[stolen_innocence08]

Is there any point in bringing up my abuse in T?

I've been in therapy for years and have talked about 'what happened' with a previous T. No, I dont think I fully engaged with it - **** knows.

Is there any point talking about it, when it's over? I feel like T would think I was bringing up things like that is dwelling. I feel guilty because I want to talk about it.

[Suratji]

It is absolutely positively critically important that you bring it up!!!!! I understand the feelings of resisting 'dwelling' on it. I have struggled with that too. But I now know and understand that avoiding it does not make it go away.

I also understand feeling guilty (or ashamed in my case) but you must find the courage to bring it up. It will make a huge difference in how your T understands you and will help considerably in your healing.

[Elli-Beth]

Bringing it up with the new T will probably result in a different feeling/outcome than before. You're in a different place with your life, have begun to address it once already, and your new T's different style. This may be the chance to resolve it in a whole new way! And it's not dwelling, it's letting your T see the parts of your history that have impacted you.

[Perna]

If you want to talk about it, if it is bothering you as it is now, then by all means bring it up! Doesn't matter what the subject is, if it is important to you, your T wants to hear about it.

[SpiritRunner]

If you didn't fully engage with it with the past T, then is it really over, over emotionally for you? because yes, it may be over physically, in the past, but if it is still with you emotionally, then it isn't over.....and it would be good to discuss it more fully now in order to heal more fully!

I wondered the same thing when we started with a new therapist. I thought, well, we talked about this a little bit with the old T and it didn't help very much so why bother, right? Why bring up all that s&*t up again? And besides, it would just stress us out and be all scary and we'd have those dumb flashbacks.
But then we did bring it up with our new T, and she has a TOTALLY different (and much more helpful) approach to working with these issues than old T did. And we are making so much more progress, in a much faster time frame, than we did with old T. So telling and talking about it again was a good idea. I think its absolutely critical that you bring it up again with the new T. They may have different ideas, or be more helpful, or just new thoughts or something. You never know.