the small stuff of therapy can be big

Thank you, sugahorse. I think that is the charm right now--that the small can have such a big impact. I like how you said "perceive", because if what I perceive as "small" actually has a big impact, then maybe it was not so "small" after all!

You know from your own experience what has been true for you, e.g. what has worked for you in therapy. It is indeed great to be able to learn from one's own experience, but if you only rely on that, you can miss the diversity of what others experience and even think that your experience is what everyone else experiences too. That is one thing I really like about PC--people have such different experiences in therapy, with different therapy approaches, and very different Ts. And many have success. I would not say that their experience was any less valid/true than mine just because it was not what I had personally experienced.

pachy, I remember you've mentioned this London therapist before, and I have always been intrigued.

I know depression isn't the same as trauma, as I've been writing about in previous posts, but for what it's worth, after seeing my current T only one time, I felt "cured" of depression, which I had been struggling with for some time and had previously seen another therapist for (the band-aid T). I feel somewhat embarrassed by the rapidity of my "feeling better." It's almost like I feel that if I could be "cured" in one day, then my depression must have been trivial or something. But it wasn't! It was numbing and sapping and like molasses or quicksand. I don't use the word "cure" lightly--i.e. I don't believe I have been "cured" of trauma, but have been helped a lot. (I don't want to give the impression my trauma work was on a similarly fast scale.)

thanks for this post, sunny. i'm really glad you're getting to experience the "small" stuff changing too. imo, because so much of our lives are the "small stuff", it actually has the power to make even more profound impact than some of the big stuff we have to work through.

fwiw, i still haven't done any real trauma work with pdoc or austin-t. it's too big for me to know where to start, and at the same time it's such a -- blah, there's no traction on it? -- for me to know what to do with it. the things i deal with are more the "small stuff", and the approach pdoc takes with me is very gentle (and, hence, very slow). it's taken me a very long time to learn to trust pdoc. trust has always been a huge issue for me. but now i'm starting to learn that it's a gift i can give myself, too. i have more power in choosing who to trust, or when to trust them. e.g., although i trust pdoc with the "big stuff", he recently made a promise (a very small promise - about not eating a particular food until i could eat it too) and i immediately dismissed it, didn't allow myself to believe that he actually meant it. i didn't mind that he didn't mean it, it was just a throwaway comment. and then i went home and realised that by dismissing it - not choosing to believe pdoc was being genuine - that i was actually stepping away from some of the intimacy he was offering me. it's been maybe 6 weeks, and pdoc still hasn't eaten that particular food. and it's a lesson for me that maybe i can allow myself to believe the small stuff other people promise too. the stuff that isnt important, but that comes up in my daily interactions. i've felt kind of wonderful with pdoc recently because of it. it was a nice lesson to learn.

i'm curious about how you got "cured" of your depression, but maybe this isn't the place to talk about it if you don't want to go there. for me, i feel like i'm healing from the trauma a lot quicker than my depression. the depression comes and goes and comes again, but the trauma's impact lessens even without my actively working on it. i find it curious that our experiences can be so different .

re: different therapy modalities taking different amounts of time, i have to agree with you sunny & pach. pdoc is very patient and believes that a strong relationship will ultimately help me heal. it has worked wonderfully for me, but i'm still seeing him 5 years on. austin-t likes a more sledge hammer approach (lol, he'd hate me to describe it like that), but i know he is usually a lot more directive and wants to see change very quickly, and that his training usually enables him to heal his clients quickly (both pdoc & austin-t consider themselves healers too, sunny. old-t didnt). i'm a lot slower with therapy than the fit would require for my healing to happen at the pace austin-t offers, so he's had to slow down a lot and not use techniques he otherwise would. but this is what feels safe to me, and what i ultimately require, so he's prepared to work in a manner that best suits me. i have been seeing him for 1.5yrs though, and i think his longest client has only been 2yrs. so i definitely agree (based on both personal experience and the vast scientific literature) that different modalities and fits can lead to lesser/greater time in treatment.