[Ygrec23]

Most of the therapy I've been through was in a much earlier part of my life when Freud and Freudian ideas were much more important than they are now. As it turned out, the large majority of my problems dated back to the earliest parts of my life: babyhood and toddlerhood. Considering the developments in psychological theory and practice since then, I'd conclude that many of you with more recent T experience have dealt with problems that go back that far with your T's. I would very much like to know how your T's have dealt with those early kinds of problems, the kinds that are generated before memory begins for most of us, including me. Have you been able, with help, to access memories of that age and work on them? How else can a T help you with such problems? Do you reconstruct what happened at those ages by projecting backwards from your present symptoms? How do you keep that kind of therapy from becoming intellectualized? For me, these are very important questions and issues. I'd appreciate hearing from those who have dealt with attachment problems dating back that far in as great a length and with as much detail as possible, whether here on this thread or by private message or whatever you'd prefer. Personally, I'd rather have our exchanges here on this thread, so everyone can keep up. But if you have your own reasons for using pm's, that's fine with me. I very much look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible. As I said, for me, this is a very important inquiry.

Take care, and thanks in advance.

[Melbadaze]

my issues go back to pre verbal...without intellectualising its hard to say how it works...basically as I feel more ans more safer with T so I regress further and further and we put words to what is happening that helps bring what was previously unthought about and filed into a place Where it can thought about and talked about and handled very much differently and so A difference expereinced is rewired...don't ask me why it works ir just does

[Sannah]

I worked backwards. I discovered the issues that I had in the present and then went back in the past just to understand the issue. Focus on your emotions to keep from intellectualizing. Also, work on staying very aware of yourself and your surroundings in the moment. Doing this helps you to focus on your feelings, thus discover your issues.

[Perna]

I have an aunt, my father's sister, who was around during my problems when I was 1-3 and she wrote me many letters about me and the family dynamics then which my T and I read and that helped us a whole lot. I also had faint screen memories I worked with, a book I knew I loved from that time which I bought and brought in to T (a Dr. Seuss) and it had clues to my first memory and that yielded a huge breakthrough. Pictures of me and my family at the time were somewhat helpful also.

There aren't many "memories" there but there are still feelings and this-feels-right and this-does-not sensations when you're talking. You have to be very alive to your intuition when you're working on that era is what I found.

[ECHOES]

I know this is an intellectual and not a personal response, but there is an interesting chapter, "Nonverbal Experience and the 'Unthought Known'" Accessing the Emotional Core of the Self in a very wonderful book, Attachment in Psychotherapy by David J Wallin that you might find fascinating.

[sunrise]

Ygrec, my T uses ego state therapy for a variety of purposes, and it can help with trauma suffered early in life. I haven't done much work on the earliest part of my life, but my therapist and I did do one visualization combined with EMDR on a time when I was an infant. While I was hooked up to the EMDR buzzer thingies, he had me close my eyes and played a lullaby for me on his ipod, to help me go back in time, and then he painted a picture for me of when I was an infant--me lying in a crib, crying. He asked me what I was feeling, and it was actually quite upsetting to me. I remember I let out a sob (my T seemed to like that). He had the adult me go into the scene and pick up the infant and comfort her. That was the only time we did infant work. Other times we worked with my child ego states, a particular a couple of prominent ego states of about 4 and 6 years old (my T thinks this is a more significant period for me than infancy). During the visualizations, he had me say what my younger ego state was feeling or saying and why, why she was scared or hurting. Sometimes I would talk to her and report back what she said and other times I didn't report back. He had me draw a circle around her to help contain all the painful feelings. I would go into the circle, as an adult, and take her hand or pick her up (or whatever I chose) and try to comfort her. He would try to get me to take her outside of the circle (which I found easy and it felt wonderful), and the painful feelings would be left behind inside and couldn't come with us. This is a useful technique I can use even outside of therapy if I feel some very young feelings arise. I can find that scared and younger ego state and comfort her. Doesn't always work that way, but it is nice to have something to try.

