For the last few days I have been on very rocky ground from my last therapy session. Im doing much better now that things have slowed down. Thanks (((((((((Kimmy))))))))) ((((((((((Sky))))))))))))) and so many others that gave me hugs, and thier shoulders and ears on the boards, by pm and by email. I really appreciated it.

Some asked what "earthquake" dared to mess with Myself. LOL I couldnt go into alot of details with some because I didn't want to trigger anyone.

Now that things are calmer I thought I would post on my blog and here on the boards a low keyed version of what happened to me.

What follows is a very unique untradiotional spin my therapist has put into an old therapy technique used on very young children - play therapy with sand trays.

I say "untraditional" because for the two weeks before LL and I did this activity I hit my research avenues and my friends and could not find anyone who worked with teens and adults with sand trays let alone combining hypnotic techniques.

For myself I don't regret doing this activity and even though it rocked and shook things up I will be doing this again because it pushed the process of co consciousness and integration forwards for me. For those that do not know what co consciousness and integration is -

Co consciousness is being aware of the here and now - the present - what is going on around you - seeing hearing and so on the room you are in, the people around you in your present life and the situation that is going on - the therapy session, AND at the same time being aware of what memory you are experiencing and experiencing that memory with all your senses and emotions.

Integration is also the process of co consciousness. when a person experiences a forgotten memory by being aware of the memory replaying and staying aware of the here and now at the same time the brain automatically moves that memory from being stored at the unconscious level of thinking to the conscious level of thinking.

It's kind of like when you get an email on a computer. Before you open and read the email the server automatically puts that email into the in box folders and then after opening the email you click a button and the computer automatically moves that email into your permanent files where you can open and look at the emails any time you want.

When a memory is in the unconscious level the person has no idea what that memory is until they "open" it and then it is moved from the unconscious level of thinking and put into the conscious level of thinking. Then the person can think about that memory any time they want. and once this happens DID people no longer act out the memories without being aware of what is going on and can control their behavior by using grounding techniques.

Anyway my therapist LL took the old idea of using sand trays for very young children and added her own spin to it of using her relaxation visualization activities and created a therapy activity that benefits her teen aged and adult clients and her DID, Dissociative clients also. This is what I experienced when doing the activity -

Sand Trays -

I am always on the lookout for new things to add to my therapy program. Alot of those things that catch my interest are things that are “hands on” type activities.

Boy did something different come my way. Sand Trays. I have been with the same therapist now for just over two years. About six months to a year ago this therapy agency bought another building next door to the one where my therapist LL worked out of. She was given one of the rooms in the “new” building. It’s a nice room with a little bit of room for her and her clients to spread out. One of the great things about this room is the wall length built in bookcase.

On the bookshelves she keeps many things. Some of her clients have their own “spot” where they can keep things used during their sessions. She also has her own things to decorate the room on those shelves.

Well one day a couple weeks ago I found myself standing looking at the pile and basket that was in “my” spot and I was drawn to this little knick knack of LL’s nearby. It has been on that shelf for some time but that day I was just amazed by it.

It was a little 3X5 or maybe 5X5 beach scene of a male figure at the beach, a lawn chair, umbrella, and beach ball. the scene looked like it contained real sand. I could not resist I had to touch it to see if it really was real sand. It was real white beach sand.

I guess LL noticed I was touching it. I had thought she was busy writing up my appointment card. Anyway the end result was her telling me it was a sand tray and the agency had a larger one at the main office building a block away and asked if I wanted to give working with the sand tray a try.

Immediately my curiousity was sparked. I had no idea what “Sand Tray’s” were or what to do with them but having seen the miniature one on the shelf I couldn’t pass this up. So I said sure why not. and asked her what the sand tray was like hoping to get an idea of what working with a sand tray was like.

She told me it stood about 3-4 feet high and demonstrated by holding her hand out. and then she said “you take yourself down” and it’s a way to process things and others to be a witness to that. I’m pretty used to the way LL talks and so I knew that by “you take yourself down” she meant relaxation techniques her and I have used together in the Depression Management Class and during my therapy sessions, and in the therapy field “witness” is a word sometimes used to describe the therapist. So I looked at this mini “sand tray” beach scene and thought how does that fit in with the relaxation visualizations that we have been doing? I was a bit confused but hey I’m game for it and told her again - yea lets do it.

