Quote:
Originally Posted by moonlitsky
It might help to realise that your difficulties within the relationship/attachment with the therspist IS the trauma work. It has been proven that complex PTSD is an attachment disorder: neuroscientists have found that only those with insecure early attachments will develop full blown PTSD. So it is quite normal that you keep stumbling upon attachment difficulties within your therapy. Being able to recall the trauma with a witness to help is very healing, but the main healing is within the attachment to the therapist.
It is within our primary attachment to mother that we internalise the tools to manage difficult events/feelings. The therapeutic relationship acts much in the same way - it gives us the means to cope with the trauma and to better regulate our feelings associated with it. It has been proven that a longer term relational therapy allows neural pathways in our brains to grow - that's how important attachment is. Psychotherapist Margaret Wilkinson, who writes extensively about attachment and the brain, says ' it is mother who grows our brains.' A relational Therapy can do the same thing. That's how we can heal from trauma.
Moon
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I do realise now that that is the work but how do I explain that in a way that a new therapist will understand? " I want to come to you and have a relationship with you, so I can learn how to cope in relationships" ? Just seems weird.
This is an oldish thread. I have since found a new therapist to work with and I start in March. She does seem to understand attachment stuff and about dissocation which I suspect I do a lot more of than I ever realised. But to be honest I am completely terrified of going back into therapy after the last experience. I'm not sure the risk is worth it anymore.
There's a big difference between a therapist who understands about attachement (which is all of them) and one who really understands how to work with attachment and ptsd effectively, who understands how to navigate it with the client and who doesn't get pulled into it all and becomes entrenched in the clients patterns and eventually abandons. ( about 5% of them)
If I could find a therapist who really "gets it" that would be amazing but it's hard to know whether they really "get it" unless you work with them, by which time it's too late not to get hurt. All I can do is hope this one I've hired is actually good at her job.