Do therapists give up

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has any similar experience. I have been with the same therapist for over 3 years, I have CPTSD from various trauma in childhood. I know I keep repeating patterns.

Grounding has been a major thing for me that I cannot seem to grasp. Everytime he asks how I feel I really don't know. We have been through all the grounding techniques, he's sent me links, lent me books, breathing exercises etc over and over and over and then yesterday he asked if I'd ever tried yoga for grounding and it felt like he's given up on me. I don't know what is so wrong with me that I can't feel my body or how I feel in it no matter what I try. Has anyone experienced similar and what did you do about it?

Hi Adyna, welcome to PC!
I have CPTSD too and find grounding very hard. Yes, I have had T’s give up on me in the past. One had a yelling fit and, frankly, made a fool of herself (this is rare) then fired me. The second just seemed to “turn it off” and stop caring or engaging me so we talked about my pets every session until I stopped going. One canceled an appointment on my voicemail and never answered or called back to reschedule. I went to her office and politely confronted her.
It sounds like your T is still trying and has not given up on you. I have been with my current T about 6 months and he is awesome. He has a ton of training and experience and while he doesn’t specialize in trauma he is really good at working with it. Some sessions are challenging for him because he wants SO badly to see me not in pain. He honestly cares and gets frustrated with himself that he can’t find the magic button fast enough. I did do a lot of CBT which, at the time helped me to control flashbacks and body memories but now it seems to get in the way. My T has also admitted to being scared because I am so dissociative all the time that he worries he won’t know if he triggers or upsets me.
Sometimes the harder you try the harder it makes it to accomplish. CPTSD also doesn’t just happen overnight for the most part and certainly can’t be healed overnight.
I also have a hard time being “in” my body and feeling what’s going on inside. IF you can tolerate it, massage therapy helped me. Massage T works with my clothes on and is very gentle. We have worked together 10 years and she has made a huge difference!

Things my T does to help/that help...

He has 4 feeling cards (happy, sad, mad and scared) and each one has other feelings that fall under that larger emotion. Each session I have to pick from the cards either what I am currently feeling or what I was feeling between sessions. It simplifies things and takes finding the words out of it. Then, once I sit down we try to talk about it.

T made it very clear he wants to avoid my anxiety going over a 5 on a scale of 1-10. He doesn’t want to create a higher anxiety, he wants me to tell him if I am near or above the 5, and he doesn’t want me to push myself to do anything with him above a 5.

T reminds me often to breathe during session

When I stiffen my body or go into freeze mode he stretches, asks me to move or changes thing up so that I am less dissociative

He lets me be in control as much as I am willing/able to be.

He has me bring something to session (my safe place) that I can bring home that helps anchor me. He made several suggestions and we are still trying things.

He reminds me that our emotions are not bad and when they bother me to ask where are they coming from and what are they trying to tell me.

He has helped me see how I use the 4 Fs when I am scared (fight, flight, freeze, fawn). Mostly I am someone that freezes but I have done all 4 and am learning when I use each one. Knowing why I use the reaction I do helps me to back track to the feeling causing it.

My T will use touch with me which helps a lot and I like but I also understand it isn’t for everyone.

I have a wooden finger labyrinth that I sometimes bring with me

I can set up the office how I like or what feels safe for what I need to talk about (it took a LOT of work for me to feel safe enough to do this). I can also choose if we sit on the floor or in chairs. T wants me as comfortable and relaxed as possible.

Playing a card game I didn’t know

Let’s me email an after session report of what stood out to me (good and bad) in session that I couldn’t say because I was dissociative

Using symbolic items (mine or his) to represent safe people in my life and having them symbolically around me in the office. (So a scarf that reminds me of my priest because of his stole sets beside me. A toy soldier that reminds me of a friend who was a marine stands behinde me...)

Essential oils

Oddly last week T had a bad morning and had not eaten before our appointment. He sheepishly asked if he could eat during session. I didn’t mind so he did. It really helped a lot to have him doing something “normal”

Sitting close to me

Things T has tried that didn’t work...

Shaking off (moving when I am already emotional is a huge trigger for me)
The progressive muscle relaxation (also a trigger for me)
Guided meditation (I disassociate even more and go into trance states easily. Which also means hypnosis is out).
EMDR safe place imagery (I can do the container but cannot do a safe place)
Telling me to “trust the process”
Looking away before asking hard stuff
Sitting farther away

Things other T’s tried but didn’t work

Play therapy

Drawing

Waiting it out to see if I spontaneously stopped

Making me tell them things I saw in the room or how my body felt sitting in the chair
A therapy dog (I liked him a lot but it wasn’t grounding)

Meeting outside their office (a park, a restaurant that was quiet)

Asking me to talk (not in detail just generals) of all the trauma so it wasn’t the pink elephant in the room. The plan was to process later but my insurance ran out and I didn’t go back.

I know I have more so I will be back when I think of them. There is no one size fits all so something that didn’t work for me might for you.

When I have mentioned how long I have been in therapy and still don't "get it" EMDR T tells me that my trauma went on for years so it is expected that it would take years to heal.

She is always coming up with new ideas for grounding because what works for a period of tine may stop working. lus what works in some instances may not work in others. So I need a variety.

