So my therapist is away right now and I saw the fill-in person. I've seen her several times before when my therapist has gone away. I've been going through some really intense stuff and really wanted support from fill-in T. There were a lot of disconnects in the session and I ended up dissociating a lot. She said one of her other clients finds it helps to hold her hand. She was already sitting there with her hand out, and I didn't know if I was OK with it, but didn't want to leave her hanging. So I let her hold my hand. It all happened really fast.

Sometimes my current T does hold my hand, but only after YEARS of working together and major trust building. And she doesn't do it unless she is 100% sure she has the OK from me. If she's not sure, she won't.

I really wish I had said no because this time it made me feel nauseous and triggered CSA stuff for me. I just wanted to run out of there. Now it's so hard to be sitting with all this because normally I could process it with my regular T. I didn't sleep till 3am the night after the session.

I don't know how I can ever tell fill-in T what happened... or if I can handle seeing her again (we have one more appointment). Hard to think of her as a safe person. I feel like throwing up every time I think about it (which is one of my signals for trauma memories). Somehow I feel like it will hurt her feelings, or I feel a sense of shame, like I did something wrong (which is also related to how I've been triggered). Or I feel like what it triggered is too deep for a substitute T (she doesn't know about my history of CSA).

Not sure what I'm asking for... any thoughts, feedback, being able to relate? Would you tell fill-in T what happened for you? How do you feel about touch in therapy and what the parameters are for you?