To "grow me up" from these earlier years and bring me back to adult time, my T would count very slowly from 1 to my age, and as he did so, I would imagine events and images from those years, steadily getting older. Then I would be my current age and he would have me open my eyes (if I had closed them--I didn't always close them). This "timeline" technique was very cool. It just seemed like whoooooosh and the years passed by and I was adult again. My T said he doesn't like to leave his clients in the earlier times and then just send them on their way out the door (bye till next week!). He says it is important to help the client return to the present after the younger ego state work is done for the day.

My T has more recently begun using a different technique, called Lifespan Integration, which also helps clients work on earlier parts of their lives. He has not used this with me, although some of its elements are similar to what we did do. My understanding is that it also incorporates ego state work and uses a timeline of sorts.

Did your T use techniques similar to these to try to help you?

I did not find any of the ego state work at any ages to be intellectualizing at all. It is some of the most un-intellectualized work that we did. It was very powerful. (My T is not a Freudian.) To keep the work from becoming intellectualized, one can stick with the feelings from the past and the feelings that are present now. For example, just name or acknowledge a feeling of loneliness (or whatever) instead of trying to talk at length about the reasons it exists for you, all the things that may or may not have caused it, etc. Feel more than talk or think. If you have a tendency to intellectualize, maybe the T can provide help with that (quiet you down and help you return to feeling if you start to get analytical in a way that is not therapeutic for you).

If you are unfamiliar with these techniques, here are a couple of links:

Ego State Therapy
http://www.clinicalsocialwork.com/overview.html
http://www.clinicalsocialwork.com/egostate.html
"Ego-state therapy is the utilization of family and group-therapy techniques for the resolution of conflicts between the different ego states that constitutes a "family of self" within a single individual."

Lifespan Integration
http://www.lifespanintegration.com/whatisli.php
"Lifespan Integration is a new technique which promotes rapid healing in adults who experienced abuse and/or neglect during childhood. This new method relies on the innate ability of the body-mind to heal itself. Lifespan Integration uses a psychological technique called an "affect bridge" to find a memory which is connected to the current problem. The therapist guides the client to imaginally re-visit this past memory, bringing into the past whatever is needed to resolve the memory. After the memory is resolved, the therapist leads the client through time to the present using a Time Line of visual images of scenes from the client's life. This Time Line of memories and images proves to the client's body-mind system that time has passed and that life is different now. This "proof" occurs at a deeper level than is possible with commonly used cognitive behavioral [talk therapy] methods."

Ygrec, I would be interested to hear what techniques you have tried in therapy to do early work (if you want to share).

My T and I have not worked specifically on those ages...my first memories start around age 3 1/2, and the memories we've worked on start at that age.

I do know things about my infancy from stories I've been told by my family, and just from those stories, it seems very clear where my attachment issues come from (I have big time attachment issues). I'm not even sure if I've told those stories to T, actually.

We work on the attachment stuff in the present moment. It's taken me years to become securely attached to my T, and that's been THE most difficult work of my therapy. There hasn't been any intellectualizing, because it's been all about feelings - fear, and trust, and love, and connection, and all of the other messy feelings that go into learning to attach.

I think T has made himself available for me to attach to, and I've worked really hard to get past all of the fear to learn to trust him. So, instead of healing by talking about attachment, I'm healing by attaching. (if that makes any sense!)

When it's really clear that a particular issue in the present day ties into something from my childhood, we talk a lot about the childhood trauma/memory. But it's not necessary to have the memory - or even guess at the memory - for us to do the work.

Not sure if that helps, but that's my experience

[Ygrec23]

To answer a question asked by a number of posters, all of my therapy was done by T's trained before 1960, and I think ALL the techniques you mention have been created long since that time. In NONE of my therapy did Ts try to access pre-verbal memory, to the best of my recollection.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by Sannah

I worked backwards. I discovered the issues that I had in the present and then went back in the past just to understand the issue. Focus on your emotions to keep from intellectualizing. Also, work on staying very aware of yourself and your surroundings in the moment. Doing this helps you to focus on your feelings, thus discover your issues.

Dear Sannah,

When you say "..work on staying very aware of yourself and your surroundings in the moment." Is that moment the moment with the T or some childhood moment?

Take care!

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by Perna

You have to be very alive to your intuition when you're working on that era is what I found.