The amazing part was we had already scheduled my next appointment date by this time and she picked up the phone and called the main office building and asked about scheduling the use of the sand tray. The next available time and day was exactly the time and day we had already scheduled for my next appointment. Our adding the sand tray to my therapy sessions was obviously meant to be. What a coincidence it was just amazing and I like how that sometimes happens to me in life.

For the next two weeks before my next appointment I wondered what “sand trays” were and how you use them and how did that miniature scene fit in with what I was doing.

I finally found out a couple things through friends - “Sand Trays” are inside sand boxes used for play therapy with small children. You can’t just go out and bring in a load of sand and dump it on the therapy room floor and it’s not always the right time of year or enough time in the session to take the children to playgrounds to play in the sand so therapy rooms have a box they call a “tray” that sand is put into. But my friends had no idea what my therapist meant when she said “you take yourself down” they had never heard of therapists using relaxation visualizations with sand trays. To find out that I had to wait until my therapy session.

Doing relaxation visualizations with LL for some time now I knew what that was and now I knew what a sand tray was and putting the two ideas together was something I could not logically fit together. I came up with two ”assumptions” or as some people call it ”hypothesis” .

One was she was going to do a relaxation visualization with me and she wanted me to act that out in building a sand tray scene.

The second one was that sand is something you touch so she wanted me to use the sand tray while using my hypnosis techniques (relaxation visualizations) to stimulate my sense of touch,

A third one came to me at my next appointment and was closer to what LL had planned.

We walked over to the main building and on the way over I told LL what I had figured out about it. She told me working with sand trays with teens and adults is different then how therapists work with children and sand trays. Children just play.

I was on the right track about the stimulating my sense of touch because she went into a little bit of detail about how memories are stored unconsciously by the senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight and working with a sand tray will get in touch with those memories.

Once we were at the main office and in the room with the sand tray and she unlocked a cupboard that had some toys that can be used in the sand tray and pointed out some baskets with even more toys and positioned the sand tray in front of me.

Then she said she needed to prepare me and set the scene. I thought ok heres where she is going to explain what my goal is with this activity and then we would do the relaxation visualization”

Well then it got a bit confusing. She started using words like saying the sand tray was “sacred and blessed”. Now I know there is a God but I bounce in and out of religion so when she used those words I started pulling away from the idea of doing the activity.

I remained calm and sort of sarcastically asked her “sacred and blessed huh”.

Then she brought her wording back to normal telling me that she meant that the sand was a special sand. It wasn’t just any kind of sand that someone at the agency went out and dug up and dumped into the tray. Sand tray sand goes through a process of being cleaned and treated so that it doesn’t contain the normal stuff found in normal sand.

I started giggling because normal sand can contain all kinds of things from fleas to being used as an animal bathroom and so on. So basically LL was letting me know that my using the sand tray was not going to give me any diseases, flea bites and so on.

At one point she uncovered the tray and showed me the tray holding the sand sat in a wooden frame like a stand and the tray itself was blue so it could be for the sky or water on the bottom or whatever I wanted it to be.

I can’t remember if showing me the tray happened before or after she attempted to do a relaxation visualization.

I say attempted because it was not working for me. Maybe it was because we were in another room then we usually used for our relaxation visualizations, or it could have been that the last time I had been in that exact room had been with SKR so being there with LL felt alittle odd, or it could have been LL’s wording.

LL seemed to be a bit stiff as if she had never done relaxation visualizations before and I knew and experienced when she had done them with the depression management group and we had worked together in sessions before with these type of hynpotic techniques (even though at that point she didn’t realize what she was doing was hypnosis).

The only time she was stiff in sessions doing this stuff was during the first recording session so my first thought was “great we’re being recorded did this room have a camera I can’t remember”

I decided the best thing to do was ask her what she was trying to do. so I asked her if she meant we were doing like the relaxation stuff we’ve done before, and in the process I ignored my urge to look around for the camera. She said yea a shorted version.

So then I knew why she was acting formal and stiff - she was trying to cut to the quick of the relaxation visualizations we did before but still have the same effect - me totally relaxed where I would not be censoring my thoughts, just floating and going with the flow.

