> Sometimes quoting experts and their passages can camoflauge one's true intent. I love it when you use your own words--you write and express yourself beautifully.

hey. thanks... i'm not sure what you mean about quoting people. sometimes its that they have said it in a way that i can't seem to capture. the 'what do i need to do?' thing was meant to be 'what symptoms to i need to exhibit?' e.g., i know he wants to meet kt. to be compliant... to try and make him want to work with me... i should play along with that. allow that to happen. but... i don't believe that that is what i need to do to get better. it is just that that might be what i need to do to retain him. and i need him to help me get better. its still not very clear. i'm sorry.

> What techniques does your T tend to favor to deal with trauma?

i think he will be okay with what i've said. he has said that he has been very influenced by Linehan (hence mindfulness and acceptance), Kohut (hence empathetic attunement), Schore (hence right hemispheric communication and his views on trauma processing, I guess) and the Holland Research Group (the stuff on the EP and ANP and more trauma processing along the lines of Schore). I'm pretty sure he has read the article that I quoted from about how it is the connection to the therapist that is the crucial thing for recovery. I kind of elaborated on that idea with my account of my past therapist who helped me deal with derogatory cognititions and how he helped me deal with shame.

> Maybe it's good you have the trauma to work on in therapy, as this can relieve some of the pressure to have your alters come out and talk directly with him. This could relieve some of your T's focus on that, and he could redirect to work with you on the trauma, a challenge that maybe he has some good methods for dealing with.

We were talking about how I need to function better hence things needed to go slower. Basically... I fell apart with my functioning during his time off. We are still re-establishing our connection. The last session still felt pretty disconnected. I was telling him about how I get caught in these ruminations (I call them). Basically caught in episodic memories / emotional memories of intense dysregulated affect / head circles of unhelpful thoughts and stuff like that. He said that one thing we could work on was trauma work... But we needed to take things slow because I still needed to function... So another thing we could work on was contracting with the alters so that I wouldn't ruminate like that... Maybe we was using a false dilemma thing so I'll agree to do trauma work after all. If that was his intention (and it may well have been) then it worked.

Damn him.

Thanks... Hanging in there...