Dear Perna,

Any tips on how to "be very alive to your intuition"?

Take care!

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by ECHOES

I know this is an intellectual and not a personal response, but there is an interesting chapter, "Nonverbal Experience and the 'Unthought Known'" Accessing the Emotional Core of the Self in a very wonderful book, Attachment in Psychotherapy by David J Wallin that you might find fascinating.

Dear Echoes,

Thanks. I'll buy that one.

Take care,

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by sunrise

Ygrec, my T uses ego state therapy for a variety of purposes, and it can help with trauma suffered early in life. I haven't done much work on the earliest part of my life, but my therapist and I did do one visualization combined with EMDR on a time when I was an infant. While I was hooked up to the EMDR buzzer thingies, he had me close my eyes and played a lullaby for me on his ipod, to help me go back in time, and then he painted a picture for me of when I was an infant--me lying in a crib, crying. He asked me what I was feeling, and it was actually quite upsetting to me. I remember I let out a sob (my T seemed to like that). He had the adult me go into the scene and pick up the infant and comfort her. That was the only time we did infant work. Other times we worked with my child ego states, a particular a couple of prominent ego states of about 4 and 6 years old (my T thinks this is a more significant period for me than infancy). During the visualizations, he had me say what my younger ego state was feeling or saying and why, why she was scared or hurting. Sometimes I would talk to her and report back what she said and other times I didn't report back. He had me draw a circle around her to help contain all the painful feelings. I would go into the circle, as an adult, and take her hand or pick her up (or whatever I chose) and try to comfort her. He would try to get me to take her outside of the circle (which I found easy and it felt wonderful), and the painful feelings would be left behind inside and couldn't come with us. This is a useful technique I can use even outside of therapy if I feel some very young feelings arise. I can find that scared and younger ego state and comfort her. Doesn't always work that way, but it is nice to have something to try.

To "grow me up" from these earlier years and bring me back to adult time, my T would count very slowly from 1 to my age, and as he did so, I would imagine events and images from those years, steadily getting older. Then I would be my current age and he would have me open my eyes (if I had closed them--I didn't always close them). This "timeline" technique was very cool. It just seemed like whoooooosh and the years passed by and I was adult again. My T said he doesn't like to leave his clients in the earlier times and then just send them on their way out the door (bye till next week!). He says it is important to help the client return to the present after the younger ego state work is done for the day.

My T has more recently begun using a different technique, called Lifespan Integration, which also helps clients work on earlier parts of their lives. He has not used this with me, although some of its elements are similar to what we did do. My understanding is that it also incorporates ego state work and uses a timeline of sorts.

Did your T use techniques similar to these to try to help you?

I did not find any of the ego state work at any ages to be intellectualizing at all. It is some of the most un-intellectualized work that we did. It was very powerful. (My T is not a Freudian.) To keep the work from becoming intellectualized, one can stick with the feelings from the past and the feelings that are present now. For example, just name or acknowledge a feeling of loneliness (or whatever) instead of trying to talk at length about the reasons it exists for you, all the things that may or may not have caused it, etc. Feel more than talk or think. If you have a tendency to intellectualize, maybe the T can provide help with that (quiet you down and help you return to feeling if you start to get analytical in a way that is not therapeutic for you).

If you are unfamiliar with these techniques, here are a couple of links:

Ego State Therapy
http://www.clinicalsocialwork.com/overview.html
http://www.clinicalsocialwork.com/egostate.html
"Ego-state therapy is the utilization of family and group-therapy techniques for the resolution of conflicts between the different ego states that constitutes a "family of self" within a single individual."

Lifespan Integration
http://www.lifespanintegration.com/whatisli.php
"Lifespan Integration is a new technique which promotes rapid healing in adults who experienced abuse and/or neglect during childhood. This new method relies on the innate ability of the body-mind to heal itself. Lifespan Integration uses a psychological technique called an "affect bridge" to find a memory which is connected to the current problem. The therapist guides the client to imaginally re-visit this past memory, bringing into the past whatever is needed to resolve the memory. After the memory is resolved, the therapist leads the client through time to the present using a Time Line of visual images of scenes from the client's life. This Time Line of memories and images proves to the client's body-mind system that time has passed and that life is different now. This "proof" occurs at a deeper level than is possible with commonly used cognitive behavioral [talk therapy] methods."

