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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
I would just like some place where I would be "hypnotised" enough so I can just vomit out horrible emotions and "images" and then not even remember having felt them and having vomited them out.
This is what I was responding to. To my knowledge this isn’t a thing. Therapy doesn’t remove unpleasant feelings or bad memories or disturbing thoughts and images. It can lessen their hold on you. For sure the therapist should not judge you for your “emotion vomit” and to the best of their ability create an environment that feels safe for you to have and express your ideas, memories and feelings.
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It's really hard to explain what I had in mind with that wish for the "hypnotised state". I will be responding to the other post on this too below, that is a response to you too.
But I will try to give it a little go, to explaining it here. What I have a big problem with is incredible tension where I know it is there because those "bad emotions" cannot come out and be released. It gives me very bad sensations, that extreme tension.
(Or if I finally get to have them to come out, then, it's exhausting mini crises, that take time to recover from and seriously jeopardise my day to day functioning)
And in this "hypnotised state", I would be like..... so very relaxed, and not totally conscious of what's going on, not even fully remembering things afterwards, all my normal senses and judgment suspended, as I would not be entirely conscious, so the emotions could come out.
This was just a feeling I had that this would help in some way. If I could achieve this state more easily, somehow.
I also had this feeling because I know of no person where I could just do this release and pouring out and "vomiting it all out" (if it's particularly violently coming out). Understandably, most people expect different expressions than that.
I do understand that sometimes I do have to do processing of the emotions, but sometimes it really just needs to come out without any deep cognitive processing. It would be its own emotional processing instead. This is my strong gut feeling.
I don't know if this made any more sense to you now, it's okay if you don't have any input on this, but I've put this out here just in case.
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But is it completely safe? No. You’re going to feel raw and awful if you’re talking about awful things. If you’re accustomed to being judged you will likely feel (or worry) that the therapist is judging you even if they aren’t. And you’ll need to talk about that and it’ll take courageous vulnerability to do that.
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I will be honest - mentioned this in a long post above, you don't have to read all that so I'll mention it here again - I am exhausted with trying to deal with all that. Sure, raw, awful, all that, but I am exhausted by all that. That is where the above wish came from. Somehow.
You would be scaring me actually with the note that it will not be ever completely safe. Except I already accepted that no person is completely safe as no one is perfect. Unless you just meant that the rawness of pain is what doesn't feel safe in some way...I didn't understand what you meant there then, though.
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Vulnerability is not making yourself weak, it’s allowing someone to know you. That can feel scary. And you can decide whether and with whom you’d like to do it. But if you avoid it forever it can manifest in unpleasant ways like panic attacks in public or whatever.
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Maybe for me it's not panic attacks but the unbearable tension. So that makes sense.
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Therapy is messy and can be unpredictable. I think that’s a feature, not a bug.
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Being exhausted, my gut feeling says that's not a feature. I am trying to find out what's gone awry with that.
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Originally Posted by amandalouise
there is no incompatibility in standard therapy. standard therapy is walking in a room, sitting down and talking then leave. anyone can talk. if someone is able to communicate to their friends a problem they are able to walk into a room, say hi to a therapist and talk about their day, their life and their problem area's
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Thank you for trying to really go into this answer to explain things. Unfortunately, the things I'd like to talk about in therapy would be a burden for friends, and for me too it's harder to express myself about these issues. That is where I wondered about incompatibility.
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the hard part isnt whether someone is compatible with "therapy" for any one can do it. the hard part is finding the kind of therapy that a person is............willing .............. to do.
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Is this willingness a conscious decision or just how the different minds of different people happen to work?
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willing and compatibility are two different things. anyone can do any kind of therapy but do they want to, do they want to put in the work, do they want to change their behaviors and how they think.
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I understand that this may take time to be able to change the behaviours, after enough internal processing of emotions and about the self etc has been done. But if I feel stuck on that phase already, that is where something feels off.
