Quote:
Originally Posted by here today
There's a lovely description in another thread this morning about a trauma loop and how that can work. I recognize it in myself -- I recognized that I flip-flopped between compliant and --- something else -- in therapy and mentioned it to the last therapist near the very beginning of the therapy! This seems like a primitive, binary (relatively uncomplicated) situation that could be taught. Not just CSA but -- I hate the terms -- narcissistic abuse and neglect were the likely factors in my case.
So, then, what to do -- what can the profession and/or a training experience do -- for therapists, like my last, who likely had had her own (narcissistic) abuse and neglect and it had not been resolved.
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Yes, it was a very good description of a trauma bond and it is easy to see how it can feature in therapy if the therapist has not done sufficient work on his/her self. In the UK, it is a requirement for a therapist in training to undertake their own personal therapy. I'm not sure if this is the case in the US, but I see it as vital. Who can claim to sit with others stuff if they haven't looked at their own and how it may impact the work? A strong, solid sense of self is an absolute necessity for a therapist to have. And of course, stuff gets stirred up by the client, enactments happen, but this is where good enough self awareness and honesty on the part of the therapist comes in, AND weekly supervision.
If therapy training isn't regulated enough, the profession is going to be full of people with unresolved issues who are drawn to it out of a need to focus on others and not on themselves. Many of those people genuinely want to help others, but they don't want to look at themselves in the process and this is where BIG problems and reenactments start.
It's a massive problem that's for sure, but it's not the clients fault, at all. Training for therapists needs to be top standard, this is people's mental health they are dealing with. It means making sure trainees have their own regular therapy, and once they start with clients, their own supervision as well. Better filtering out of people who have not reached a sufficient place in healing would be important, but difficult to put in place.