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biiv said:
how do we make the decision to trust T enough? how do we get past this? anyone?

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biiv, here are a few ideas that have helped me.

1) Therapist self-disclosure. I found it really helped me if he told me stuff about himself. It made me feel like I wasn't there alone in the room, like I wasn't abandoned. He was there with me and our interaction was mutualistic. It was like I could not share if he didn't too. Of course, it is mostly me sharing, but he'll throw in stuff from time to time if he thinks it will help and because he knows I need it. I realize my desire for T self-disclosure is a peculiarity of mine and not for everyone. But for me it was the number one thing that helped me share, so I wanted to throw it out there for consideration.

2) Sharing little things with him to kind of "test" him to see how he responded and if he was supportive, helpful, caring, kind, trustworthy with these smaller things. Seeing that his "good" opinion of me did not worsen if I shared the "bad" stuff. Having him tell me that directly to reassure me. Then I worked up to sharing bigger things, like shame.

3) He's also open to working with my dreams, and I can often share stuff in dreams that reflect real life, whereas it is harder to just blurt out the real life stuff. So we get to the topic I need to share, via dreams, if that makes sense.

Anyway, those are 3 things that have helped me share in therapy.

sunny