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willing is the hardest part of therapy. if someone goes into therapy already with a preconceived idea that nothing is going to work of course nothing is going to work because they have already decided not to talk, not to try what is suggested.
when someone has already decided nothing is going to work thats called putting up walls (a stop sign) .
putting up walls means a person is not talking, not trying, has attitudes that are sabotaging therapy time. there are many reasons for putting up walls aka putting up the stop sign, digging in the heels and not doing the work. going into a room and telling a complete stranger your deepest problems, thoughts and emotions and then making changes to your life to make your life better is a scary thing. its hard, a person has to be very strong to look at their own life, their problems and be willing to make the changes.
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Ah! Thank you for explaining what the phrasing about having walls means! I had no idea it was supposed to mean this.... This makes me feel relieved big time. Because I felt uncomfortable being told that and like something is vaguely wrong with me, but I didn't know what they meant. And so I can see now that those therapists did misread me and my intentions. I always had very high motivation, too high motivation with all this desire for change in my life, making me run myself into walls and beat my head into them repeatedly trying various things. Yes I agree, it's a biiiig handful of a challenge, no question about that.
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then she told me that she / therapists are not mind readers, they cant make things better for me, if therapy constantly is a failure for me to look at me not them. they can supply the room, the time and the objective point of view, a shoulder but I am the one that has to be willing to "do" therapy by talking and being open to discussing what my problems are. if I am not willing to do that the problem is not the therapy is incompatible. its I really dont want to do therapy.
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I would be quite mistrustful of it if a therapist claimed with certainty that they had the objective point of view on my situation. Also, I feel like, instead of a shoulder, I need other things like the relaxation you talk of. And if I'm required to easily become emotional and expressive without strong help from the therapist with this, that's going to definitely make me incompatible with therapy.
I've talked to one really young would-be therapist girl (in training), who was enthusiastic and would not take an answer of "I'm okay", she kept going and didn't allow me to remain polite like that. That was when I felt, yes maybe I could try therapy in a serious way. But I never had that experience with a therapist again.
Well, I sorta did, with another young (!) one, but he was a bit detached, and did not try to pull things out of me like that with strong interest in how I am doing. He did however use some positive affirmations about me and had really decent boundaries, not overstepping them, and did seem to have a genuine intent to just help and not try to pressure me into any belief or idea or value.
He just did these positive statements about me, validating or affirming (?), upbeat, uplifting, and then challenged me a bit about asking me to talk about things. He would be there, but would not say much while challenging me about that, but he'd always also provide these positive emotions to me.
Which has helped me in dealing with the challenge. That was a positive experience and like a new experience, like I can really say something on my own and meet that challenge. But I am very sure that without his very positive, attentive, upbeat attitude towards me it would not have worked. I still did not feel very in control of meeting this requirement and challenge, ie I was not very sure if I could come up with much, but I managed each time. That was awesome. But he was not available for long, unfortunately. Again, this was a really young guy, so I think he was still in training too.
Is there a therapy approach that incorporates all this into it?
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By doing this "homework" we were able to find out why I had not been willing to do the work, set goals and "do" therapy. through doing the work we were able to add in to therapy all kinds of different therapy models. Some therapy models worked for me and some didn't.
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In my case it is not lack of willingness to do hard work. Yes, different therapy frameworks and picking things from them is a thing....I've done that too.
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But standard therapy (going into a room and talking with a therapist, psychiatrist and so on) does not have incompatibility, anyone can do it.
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Apparently I am hard to reach though. But it's not because of unwillingness....
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my suggestion is maybe you can sit down and decide why you want to be in therapy and what problems you want to work on. then go to therapy with that in mind. if you find you cant talk in therapy write down why you cant talk. this will give you an idea of what your "walls" are.
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I think a lot of the walls are just the way my brain is structured. And then some of it is walls that I want to modify, so that would be a therapy goal.
