T Minimizing?

[COLOR="Purple"]Have any of you felt your T's minimize your past?

I have read on a lot of posts of people's T's that got angry about what happened to their clients in the past (or even present) and the clients minimizing the situation and the T's trying not to minimize?

I've told some traumatizing things in the past and T remained very neutral...which is good I guess, but never like I'm so angry what they did to you....

For example I brought up an issue of SA waaaayyy back and out of the 2 incidences, one he said 'oh that's pretty normal (2kids) and the other he said 'yes that's wrong' and that's it. Also he CONSTANTlY tells me ' see that's why I think your better than you think you are!" and I've heard lil comments of how other clients some have it worse? I feel I'm in therapy for some significant issues.[

I guess it would be nice to get some validation from T that what happened WAS horrible? Idk...it almost makes me feel dumb for going to therapy for my my issues since they're all getting minimized anyways...or is this a tactic T's use that I'm unaware of?

Anyways I was curious if any other Ts minimize? And if you felt it was helpful for you or not?/COLOR]

I too have felt like my xT. was minimizing things that happened to me in the past. I don't know if he was minimizing or just being neutral but it felt minimizing to me. I don't know if it was because I would discuss things in a very factual no emotion way and he was just mirroring how I was discussing it...

But I did not feel it was helpful to me and if anything it made it harder to bring stuff up later because I thought it would just be minimized ...

I never talked to my xT. about it. I regret that now. I think you should talk to your T. of how you are interpretting his response.

I think you should talk to him about his reaction and how it makes you feel.

Since survivors of childhood SA tend to minimize, I would have thought most therapists would counter that. When I disclosed my CSA, my T immediately shifted gears. I could almost see him throwing out his original treatment plan as we talked. Several times I've said things like "it wasn't that bad" and his response is always something along the line of "if you knew a 13 year old child (the age I was at the time of my SA) was being subjected to that, would you think it was bad?" It helps me face what I experienced and not to minimize. I think if I got any kind of minimizing from him, I'd shut down about it, which would definitely not be helpful for me.

I'm with critterlady on this one. Definitely, if you can, you need to discuss it with him. If you cannot, I would consider changing therapists, if I were you.

My T generally doesn't minimize the difficult and traumatic things that I've been through. However, on Friday we talked about my parents' physical abuse toward me. I've talked about this in the past with two Ts who had really strong reactions of support to this (one had tears in her eyes when talked about being scared of being hit). But on Friday, I didn't feel like this T--whom I adore and have a GREAT relationship with--was as empathetic. So I wrote to her and she wrote back:

I wrote some about the hitting and discipline in my journal and what scared, lying, etc. parts they created in me. I didn't feel from you as strong of a reaction as I felt from exT1 and exT2 when I talked about this, but maybe you've just heard this a lot before.... (I'm not sure what part of me is saying this...)

Her response: I AM APPALLED AT HOW YOUR PARENT'S USED PHYSICAL VIOLENCE AND ANGRY. SORRY IF I DIDN'T CONVEY THAT TOO YOU ENOUGH. MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE FRIGHTENED CONFUSED CHILD THAT GREW UP THINKING THAT WAS "NORMAL". THE FACT THAT IT OCCURS ALL TOO FREQUENTLY IN OUR WORLD DOESN'T MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE LESS PAINFUL.

So, I would definitely echo others who say to check in...

My T does not minimize abuse. But he does normalize certain things I am going through by telling me that many people go through that, that I am not abnormal, etc. It's not the same as minimization, but it does help me not feel so bizarre or alone.

I am reading a book right now in which it recommends that health care providers should sometimes minimize abuse. I actually feel kind of ill about it, because I think abuse should be taken seriously all the time.

I think I would look at each incident in context with the whole of my current difficulties and goals in therapy. I was abused but the abuse is just the action, not how I felt about it and whether I had difficulties with it later, etc. The relationships I had/did not have were much more important in the larger scheme of things than any particular incident.

Discussing how you feel the abuse has affected you might be of more help than the actual incident report? Ts follow the emotion; if you were just reporting what happened, the response might be, "yes, that's abuse" or, "no, that's normal", informative rather than emotionally charged.

I do feel ĺike he's maximizing my past.
Maybe because I'm the one doing all the minimizing

However, one T in hospital kept explaining to me how, in some cultures, it is considered normal for a adult to have a sexual relationships with a child. No harm's done. Yeah, that helped a lot

When I first "casually" mentioned it- after nearly a year of therapy and when he asked me how many sexual partners have I had (Oh and I've forgot to mentioned my grandpa)- I too could see that in his eyes- like FINALLY I can see what's wrong with this girl.

Bad Facilitator was a bit sloppy about this. He once said, "It's in the past, you just have to accept it." I said, "Not so fast. First we need to examine it to see how we feel about it. And then we may need to grieve before we can accept it." He admitted I was right.

My T has always been very careful not to do it.

This is how I feel about my t now. However, it was not clearly abuse in my situation (one t called it emotional abuse). I haven't told him very specifically because whenever I mention difficulties he changes the topic or seems uninterested. I'm thinking I may stop therapy since he doesn't seem to think what I talk about matters, but I will see what happens tomorrow. I can imagine if it was serious abuse like yours, it would feel much worse if the t didn't take it seriously. I hope you can get the support you're looking for.

I have my appt tomm morning that I'm NOT looking forward to...I've been trying to take the last couple days and really think about this.

I decided I'm goin to bring it up and see what happens and possible termination. I'm not sure but I'll see how it goes tomorrow. Thank you guys for ur input

I'm sorry he does that.

I hope it went well? Did I miss another thread if you posted about it?

Hi learning1 . Thanks for following up . Yeah it went ok... I have my appt tomm but I did pot a follow up to the appt....

I can't post the link to the thread I started on my iPhone (at least I don't know how lol) but if you look under my posts it'll show it.