So I took her out of her misery of trying to shorten her usual process by letting her know I can go into my tunnel area at will if that is what she was aiming for. She said yes that might be what she was trying to do and asked how to help me do that. I told her to just keep talking I can do that on my own I just needed a focus point if I was doing it without being triggered. She kept talking and I focused in on her earring and then the window blinds and turned on my music in my head and within a few seconds I started feeling floaty and far away.

Then she told me that when I was in my tunnel area she was going to sit back and be quiet and I could do anything I wanted with anything in the room as long as it was not inside a drawer.

I let her know that that was not going to work. I was already in my tunnel area and when I’m in here all I do is watch and float. Things are far away and blurry and she asked me if I could move.

that was when I thought oh “%#@&#! we’re doing it right now, we’re going to level one. and I didn’t see it coming until it was too late to fight or block it. Sneaky and I fell right into it with my curiousity for new hands on activities.”

The thought didn’t upset me It was a catch the breath moment and it just amazed me because rarely does LL take the sneaky unpredictable route.

I knew she was capable of it because she caught me once when I thought I could predict what she was gonig to do with a depression management class activitiy and she sprung the opposite goal of it on me and the class. Its just been so long since then that I forgot until that moment that LL CAN be unpredictable in a sneaky but good way.

SKR and I had been working on this goal of going after the nightmare while in that totally relaxed state of the relaxation visualizations but we had never actually made it to the point of carrying it out due to the government cutbacks, lay offs and so on going on during our working on the plans. And the way SKR was during therapy time was doing these unpredictable things like springing topics and so on on me when I least expected it so that I could not fight or block the thoughts and memories. When she did that I trusted her 100% so I just went with the flow.

So anyway I asked LL which way she wanted me to go to her or towards my music. She said to come back towards her so then I knew we were not going to level one. She wanted me in that co conscious area where SKR and I had done work with my being aware of her and also being able to tell her about the flashbacks and memories that I was seeing.

So my work with SKR kicked in and I went with the flow and focused on LL remembering she was wearing earrings and looked for that I let her know I could see and hear her and then she handed me a bowl and asked what I wanted to put into it.

I listend to what the voices and thoughts were and nothing matched what she was saying. In fact what I did hear I was able to match that voice with the clothes that LL was wearing so I looked away from her and asked for the first thing I saw - a basket of animal figures. The voice about her clothes stopped and there were no other vioces right then so I gave up on the animal basket I think I might have told LL theres nothing in the basket that is saying pick me - a little joke on my not being able to match anything in my head with anything in the basket and then I just touched the sand with my fingers.

Sand was for touching so maybe that would get the voices triggered again.

Touching the sand got the voices going again and I told LL what I was hearing and seeing. I don’t know if I told her “this is what I am seeing and hearing..”. I just said what it was going on and LL like SKR did started asking me questions and I answered the questions based on what I was seeing and hearing for as long as I could.

At one point the voices containing the words “shut up” and “don’t tell started in. Then the static in my head got loud and I headed off for la la land. When I came back from listening to my music and floating on my mental clouds LL was asking me if I wanted to shake the sand down in the sand tray with her. It was time to go back to her office and schedule my next appointment. I figured that was probably LL’s way of getting me to reconnect with being completely aware again but I was already focusing on how the chair felt and pushing my foot onto the floor so I told her - no she could do it.

Overall the sand tray activity was a good thing. I love exploring new activities especially hands on things. At first it was a bit strange I was basically told there were no expectations and goals just do whatever I want however it came to me the object was to just relax and let the memories and thoughts lead me. But then once I was able to understand it was the same thing that I had already been working on - co consciousness - it was just another way to do that - the actually doing the activity was easier.

And the end result - well it definately shook things up. I have been having some pretty confusing flashbacks and nightmares. On the one side this is good because this has given me a push forwards into activating my memory process again but yet it’s not so good because being flooded with feelings and thoughts and flashbacks and so on is not a fun thing.

Bottom line enter Sand tray therapy at your own risk because it will definately shake your world and challenge you into having to use each and every one of the coping skills learned in therapy for days afterwards.

[Evangelista]

(((Myself)))

Caring thoughts your way....a.k.a Sculley..

thank you (((((((((((((((Sculley))))))))))))

Lots of thoughts going your way too.

