> It could be that your therapist is just trying to slow things down a bit and give you some coping strats before delving into the really difficult stuff.

Yes, that is one possibility. Oftentimes it does disrupt a persons functioning when they talk about trauma. Talking about it brings the memories / flashbacks / pain to the fore and sometimes functioning deteriorates. That can become a cycle, though, where the person deteriorates still more because their functioning has deteriorated. Here is an example. Someone might be really into running and singing (or similar) though having trouble due to trauma. They start talking about the trauma. They stop running and singing because they are ruminating on the trauma. The running could help them cope with the trauma, (outlet for rage, endorphins flowing etc etc) and the singing could help with the trauma, (sense of competence etc). But because they have stopped running and singing they fall into even more of a worse place (their body starts going through endorphin withdrawal they lose their sense of competence etc). Sometimes people need to take a break from trauma work in order to get some of those coping strategies in place. It could be that your t is trying to do this...

> Therapy can be like peeling an onion, going through the layers

This reminds me of a quote:

Sensible men know when to stop peeling their onions.

I know I'm maiming your quote slightly... But the notion is... Onions are sometimes a symbol for... I can't think of the term. Onions consist *solely* in layers. If you peel a layer and peel a layer and peel a layer in an attempt to find the core what will happen is that you will peel the last layer and that will be that.

I think therapy is about peeling rather than about finding. Aka: Therapy is a process rather than something that moves towards some fixed point.

Blah.