Ygrec, I would be interested to hear what techniques you have tried in therapy to do early work (if you want to share).

Dear Sunrise,

This may blow your mind, but back in the days when I was heavily into therapy none of these techniques had yet been invented. I don't even think that T's at that time thought of pre-verbal states as being accessible (that was part of the big Freudian mistake). So to answer your question directly, we never did any "early work." And yet after reading and thinking as much as I have about attachment theory and self psychology (after I've been in therapy), I do believe that the problems originate in the early years. There was something wrong with our mother, and it showed up on each of me and my three brothers, though in different ways because of our different personalities. I'm not a T, so I wouldn't hazard a diagnosis on mom, but she sure had a problem with intimacy, even with babies. Oh, what's EMDR? I will use your cites/sites.

Take care!

[Melbadaze]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

To answer a question asked by a number of posters, all of my therapy was done by T's trained before 1960, and I think ALL the techniques you mention have been created long since that time. In NONE of my therapy did Ts try to access pre-verbal memory, to the best of my recollection.

Not sure T's access them so much as recognise them? Pre-verbal regression is a natural occurance, someone without a trained eye may mistake the clients need to get pre-verbal needs met, and acting out pre-verbal trauma's as something thats happening outside of this.

Winnocott is a good palce to start.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

Dear Perna,

Any tips on how to "be very alive to your intuition"?

Take care!

I believe everyone has intuition just like everyone has creativity (and dreams) and it's the practice of paying attention to these things and taking them seriously that makes them, like anything, more useful. Since it is about "me" and my life, I pay attention to what "I" think and feel about that; one reason for therapy so-to-speak.

For me, I don't want to deal with pre-verbal memories because I think they're unreliable. I want to deal with what is actual and real.

[Melbadaze]

Originally Posted by roseleigh7

For me, I don't want to deal with pre-verbal memories because I think they're unreliable. I want to deal with what is actual and real.

Pre-verbal feelings are actual and real, perhaps you mean you want to deal only those feelings you can think about? Perhaps because the thought of experiencing something from such a vunrable time would be to scary? But pre-verbal memories are as real as any memory, its hard to believe that, to suspend judgement, and to go into them, if you do it is very rewarding.

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

When you say "..work on staying very aware of yourself and your surroundings in the moment." Is that moment the moment with the T or some childhood moment?

Every moment of your life from here on out whether in therapy or outside of therapy. It is something that needs to be learned and a great way to live - to always be present.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by Melbadaze

". . . acting out pre-verbal trauma's as something thats happening outside of this.

Hi, Melbadze!

And thanks. I just didn't understand the quoted language above and would ask you to try to explain it again.

Take care!

I wasn't talking about the feelings. And I didn't say they weren't real. For me, I don't believe I can fix what has happened back then. There was just way too much. I want to focus more on the now and trying to learn to enjoy my life and my family now. I know many people feel differently and I think that is fine and wonderful. But for me it would be a total waste of time to try to explore that part of my life. I think if you do and it helps then more power to you and I don't think it's bad at all.

[Melbadaze]

ygrec, well something like constantly disgreeing with something that I already know I don't agree with, but I keep going there and disagreeing...once T said "yes your repeating the pattern of coming ho,e to the wrong mother and cryIng to be picked up"...Once we explored that some more it begun to make sense and just having that understood and acknowledged helped soOth the distressed baby lying in a hostle enviroment needing to be held and my fears transcended. Basically when words are put to actions today we teanscend them and that feels real sotthing.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by Melbadaze

Not sure T's access them [pre-verbal memories] so much as recognise them? Pre-verbal regression is a natural occurance, someone without a trained eye may mistake the clients need to get pre-verbal needs met, and acting out pre-verbal trauma's as something thats happening outside of this.

my experience in therapy also. My T recognizes it, I wouldn't have.

[Ygrec23]

To make it easier (I hope) for those trying to help me on this thread, let me explain where I think I am now, how my present situation is different from what I've llved with most of my life, and what I'd like to do about it.

