you just as you need her the most, then it would definitely be discouraging.
I discovered with therapy and with accessing some child parts of myself that I have abandonment issues. I hadn't known that before. It's getting played out with my T right now. I am very attached to her and she knows it and we've discussed it. When she leaves on vacation or there are interruptions with our meetings, I start feeling some panic.
I told her it makes no sense to me because it's not like she's in my life in any way except for those few minutes once a week. Luckily my T doesn't 'abandon' me. She's using my awareness of those feelings to help me tap into something deeper - like what is the origin of them and how those needs were not met as a child and how to understand them better.
I think what is happening is that she models the kind of behavior that reassures me that she won't abandon me. With enough reassurance and practice learning that some behaviors by her or others does not signify abandonment, then I can possibly not have that reaction in the future.
A child's brain will interpret events in a way that an adult brain will not. So a child will see a closing door, maybe, and it will signify the end of a relationship because when the door closed the parent may not have returned for what was an interminable amount of time and it felt like permanent abandonment.
The adult may not understand why seeing a closing door causes such panic but by accessing the child's experience, she begins to see the connection and can re-experience the closing door over and over until she understands that it doesn't signify abandonment anymore.
So, trusting your T is paramount in altering your perception. If she doesn't give you a safe place to experience your child fears, then how can you hope to have a place to show them freely?
Now, I'm not sure what I've written is accurate about how bringing the child parts forth works in therapy. I'm trying to understand it myself so I may be way off.