Several very good points, Favorite Jeans. I'd like to comment in kind of reverse order.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
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T’s job is to help you acknowledge and soothe the freaked out child parts yourself. Their job isn’t to become the parent to those parts. The parts never go away, ideally you just get better and better at taking care of them. But you can’t figure that out if T is busy doing it for you.
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No therapist EVER explained that to me. I did my first therapy in a hospital when I was a teenager in 1962. After that I was in and out of therapy for over 50 years.
OK - psychotherapy has changed in that time. In the early days they I think they DID expect that just talking -- and the therapist's interpretations in psychoanalytic or psychodynamic work -- would create positive change.
If things are different now, then I believe it would be professional for therapists to explain that up front. Expecting clients to understand that by themselves is unrealistic, I think.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
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I think you want someone who puts the brakes on trauma work and spends the next while helping you beef up your distress tolerance/self-soothing and your support system. That could include DBT, meditation, neurofeedback, yoga, time with friends, meds, anything healthy that reliably helps you feel more competent to take care of the freaked out child parts. In my opinion it also helps to have other people to call upon, to learn how to build your support network if you don’t have a strong one, so that your T is one part of it, not the main or only part.
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I tried to do that on my own. Support groups have helped me a lot. But there are aspects of normal social interaction that I was blind to, probably still am, because of the trauma, I expect. The trauma and dissociation specialist did nothing to help me with that. I just ended up embarassing myself, and/or hurting other people and relationships, causing myself more distress. And not therapy and not support groups could help me with that. Not DBT either, because I didn't have borderline. And that's all therapists have to offer for anything resembling a PD these days. There need to be other ways to approach social skills development for people with different personality hangups. I think we clients could help with that -- if anybody would ask. Or, if somebody or enough of us "get well" on our own, like Marsha Linehan apparently did. But that may take awhile, it's not here yet.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
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In my experience/opinion anyone who thinks that the attachment itself will ultimately be healing AND has nothing more to say about what you’re going through should be regarded with great skepticism (not saying your T is doing this, but that many do). A therapist who centers themself and the therapeutic relationship as the primary method of healing painful attachment/transference, as though they will give you what you need (ersatz belated parenting) and that will one day be enough... is dangerous.
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I agree. That has certainly been my experience -- too late for the most part, unfortunately.