First, now. If you met me now, I believe you'd evaluate me as one of the most calm, patient, kindly, helpful people in the world. And if you worked with me or were my friend, those initial evaluations would be proven true, to the point that I would easily give my life to save another's. You might test me over and over again with the same results. That is REALLY how I live my life. The reason for the surface me is because it's the only way for me to access in any way what I missed out on as an infant. I give to others the things that were not given to me. It makes me feel much better, though by no means good or great. However, beneath the solid concrete layer that underlies today's "real me," hermetically sealed, is a large, seething layer of explosive rage, infantile rage at not receiving SOMETHING at a very, very early age. There is also, down there, utter misery and despair that is much more easily accessed than the anger, of which I know simply through the comments of T's and intellectual knowledge of my own. The T's I saw from 1959-1975 were not able to focus on the early beginnings that I now believe are the source of the problem.

Second. As I grew past middle age, the situation changed somewhat. The stasis I had reached by the age of three or four became harder to maintain, mainly because it became harder and harder for me to make a living. To continue to do so would require my overcoming my GAD and social phobia which I knew I had (and had all my life). And while I was dealing with those (GAD & SP), cracks started appearing in the concrete. Wisps of rage and despair started coming through the cracks. I started thinking about ending my life. In a very intellectual way. I am the least impulsive person you'll find, and I protected myself against any fatality. So I don't believe there is really any danger there. But everything added up to a much, much more uncomfortable daily life.

Third. On July 3rd I turned 65 and finally became able, through Medicare, to afford to see a T on a regular basis. I have one in mind, and will see if she has any room for me. I will start by raising with her my own ideas of what's wrong, as well as the specific techniques and ideas mentioned by contributors to this thread.

If my golden years are going to have anything golden about them, if I am to escape this daily pain and misery, I believe I'll have to deal with the issues I haven't been able to deal with before. I'm certainly much more motivated than previously, because previously I did not have to deal with this daily pain. For most of my life the concrete seal has held tight. It's only now that it's breaking down under reality pressure from outside.

Thanks for all your continuing help.

Take care.

[rainbow8]

Ygrec, I can identify with your situation because I have always been, on the outside, a fairly normal woman who has gone to college, worked, gotten married, stayed married, had kids, and now I have grandchilden. Yet I have been in therapy for about 15 years because I feel something is MISSING. Something went wrong during those same years you're talking about, or maybe earlier since I was a "preemie." I am usually a quiet, reserved person but at times I become uncontrollably angry and enraged over seemingly small matters. There is something there but I don't know what it is.

I too had Ts in the past who didn't have any particular techniques to explore that part of me. Recently, I have switched to a T who uses techniques somewhat like sunrise's T. She practices IFS, which stands for Internal Family Systems, and EMDR, which sunrise mentioned. Both have the potential to access my deepest feelings from childhood and maybe infancy, though I haven't gotten there yet. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation and accesses parts of your brain that are subconscious. IFS isolates "parts" of you, and is a way to focus and be curious about a child part. I'm not sure if you need to have the memories already there, though. With EMDR, my T says feelings and images may come up later through dreams, though this hasn't happened to me yet.

I'm wondering. Do you know of trauma that happened to you during these years, or are you just guessing?

I wish you luck with your therapy. Do you know what kind of therapy your potential therapist practices? I'd suggest, if you haven't already, making sure she is aware of what you want to focus on and has the skills to help you.

[Perna]

Ygrec, I'll be 60 this year and am retired. What are the literal facts about your first three years? You might find that helpful looking at what's where, a kind of map or X on the map ;-)

My mother was sick all my life (had a brain tumor from 2 years before I was born) and died when I was 3. So, I had a lot going on in those 3 years that "obviously" contributed to my GAD, even if one just looks at it factually. But having my mother's history (when she went to the hospital, when my father was away and my grandmother came to stay to care for us but left "early", etc.) and my first memory, etc. in there to look at, makes it a little easier going.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

.........If my golden years are going to have anything golden about them, if I am to escape this daily pain and misery, I believe I'll have to deal with the issues ........

wow this says so much. (((((((((((((((((((((( ygrec )))))))))))))))))))))