I found talking about the past was very difficult, but only threatening to me in terms of the overwhelming nature of the emotions and the feeling of losing the safety of distance from them. My fear was about the emotions breaking me, but I never felt doubt about my T's compassion for me. The emotions weren't about him, so he could be a support without threat. But talking about my feelings for him shifted all that emotional intensity to him. In my mind it gave him tremendous power in the immediate moment and that made me far more vulnerable, in a way replicating the scenario of abuse. The healing was in the emotional experiencing, repeatedly, of his compassion and holding of the boundaries that insured my safety--the very boundaries that were violated by abuse.

Talking about the abuse from an emotional distance could only take me so far; the emotional experience needed to be repaired by experiencing that core vulnerability in the moment, but resolved in a way that was transformative. It was the work that healed the core of my self.

But I couldn't have done that work until my dissociation was largely resolved. I think dissociation is a defense that is protective, and maybe indicates there's more processing of the past needed.