The most healing session you have ever had

Thank you for that. The kicker was that she later told me the other client had offered twice to reschedule, so that meant my therapist actually rejected me three times in the span of about two minutes (because she talked to the other client in the waiting room before she told me I would have to leave).

Um...why did she not accept that offer, then?

I realize this is off-topic - sorry, OP - but the whole double-booking thing fascinates me. It seems like a very easy problem to avoid, yet it happens a fair amount (to me, too, but it was caught beforehand).

Yeah, why did she not accept the offer and also, what the freakin' hell was she thinking in telling you that? What were you supposed to do with that information? Did she not know how a client would feel in that situation?

Apart from the rather monumental empathy failure, it strikes me as a Therapy 101 failure all around.

Sorry, OP!

While it was my regular session time/day, the other person had scheduled it months earlier and my therapist hadn't looked at her calendar. She probably felt it was first come first served. And maybe when the other client was being gracious and offered to reschedule, my therapist may have realized she really liked this other client who was not sobbing and also probably missed seeing her since it had apparently been a while.

I got over it. I take what I can get. She's still a better therapist than any other I've seen. I just don't have any unrealistic expectations about the arrangement.

For me it was probably a time this winter. My T and I do bodywork , and so I was on my back and she had her hands on my belly doing her energy thing. But I was really uneasy because my mom focused on.my belly with her abuse ( I was disgusting etc) and it has also been a huge issue with me with my eating disorder. I found my body disgusting, but particularly my belly.
I had asked her to stop doing the body work because I felt too disgusting. For a few minutes she tried to talk me through it and get me to see that my belly was OK. But after a few minutes of me getting more agitated she took hold of my hand and put it on her own belly. She asked me to feel.it. then she asked me if I.thought she was disgusting or unlovable. When I said no she said my body was just as beautiful and loveable as hers. She put her other hand on.my belly, so she had one hand on my belly and the other was holding my hand against her own and talked about how normal and perfect my belly felt. I argued and said they only felt the same because I was flat on my back. So she moved the furniture and laid down right next to me.she took both my hands holding one against her belly and one against my own and talked for about 10 minutes about how I was normal and perfect and beautiful, how our bodies were the same. We did some yoga breathing exercises like that. Then she asked me how I felt and I said that I felt better but I still didn't think my belly was good for anything. She sat up and said "its awfully good for tickling!!!" And tickled the snot out of me. Then we just sat there side by side giggling together. That session unlocked some door and since then I've been making major progress with my eating disorder

When I made my CSA disclosure.

It's funny, because I'm not sure I believe in all that nonsense about spiritual healing. I didn't go to therapy to "heal." I don't even know what it is that that means--maybe because I'd never felt wounded until that session, either.

There was just something about his response. I can't figure out what it is. I swear I've turned the same twenty minutes over and over in my mind for months but I just can't seem to grasp it. It's almost as if whatever happened that session lies just outside the realm of rational comprehension, like a word forever on the tip of your tongue.

Which is also funny, because I don't believe in that nonsense about the emotional brain, either.

I just keep going back to the look on his face. The "God, that's ****ing terrible" look. Maybe in all those decades I'd never actually thought that, at least not without a caveat. "God, that's ****ing terrible--but that's life, amiright? Them's the breaks, kid."

There was no caveat in his look. No em dash, no ellipses, no qualifier. Just, God, that's ****ing terrible. Full. Stop.

It was pity, no doubt about it. That's probably supposed to bother me, but how numb to we have to be to our own humanity to look at a thing like that and not feel pity? I don't know. I can't explain it. That's always irritated the **** out of me, not being able to explain or articulate something. Not being able to understand it.

I guess it was like sitting with another person in the vast incomprehensibility of this terrible ****ing experience. Not feeling so alone in it. He didn't have anything to say about it. Neither did I, as it turned out.

Maybe that's why I can't put words to it: It was a silent understanding.

Without a doubt, it was the first session that my T held my hand. I had fantasized about former Ts doing it, but they wouldn't. I have never felt such a sense of calm, love, and peace. The sessions after that when I held her hand were healing too, but nothing compares to that first time.

When I was shaking, T laid a blanket on me instead of just handing it to me. She didn't have to do that, but she did and it meant a lot to me.

