[Zen888]

Hi

How do you make the most of your therapy sessions and deal with the aftermath of traumatic memories that are brought up after the session is over?

I'm interested to hear what others have to say about this. I just recently started thearpy again after 4 years off (recommended by my pdoc after I overdosed in Aug.). She & my therapist say I need to build up my self-esteem, but I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be talking about. I've resolved all the past horrors of my childhood & don't feel like I need to "go there" again.

When I was in therapy before, I felt somewhat cleansed after talking about traumatic memories. Right now I don't know how to utilize the therapy time.--Suzy

[sunrise]

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Pilatus said:
How do you make the most of your therapy sessions and deal with the aftermath of traumatic memories that are brought up after the session is over?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I think that is a great question to ask your T! I bet he/she will have some good coping strategies specific to your trauma. Once, when I was sharing some of my childhood trauma in therapy, I needed some way to cope between sessions, and my T had me practice a coping technique in his office before I left to make sure I could do it so I could use it later on my own. He had me imagine the traumatic event, draw a circle around it in my mind and then step inside, as me, the adult, and rescue the little girl inside and bring her outside of the circle. The trauma remained inside the circle and couldn't "get us" once we were outside. Then, between sessions, if the memory should resurface, I would perform the rescue. I found this really helpful.

Also, sometimes in sessions we do EMDR and that is really helpful at resolving trauma. The memories get reprocessed and really retreat after you have done it.

Hey. Yeah, I agree with Sunrise that it is a really good idea to have good coping strategies worked out before talking too much about traumas.

When you start working with someone it also takes a bit of time for you to get to know each other. Part of that is about them figuring out how to read you too. So they know when to push and when to back off. It also takes time for trust to develop.

There are lots of different things you can do and it takes a bit of time to build up a list of things that tend to work for you. There are things like distraction, self soothing, acting different from ones emotion, mindfulness exercises, etc.

Sounds like you are really keen to make the most of your sessions :-) That is terrific :-) It is important not to move too fast with respect to really getting into past events, though. Typically there are problems in the present that can be dealt with instead and the skills you use to deal with them are the same skills that can be applied back to the trauma work.

[growlycat]

Hi Pilatus-

I understand the internal pressure to want to talk about these things!! It's hard to work on coping strategies first ! Maybe you and your T can agree on what to do if the feelings are over whelming by the time a session ends. Mine will sometimes call and check in with me. If he is not availiable, I try to leave a meaningful message that lets him know how badly I'm doing. Being clear about what you need is very hard for me (because I am not prepared to hear NO)

Finding other ways of staying connected, when things are going well too can be helpful. (My therapist and I borrow each others books--although I do more of the borrowing than he does.) I don't know if any of this is helpful, but I'm glad you brought it up because I struggle with it too.

[nineten]

Yeah, the aftermath can be so hard on us it makes us think twice before opening the wound...
T and I had this arrangement that if I felt highly anxious or scared or what after a session, she said it was ok for me to call her any time. Also, at times she would call me and check in. It felt very comforting. Nowadays, I'm better able to take care of my needs so I initiate those calls and assertively tell her that it's hard for me and could she please call me.

[(JD)]

This is one of the reasons we see T's who are trained in handling and actually doing therapy with people...

knowing how much or little material to cover and keeping track of that for each patient is the T's job.... giving each patient enough time to adjust for leaving the office without raw feelings is the T's job...

please do discuss this in therapy session... it's a good topic!