Ruh roh and everyone else, thank you for continuing to add your thoughts to this thread. This week will be my fifth session with the new psychologist. After the second week when she asked me if I had ever been told that I have a problem with dissociation or if I had ever suspected it myself, I was stressed for two weeks. I had felt so relieved that I had found, after interviewing multiple therapists, someone whose style and expertise instilled hope in me, but when she brought up the dissociation (in the second session), I was so deflated and began to lose hope.

During the third session, she asked me more questions about my background, and there were a couple times that I started to dissociate and she pointed it out, which I found to be incredibly helpful, as the other therapists I've worked with in my past had not done that... at least from what I remember.

After my third session, I continued to stress over her knowing about the dissociation. In addition to me not wanting to focus on that anymore in therapy, I was also stressing about whether she would think I was making it up, so I was reluctant to talk about it. So between weeks two and four, I stressed, contemplated, and ultimately decided that on week four, I would go in and proactively answer her question about whether I had been told by a therapist about my dissociation or whether I had figured it out myself. I thought long and hard about how to approach this conversation, and I committed to myself that I would answer any questions she would have. Last week was that week, and I did exactly as I had planned. It was the first time I led the conversation, and I told her some of the details. My memory is a little sketchy from that conversation, and I don't believe I talked about any specific parts, but, rather, talked about my overall journey from being told that I had a dissociative disorder and how it progressed throughout my life thus far. I left feeling hopeful again, mostly because I believed that she believed me. Each week I leave with some type of homework, and this past week I was to ask my former therapist what diagnosis she used. I have since had that conversation and am back in a reluctant state to talk about this with the new therapist because I do not want a diagnosis to become the main point in therapy.

So I am not sure what I am going to do this week, my fifth week. I had considered printing portions of the email out from my former therapist which gave her diagnosis and talked about her assessment of some of my parts. If I do that, am I inviting too much focus on parts? I don't know. Or should I go in and say, "These are all the ways in which I am having difficulty in my life right now."

Regardless, what I want to do is cooperate and give her what she needs, even though my teenage jackass part usually shuts that down. And that being said, maybe I've solved my approach to this week's session by typing all of this out in this thread. Maybe I should go in and say, "I feel very hopeful about your skill and ability to help, so there are a lot of different directions I could go in, but I am trusting you to ask me what is needed in order for you to help. Is me telling you about my parts what is helpful? Or is it that we should talk about how my life is impacted by the trauma?"

I am interested to hear all of your experiences as you move through your own work.