[bipolar_bear]

That is an interesting type of therapy. I am going to read up on it. Thanks for sharing.

[Hopefull]

Wow! Sounds hard. I am amazed by how well you trust your therapist. Keep up the good work.

You're welcome.

Will do. Thanks.

For me it wasn't hard. The type of therapy SKR and I did together right from the beginning was focused on treating me as ONE person who happened to have separated memories.

My therapy program right from the beginning focused on locating the triggers by listening to the voices and other kinds of pieces of memories and matching them to what in my present life was causing me to dissociate (daydream myself into my mental safe place which left my body on the autopilot of replaying pieces of memories).

We were told by many professionals in the field to focus our attention on treatment as a WHOLE not as in each "name" was a seprarate person. That does not mean she pushed me aside when the memory pieces got triggered into replaying. If I was in session and a memory piece got triggered into replaying or I was already in activated state of mind she asked questions and talked with me but it was in the frame of mind that the memories were our tools to learn from and help me to become more stable by finding out what the memory content was and using those to build coping tools and grounding techniques so that the triggers that activated those memories to be acted out pell mell could be taken care of. So even though we gathered information when I did dissociate and each piece of memory replayed we accepted them for what they were - memories of me at various ages going through abuse situations - they were pieces of me not entities functioning with their own separate BIOLOGICAL bodies.

Right from the beginning I was taught and researched grounding techniques and relaxation techniques and right from the beginning I was expected to use them.

If I forgot in the heat of the moment SKR dug right in by by doing everything and anything she could and had to to get me to focus on her and the present with all of my senses, - the feel of the chair, the room and so on.

Right from the beginning SKR's and my focus was on listening beyond the static to the voice memories and looking for the triggers that were activating the memories and using my grounding techniques and relaxation techniques to do what I needed to do to take care of the situation.

For example we would be sitting there talking and I let her know during our conversations when the static and voices in my head was getting louder. Then she would move closer and ask me questions like - what color shirt she was wearing, Did I like her hair barrette, the ring on her left hand. when I was back focusing on her and what she was saying she would ask me questions about the flashback, or the voices or about the conversation we were having when I started dissociating. If I didn't answer the question she brought my focus back to her and hearing her voice and seeing her then we would keep going. We did this over and over again be it in face to face therapy sessions or be it when I called her after hours in panic and so on. The object was for me to see how long I could continue to answer her questions and ignore the voice memories that contained the words "shut up" and so on and continue telling her what she looked like what she said and what I was hearing, and seeing in the flashbacks and voices.

We started out slow and build up as I got stronger at doing it.

At home when the voices and flashbacks start in I carried over doing this and locating the triggers - matching the voices and flashbacks to something that was around me or in the activity I was doing and using grounding techniques, relaxation techniques and so on.

DID isn't a disorder that is only in the therapy room. It is in every aspect of my life so my therapy program for it instead of just an hour a week of face to face sessions became a 24/7 therapy program that I had follow through with in every aspect of my life not just in the therapy sessions.

Alot of people go to therapy sessions and then walk out the door and and think "there glad that session is over with" carry on with their day not bringing into their outside of therapy life the tools that they learn inside the therapy room and then get upset at the therapist because they are not getting any better.

I don't have that luxury. flashbacks hit me at home, on the bus, in the store, in court hearing, when I am in the bathroom.... Flashbacks dont say "ok she's not in the therapy room we cant show her this piece of memory yet" My dissociating does not happen just in the therapy room and does not say "ok no memory pieces named so and so and everyone else too cannot act out abuse situations right now for she isn't in the therapy room" My dissociating happens every where so my therapy program had to be done everywhere and anywhere no matter the day and time and what was going on.

Because this was my therapy program right from the beginning, during the sand tray activity from habit the therapy program that I use at home and when SKR was my therapist just automatically kicked in and I focused on LL and answered her questions based on what I was seeing and hearing while being totally relaxed.

