SoupDragon asked:

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I also note what you write about a Dyad and being untied in therapy - how does that happen? Is it just through opennes, trust and trying out new things with T?

And this is what I had said:

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If the unbearable feelings are a reaction to an event (or events - there can be cumulative trauma too) they kind of form a dyad that lasts until it gets untied in therapy.

And this is what I say now: The tight connection between the "event(s)" and the "feeling(s)" is a large part of the problem that continues to show up in adult life. If, in adult life, one runs across an event or series of events that your mind equates with the bad stuff that happened when you were small, then the really awful feelings from back then are triggered and you feel them again, in all their terrible pain, OR, more likely, you engage in some kind of behavior that protects you from really feeling those feelings. Behavior that probably isn't very positive in the context of your adult life. Usually, you only get to feel those really awful feelings as you felt them before after quite a bit of work with T.

It's my understanding that one loosens and finally unties that connection by, first, becoming able to feel (not think, not intellectualize) one's way back into the original situation - both the original event(s) and the original feeling(s) - and, second, by going over and over those original event(s) and feeling(s) with T until you really fully absorb what happened way back then and finally understand and accept (no mean feat) that what was terribly threatening to you as a small child is no longer threatening to you as an adult.

The emotional significance of the original "event(s)" then loses its potency and power over you and you can see those events as just historical things that happened to you when you were a small child that have no more present importance to you than the memory of your first dolls or your first remembered Christmas. In other words, instead of those events (and their connected feelings) being as real to you now as they were then (which is a large part of the problem for sick people), they become pictures in an old family photograph album that you can view with interest and nostalgia, but without any severe emotional reaction right now. You can then close the album, put it away, and go on to whatever else you need or want to do without the album contents limiting what you do, think, feel or enjoy.

In all of this, your T's work with you is absolutely key. He or she is intimately familiar with this process, and very gently guides you - a little hint here, a little question there - so you can figure it out all by yourself ("by yourself" is very, very important) under your T's benevolent gaze.

Hope this helps!