Hi Jello, it sounds so hard for you right now and that you really want to trust but are not able to quite yet.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
MzJelloFluff said:
somebody tell me how to fast track trust?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I have two specific suggestions, but am not sure if either will fit your situation.

1) Examine the question, what would it look like if you trusted T and he was not trustworthy? What things would he do or say that would make you think you were wrong to have trusted him? For example:
--would he cut back on your sessions?
--would he drop you as a client?
--would he laugh when you told him your most painful information?
--would he not understand when you told him your most painful and traumatic experiences?
--would he betray your confidence and talk about your problems to his colleagues, family, friends?
--would he recommend you go onto meds if you reveal the depth of your pain?

I'm just throwing out random questions here because I don't know what would be evidence of betrayal of trust to you. You need to make your own list. Then go to your T and say, I would like to trust you but I am afraid these things might happen if I do. Then go through them one by one and see if T can reassure you on each point. For example, he might say, "I will not terminate our relationship if you trust me," or "I will try to understand what you are saying, and if I don't, it doesn't mean you can't trust me, it just means you have to try explaining again until I get it," or "I would never laugh at you," or "I would never discuss your case with a colleague unless you signed a release form." Then once he has allayed all of your fears, it will be easier to trust.

2) Share one of your most traumatic and painful experiences with your T and see how he does. If he does well with it, you will know you can trust him, and you will be able to proceed with the even bigger stuff. When I first began therapy, I recovered the memory of a very traumatic childhood experience. I could not talk about this with T at first, but when I finally did (and I spent lots of time trying to figure out how to do this as well as sessions where I would just sit there and not be able to get this thing out) and we did EMDR on it, my T came through with flying colors. He accepted my memories, didn't laugh, held them for me, experienced the pain and trauma along with me, was understanding about why this was traumatic for me, etc. He did great!!! After this, I was able to trust him a lot more, with important things in my present life, such as disentangling myself from my husband and getting divorced. That early experience in therapy helped allow me to trust T so many times later (for example, with bringing my husband for couples therapy with me--that has required huge trust, and I couldn't have done this without our earlier trustbuilding together, in our work on the childhood trauma).

So anyway, instead of waiting a year or two until I slowly built trust with T, I feel I did take the fast track, and "test" him with something really major and traumatic early on. That way we had the trust sooner rather than later. It has really helped.

Take care.