When I was crying bitterly saying that I hated being LGBTQ (I think I said "I hate me. I hate being [sexual orientation]"), she told me that it hurt to see me in such pain. And when she said "It's okay, QuietMind, to be LGBT."

I have had some very healing moments in therapy. Some have been longer term, healing by stealth, but some have very much happened in the moment.

*trigger csa*

One time a few months ago, we were talking about when I was younger, and about something that happened, and my T quite abruptly took me back...can you see the room, what are you wearing etc. I was a bit shocked that she did that, but I stayed with it, and told her what was happening. She came into the room and scooped me up, and carried me out. She was very angry with the abuser. She took me to my grandmas house and I stayed there in the blanket. She said she wanted to shoot the abuser, called him a bastard. But the little one just remembered her carrying me out and feeling so little and putting my arms round her neck.

It just laid something to rest. I know it's not real, and nothing in the past has changed, but just to be seen, and mattering enough to someone that they would take me away....*sob*

It's a feeling of an internal change. I feel more connected to me. It happens at intervals along the journey. So there isn't one stand out session.

Thank you, RedSun, for your story and also for "healing by stealth." That's how I experience it, too.

Someone earlier asked what words I associate with therapy and it would be: connection. Connection to the T, connection to my pain, connection to the wounded little one inside of me, connection to my potential and my human-ness.

That may be because I have a dissociative disorder and I'm not fully "present" during the toughest sessions, but connection is what it gives me.

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These are all so powerful and thank you all for sharing your experiences and putting them out there. I feel for me personally it takes guts to heal and to show our vulnerabilities in those moments when we are scared and ashamed to say what we need or instinctively some ts know what we need, like Argonautomobile's t, rainbows, quiet minds, howdoyoufeelmeow and redsuns! Mouse, connection has certainly helped me in my healing too so I can relate, in my connection with t I have learned how to connect with others.

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This sounds like an amazing experience and I am glad it has helped with your recovery with your ED. Sometimes it is just hearing somebody say it's ok and we are alright that really helps

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I think what was healing about it was how vulnerable it made her. That she opened herself like that to help heal.me. I mean, I don't know any American women who aren't self conscious about their bellies, and most people don't generally invite touch there except from romantic partners or their kids. She admitted afterward it was vulnerable and hard for her and I could feel that. I could feel her being as vulnerable as I was.
Also it was so the opposite of the absutely humiliating types of things my mom did.
But a lot of it was how she entered so fully into the experience with me and made herself vulnerable too...

i have had a few that would tie for "most." I dont tell anyone about them because they were so complicated and emotional... i keep them in my heart, tucked away, because theyre so private. i want to hold them there in my heart, protected.

The most healing session for me was this past January with the T I just ended with. I had never said my suicidal feelings out loud before and I was scared to do so and that I would cry. T suggested we hold hands (first time I held her hand) and I could just let my feelings out. We held hands and I said my Sui feelings just like they go through my head. As I said them I was holding onto her more tightly to remind myself that she was there. She said to me "Its ok, you can hold on as tight as you need to". "Its ok to cry and its safe here". After she said those things I lost it and started crying (my first time crying in therapy) and she keep saying "Its ok, I am here, You can hold onto me. You are safe". When I looked up to her she had so much care and compassion on her face and I felt so loved. I asked for a hug and she held onto me so tightly that it startled me as she had never done that and it was a nice long healing hug. She realty showed how much she cared.

Yes, very much so. The most healing for me wasn’t one particular session, but the entire process. The experience of someone always being there for you, caring for you and taking you seriously. My T believed in me and provided a safe place. He was the rock I never had when I grew up, and needed to have to grow stronger and believe in myself. I’m still so grateful for this experience.

Two other moments stand out for me too: the first time he encouragingly laid his hand on my shoulder for a few seconds (first other touch than the usual handshake). And when we hugged just before stepping out of his office for the last time. That hug was filled with so much love, that every last part of the wall I had built around me, shattered into pieces.

With my current therapist, when she cried when I told her about a particularly painful experience. I could tell she was really engaged as I was explaining and she basically just lost control for a moment. I think she was really embarrassed because I wasn't crying at all. She apologized, composed herself, and we went on. It was a vulnerable and compassionate human moment with so much love in the room. I will never forget that.