Trust with my therapist LL. - LOLOL It didn't start out that way

In fact I hated her from day one and made that very clear to her by telling her to her face she was a "stiff with potential" and by way of memory pieces replaying swearing at her, calling her clueless, A$%bleep bleep. My journal entries were LOADED with what I thought about her both when I was aware and when I wasn't aware during the writing of those entries and I handed oover my journal entries to her. The letters I had wrote at that point to SKR was also LOADED with what I thought of LL while aware and unaware while writing those letters. So much so that my past therapist SKR met with LL and STRONGLY advised LL in drawing up a "contract" for me to sign stating I would not harm LL during sessions which LL did.

It has taken LL and I alot of being 100% honest with each other and being willing to hear each other out before jumping to conclusions to make this work between the two of us. If there is a problem with something I let her know right away so the problem does not escalate into explosion level, from bad feelings of misunderstandings and she does the same. from time to time she will ask me something in the way of - How do you think we're doing? meaing the two of us as a therapy team.

With SKR trust was there for the two of us from day one. With LL trust was something we BOTH had to build up and earn from each other.

Trust isn't just about the client trusting the therapist, therapists too have to be able to trust the client and trust on both sides does not happen by one or the other telling half truths, pretenting to be who they arent, and saying things just to shut up the therapist and please the client.

My purpose for being in therapy was to get better and not based on if I like the therapist or not. The same for LL she was in the business to help clients not be best buddies with them.

But that does not mean that we are not supposed to respect each other as human being and not do the work.

We both have our parts to do in this job known as therapy and we do it giving each other our 100% complete honesty and "all" and trust came in the process of doing those jobs.

I can also tell you that trusting a therapist and liking them are tow completely different things. I don't have to like my therapists themselves and their approach to trust them. Trust in a therapist is believing they have my best interest at heart. By best interest I don't mean if they like me or not. I mean that what ever they tell me or ask me to do is in the frame of mind of helping me to become more stable and funtional. Personal opinions of whether or not the therapist likes me does not figure in if the therapist can and will teach me how to for example do grounding techniues, or point out where I may be heading off the right tack, or something that I missed looking at in a problem or situation, or suggesting something that will make an activity that I am doing work better for me.

Just like for instance a lawyer is supposed to defend his client regardless of person opinion a therapist is supposed to do their job regardless of personal opinion of the client and the client has a responsibilty to work the program regardless of their personal opinions of the therapist.

Beside that it don't make sense to me not to do the program just because of hatred or dislike for the therapist. That only hurts the client not the therapist. LOL

[pegasus]

(((((((((((((( myself ))))))))))))))))))))

Thanks for sharing.

I hope that one day I too will be able to share, and talk about things as well as you do.

Thanks ((((((((pegasus)))))))

You will get there.

[Rapunzel]

What I admire is the trust that you have for your therapists, even when you are angry or hurt. I might get somewhere a bit faster if I could learn to trust my T and not insist on having things my way. It's hard to stop fighting and submit to treatment by someone who is there to help (even though she gets irritated and frustrated with me too). Sometimes we put our therapist through more than they bargained for, huh?

LOL yup I sure have put a few of mine through the "gauntlet". and thank you.

I had absolutely no trust or liking in me for therapists when I HAD in the literal sense to attend therapy back in 2001.

I ignored my depression - dropped out of therapy, stoppped taking medication both without the approval of my therapists and psychiatrists.

The result of not taking care of my problems and ignoring them and fighting against treatment options was that I became suicidal and hit my child.

As a result I came very close to being arrested, committed to the state mental health facility and losing my child.

I was lucky The DHS intaker worker sat with me and wrote out on a form before she took my child with her what I needed to do to get him back - contact my family physician for an appointment for medication, therapy and a comprehensive psychological evaluation and follow all recommendations set down in that evaluation.

I was given the therapy agencys name by DHS's mental health consultant and then had an intake appointment with the therapy agencies intake therpist and then I was assigned a therapist sight unseen - SKR - based on the information gathered at the intake appointment.

When the DHS intake caseworker got my medical reports she saw that I had a history of dropping therapists, dropping and skipping and changing my medications and dropping out of therapy all together so she had me court mandated into therapy and on medication at the disgression of my therpaist and physician.

Whether I liked it or not If I wanted my child I had to do the program and work. If any reports said I was not complying didn't matter what the reason for my not complying my child would not have come home a year later.

