I have written in the past about my therapy feeling like 'exposure therapy'. What I mean by that is that I bring up all these horrible things about my life and how I have always hated being me from my very first memories and in the process I remember all the similar events and feel like I am reliving them over and over again in T's office. The thing is though...actual exposure therapy, (which is often used for a phobia or PTSD) exposes the person to the feared situation/thing in such a way as to gradually get the person used to and ultimately unafraid of the thing that they fear. Unfortunately I am experiencing the opposite. More exposure for me = more trauma. It is cumulative. And if I think of the one type of person who therapy would NOT work for, it would be a person who gets MORE traumatized by exposure. My guess is that would be the case for most people with symptoms of Complex PTSD. Or, in a nutshell, basically somebody who has no stable identity, feels pretty much worthless, has chaotic relationships, feels hopeless, empty and would really rather not exist at all. This set of symptoms is usually caused by abuse or neglect in childhood.

So I mentioned this to T. I got the feeling the 'cumulative trauma' surprised him. We agreed a new approach is needed. I'm beginning to think that therapy could actually be extremely harmful for somebody like me unless I can break the pattern of cumulative trauma. My T is a Psychoanalyst, which seems awfully unstructured to me and I find that unsettling. However CBT didn't work so I thought I'd try something different. I would say that I do need help at the emotional level (which this form of therapy deals with) because I cannot think my way out of this in spite of being a rather analytical person. I've been doing this particular form of therapy for two years. I certainly expected more change by now.

Anyway, I thought I'd see if anybody else experiences this 'cumulative trauma' and/or if anybody has any ideas as to what would be a better approach for somebody who experiences this problem in therapy (well, outside of therapy too). Unfortunately when I asked my T this question, he put it back to me to answer. It makes me wonder what the heck they teach them in Psychoanalyst school! I get the feeling it's pretty much "Keep the patient talking and if you latch onto something that works, keep doing it". So, in that light, here's to speeding up the process...