Partless, I am late to this thread but I wanted to say that I am so sorry you had those experiences growing up, and doubly sorry that your therapist acted in such an invalidating way.

I am perhaps unusually lucky. I don't believe in that mentioned statistic of therapists believing 50% of what people tell them (I generally distrust statistics presented without a source - how was it measured, where in the world, which type of therapy, which age and education of the therapists, which population of clients - and does it mean that the therapists in the study claimed that they believe only half of what any given patient tells them, or that half their patients, on average, are untrustworhy? I'm sorry, but that is simply a scare statistic. I understand that it is comforting for those who prefer to think about therapists as universally bad, but I'm afraid they are not. No more than other professions.) but even so, I'm sure that I have been very lucky in my therapist. He has stated that he believes what I tell him about my past experiences and when I point out that my memories are foggy and uncertain and I might not remember correctly at all, his reply is this: Memories are always distorted one way or another, and it doesn't really matter that much what actually happened many years ago. What matters today is my recollection and how it affects me now.

I have never talked about childhood memories with a therapist prior to this one, and I'm sure I wouldn't do it if I did not think that he believed me. It is a deal breaker for me.