And with LL I was still under the assumption that I had no choice but to remain in therapy at my therapist disgression. I was also under the assumption that after my child had completed residential treatment if all my reports said I was complying and actively working on my treatment plans my child would be returned home. Unfortunately the caseworker after the intake worker had to close my side of the case due to the case being open beyond a year this state uses the first date of the child entering the system as the time frame marker. I was never told that by his being returned to care for residential treament meant my side of the case was open more than a year. I thought the time frame started from the date of his return to foster care for treatment. Because the case now hinges on my child and his stability among other things I have not lost parental rights but because of the case time frame and his instability he will not be returned home a second time. But anyway. I was under the assumption that I had no choices I was assigned LL when SKR and I chose friendship over therapy time and I had to make it work regardless of my personal likes and dislikes and lack of trust in her.

the bottom line was that "Trust" and liking my therapists was not a part of the picture. I was court mandated and I had no choice in whether or not I trusted SKR or liked her, I was assigned to her sight unseen and that was that. I either had to make it work or lose my child.

So I did what I needed to do I threw my idea of having to like a therapist and trust the therapist out of my thoughts and do what needed to be done.

SKR and I both went into it with the same attitude - to do what was needed to get my child back home where he belonged and because we both went in totally open minded we connected right away.

My first session with her was literally NOTHING like a typical therapy session. there was a DHS meeting we both had to attend right after the session and I mean right after there was no time for me to even catch the next bus so she gave me a ride to the meeting.

Walking in her door and neither one of us were sitting down before she said - hi I'm so and so and we have this meeting in 30 minutes so what do I need to know? and I said hi I'm so and so I became suicidal and my child is in foster care, I became suicidal because .... and here is how I think we can solve this situation ....

By the end of that session what normally is completed in a series of 4-6 sessions was done in 30 minutes because that all the time we had to be able to go into that meeting with a complete plan to take care of my depression, PTSD including nightmares and flashbacks and panic attacks.

We both knew our goal - to get my son back all my T's had to be crossed and all my i's had to be dotted and we both entered into the therapy session open minded and ready to work regardless of personal opinions and in doing so found out that we both had things in common with our work approach and in many other areas too.

The same with LL. I had to make it work and do what needed to be done if I wanted my child . So I threw "trust" and "like" for LL out of my ideas of what therapy was, and in doing so I found out that LL and I have common interests and common ideas of what will help me.

If I had entered therapy with my preconcieved notion that I MUST like and trust who I was in therapy with I would have missed out on alot of great information and coping skills and so on because my opinion of those things would have been clouded with my preconcieved idea of when am I going to like this therapist and so on.

By entering open mindedly I was not upset by any questions either one of them asked by wondering "what her motive" behind that question was and if she was saying something because they might not like me and so on.

Challenge for you -

sit down and write out what your last therapy session was like, how you felt going in, during and coming out.

then Before going into your next session throw caution to the wind by saying it don't matter if I like or dislike or trust or distrust so and so this is whats going on and this is what I think I should do, does so and so have any ideas to add to this?

Then write about how you felt going in, during and after the session.

Then put both papers side by side. You will be amazed by what you see.

Keep doing this activity for each of your therapy sessions and about the 10th one add the question -

Do I trust my therapists judgement?

At the same time remember that trust and like are two different things. Trusting a therapist means you are confident that what that therapist is adding to the sessions benefits you and that the suggestions to you do not do harm to you.

you will again be amazed. and will most likely find that you have developed a trust for your therapist regardless of if you personally like him/her.

[Rapunzel]

Thanks for your advice. Since I'm in online therapy with f2f sessions occasionally, I only see her 5 or 6 times in a year. The e-mail is rather continuous though. I still think I'll try your idea. I like my T. I've just been struggling with how she works with me because it's pretty uncomfortable, and even though I asked her for therapy and I'm there voluntarily, somewhere I seem to have picked up an attitude where I see it as a fight and I struggle against her even though I want her to win. I'm trying not to see it that way anymore, because that just doesn't help.

We've been participating in research about online therapy, so every week I have to fill out a form that asks about my attitudes and feelings. And we've been through a really rough patch the last few weeks, where I wasn't feeling very friendly to her, and was afraid she would terminate me. I was suprised to find that even through that, I still had confidence in her skills. She pretty much always turns out to be right, even if I question it at first.