Quote:
Originally Posted by BudFox
Sounds like emotional blackmail.
So if you are conscious of the conditioning, but it persists, then by what mechanism? I also have a sense of having been conditioned by the experience, but I find it hard to verbalize specifically what that means.
Not only is the product of therapy intangible, but the damage done is very hard to pin down. If someone were incredulous and wanted to know just what you mean by harm, and you said you were conditioned emotionally, I suspect most people would not get it or buy it or even care.
I think some form of dysregulation is always part of it. And maybe some brain circuitry has been altered through repetitive experience. Or maybe just psychological distress that is self-perpetuating.
I also feel that my therapist is inside my body. Apparently people tend to store trauma and stress in their viscera. So yea, I think for me the experience lives on in my guts. That feeling of anguish.
Therapy is set up to generate abuse. Everything happens in seclusion. Clients are encouraged to keep things private. Stay off the Internet forums. All concerns should be raised with the therapist. What happens in therapy stays in therapy.
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I think it's a few things:
There's the expectation of what an experience will be like, the imagery as you anticipate the experience, then there's the experience itself, and then after the fact, there's the rationalization of the experience, as you reflect on what it meant.
All of those stages can modify your emotional conditioning.
My final attempt at contacting her, something was clearly released from, as you said, my "viscera" because I had a severe panic attack that lasted for the better part of an entire day. Since she started treating me practically like a stalker post-termination, just because I tried to communicate with her, then emotionally I kept feeling like some kind of catastrophe was going to happen if I contacted her again. I don't know, it wasn't realistic. But it definitely played into my issues from growing up with a sociopathic mother.
So ultimately realizing that I was fine and nothing terrible happened (other than being avoided) allowed me to neutralize some of that conditioning. I have been so much more sane ever since I challenged those beliefs.