My therapist never pushes me into talking about the hard stuff. But he will ask, "can you stay with it a little longer?" if we are in deep and I start to dissociate. We are currently doing something really hard - when a younger part tells what is happening (an abuse episode), he will tell her he is right there and then ask her if she can say "get off". He always says if she can't , he can and will. But he wants her (me) to try. Believe me, it is scary as heck to try and think about breaking the rules by talking or moving.

But he will intervene if I'm clearly losing it or shutting down. And we go slow and cover lots of other stuff too. I should say here that we are doing intensive depth therapy so I see him a lot. I imagine it must be hard to open up the hard stuff and then have to shut it down again for a week.

I agree with everyone else - talk to your therapist about how you are feeling. Sometimes when I think mine doesn't want to talk about something, it is really me who doesn't want to talk about it.