Anyway since you said write down why I can't talk.... I tried above, don't know if it made sense. I don't expect you to try and have any deep input or solution. If you didn't mind reading it, I'm interested in your thoughts or insights, but it's OK either way.
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as for hypnotizing your mental problems away that wont work. its actually a mental problem and many physical health problems, when someone does not have emotions and abilities to think and feel.
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OK, so this is hard to explain....I was not trying to say that I wanted to "hypnotise away" my mental problems.
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Hypnosis is just a deep state of relaxation that you put yourself into, a hypnotist is just a guide that tells you how to relax yourself. they can make suggestions to you when you are deeply relaxed but you are the one who does the work, if you are not ready to make the therapy changes its not going to happen even under hypnosis. if you are not ready to talk about your problems its not going to happen under hypnosis.
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Yes! The deep state of relaxation, modified state of consciousness, normal judgment and senses suspended, that is what interests me highly.
Relaxed enough, suspended judgment, and it can make emotions come out more easily. More safe....perhaps. I am not totally sure what to call this state. I mean a strange, unusual state where I am like relieved of "judgment", I mean my day to day judgment (my sensibilities, intellect) is good and fine and all that but yeah...this state is special.
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example if you are not ready to talk in therapy to your therapist you wont talk to a therapist while hypnotized.
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This concept of readiness comes up alot. So.... Can I will myself, can I force myself to be emotionally ready?? If I am ready and willing intellectually?? Is a big problem of mine !
And is why I'd like the truly relaxed "hypnotised" state.... But it's just a wish. Again, I'd have to get lucky with it. Unless some therapy exists for this already.
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since you are having problems talking with your therapist when not hypnotized you will have problems talking to the therapist when hypnotized.
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Ahhh no no no no the thing is you see its like... When I was spontaneously in this state... I was ABLE to talk.... I was able to and it was awesome. But I had to get lucky to get there....
Hypnosis might not be the correct label for this thing, but it's definitely some suggestible state with modified consciousness and deep relaxation in a sense. Again, I know because it happened before spontaneously. I can't call this up at will is the problem. But when it did happen, that was really nice.
And I liked the partial "amnesia" afterwards, because, my normal judgment was no longer suspended, and it was easier this was. Like, I would not remember in detail what I was talking about. But I know processing did happen and it did help me. And it was not extremely painful and exhausting, but was instead relaxing and yes, a kind of safety. I don't know if that's the kind of safety therapists talk of but for me it was safety.
Safe with being with the emotions and talking about them and not having to crash deep inside myself and pulled low - it was negative emotions for sure, terrible emotions even, yet I was not pulled so low and deep inside my head.
And I know when it happened spontaneously then I was also getting help with having some good mood around me, and that also added to the safety. It was a kind of acceptance, but also I could feel the mood as *tangibly* positive.
BTW, those two young therapists in training were the only two psychologists who cared to try and make it somewhat positive at least. I'm convinced that that contributes to gaining and maintaining some degree of emotional safety for me with these things.
(To be clear, this special state, I did not experience around these two therapists. It was on another occasion, quite randomly.)
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during therapy close my eyes and take some deep breaths then open my eyes and start talking about a problem. if Im not willing to deeply relax myself and talk about my problems in therapy a hypnotist was not going to be able to help me stop smoking. I had to be willing to deeply relax and talk about a problem before hypnosis would work for me.
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I'm consciously willing to, I just can't. All I want with this is to be able to deeply relax about all those emotions. Doesn't mean I'm going to be able to.... definitely not at will. Forcing it never worked, naturally, but I tried to force it anyway until I saw that that did not work. Motivation is not the issue here.
But anyway just closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths will not put me in that state either....
So what is this willingness to deeply relax again... If you can do it at will and if this is required for therapy then that's where I am incompatible with it!
I am sorry, if this didn't make much sense to you, I don't expect you to have the answer or solution for all this.
I am just trying to talk about this here so I look at it more myself and be more open to the whole thing....
And perhaps, someone else finds it useful now or sometime in the future, who knows.