Ugh, Brown Owl. I'm so sorry. I know so well what that is like.

I feel like this therapist that I see now understands it as well, and is good at actively helping me with the traumatic parts of therapy. His availability between sessions is so key. If I'm traumatized or distressed by a session, I can contact him, and every time I've done this we've worked on creating a path for me to feel better, and this has alleviated my distress to varying degrees.

In contrast, with my first therapist, there was no between-session contact, and if something distressed me, I was left to suffer for the week, and sometimes by the time I saw him again I would be so stressed out that I would be angry, which at times made him react angrily in turn. It was awful, and deeply retraumatizing.

I would never again do therapy with a therapist who didn't allow between-session contact. My therapist also works with me on many ways of calming and soothing myself. I feel like he's very aware of the potentially traumatic impact of therapy and actively works with me to alleviate that potential and to empower me to deal with traumatic feelings as they arise.

Is your therapist well-informed about trauma? The more I read about trauma the more alarmed I am about how dangerous it is for anyone involved in dealing with others to be unaware of the effects of trauma and ways of dealing with it.