I never saw it as a therapist giving up on me. I saw it as my therapists know their limitations. some therapists / agencies just cant afford to be seeing someone year after year with no progress, its a waste of their time, the state funds (most mental health agencies get state grants and funds along with what their clients pay and also many clients are on medicaid medicare which is state funded health insurance) the therapists have to answer to medicaid/ medicare and government as to why they are seeing someone who is not progressing. therapy is not meant to "warehouse" the mentally ill keeping them ill and dependent upon the therapist, its meant to give them the tools that they need to be independent and no longer need therapy. here in the USA therapists are now held accountable when their clients are not progressing, therapists have to work up treatment plans and work on specific goals. and as those goals get completed either new goals and treatment plans are made to address another issue or the client is ready to have a go with out the therapist.

me personally if I wasnt progressing with a therapist I would be looking for a new one simply because for me I consider it a waste of tax payers dollars and my own money to see a therapist and get no where.

maybe you can sit down and ask your self about why you are having problems with the grounding... is it the definition, is it the activities or is it that you havent put in the work to do it... (not accusing just know that when grounding doesnt work for me its one or more of those reasons)

heres a tip to using therapy tools...

if they dont fit into your life comfortably then they are not going to work or get done.

when grounding thats just a fancy word for stopping what you are doing and taking a few seconds or minutes to do something different that will get you out of that trigger...

sometimes just taking some deep breaths calms me down other times I head out to the lake where my canoe is and row around the lake. other times its bake a cake...

my point is look at your life and what ever you happen to be interested in or enjoy that day, thats whats going to work for grounding for you that day. grounding doesnt have to be this big meditation or huge time consuming routine. it can be as simple going to the store to pick up that gallon of milk you ran out of this morning. if you like doing something then do that something when you are triggered and need to be grounded.

I had one therapist give up on me, it was the addiction counsellor and year and half ago she just suddenly told me that our goals would be met in a cbt course i was taking and that was the end of our therapy relationship. I had therapist tell me they did not know how to help me at the time, but never give up on me. I think therapist sometimes feel helpless, as long as they are willing to be honest with you then i do not think they should give up. I have only been reffered because my therapist retired 2 months ago, he was ready to give up on me too, but some how he saw i still needed the help. My new therapist is able to help me and i feel i connect with her better. I have cptsd and have been in therapy for many years. I think no therapist should give up if they do it is a shame. If a therapist cannot help then referre do not abandon.

Yeah, I think they do, just like everybody else. Why do you think yours has?

I'm not sure I understand the concept of grounding as it seems you are describing. Yoga was triggering for me and required the use of grounding skills, and likewise any sort of awareness of what I'm feeling in my body.

Maybe the emphasis on grounding has become a bit too much? Like you feel too pressured or something?

I don't know what you've tried, but if the issue is that you are having trouble identifying your emotions, compiling a vast list of different emotions that you could reference might help. There are probably some online.

I also have C-pdst from csa, and if my T gives up it will be because he romanticized ( not fetishized?) the notion of being a great trauma T, only to find by year four his zeal exhausted, extinguished by the reality of how hard it is. I hope that doesn't happen. I could see it, though.

Yes, some therapists give up. One would hope they would offer a referral but some don't / won't.

Communication is key if you feel your T is giving up on you - ask him straight on. Maybe it is a misunderstanding...

Thank you for all the replies, it has been eye opening. I felt better last year in my body, but I did tell him at Christmas time I would like to touch him (not sexual obviously, a hug or handshake would have been ample) and he said we had to talk about it more. He hasn't talked about it at all since and I feel very awkward bringing it up, like he finds me dirty or disgusting because of what's happened to me in the past and that's why touch is a no go.

He doesn't seem like sitting on the floor is an option although I do think about that a lot in session. Maybe I'm very confused and not being very good at therapy over all.

Yes I definitely feel pressure to be grounded in my body, to be honest just getting to therapy stresses me out, by the time I'm there I'm anything but relaxed.

He isn't a bad therapist at all, he's the only one I have ever felt a connection with, but I'm not sure he feels the same.

Thank you for all the suggestions, it means a lot.

I believe they tend to blame the clients for not making them feel good about themselves and thus a client who doesn't feed their need to be the savior would be given up on.

it can be scary asking for the things we need, especially if one feels they do not deserve it. i had this exact conversation about feeling too dirty and disgusting to touch with my T when the issue of hugs and safe touch came up. after i explained that to him, he was open to using safe touch in my therapy. for me, it was beneficial overall.

have you read 'The Body Keeps the Score' by Bessel Van der Kolk? i strongly recommend it for anyone struggling with CPTSD and developmental trauma. in the book, Bessel talks of other alternative methods to do in conjunction with talk therapy, many of these being body centred therapies, like somatic experienceing, EMDR, neurofeedback and even yoga. because of what I learned from reading this book, i decided to try neurofeedback therapy and did it while continuing to see my talk T. neurofeedback was literally a life saver for me. it calmed my dysregulation like nothing else ever did and i finally started to make significant gains from doing it, including experiencing positive changes and progress in my talk therapy. prior to neurofeedback, i was getting no where from years of talk therapy except leaving most sessions quite dysregulated, dissociated, triggered and losing hope.

Did you specify that you would like a hug or handshake, or did you just say you wanted to touch him? Male therapists, from what I gather from reading this board, tend to jump to conclusions about some things. For example, if a woman client says to the therapist that she has transference or is attached, apparently more than a few male therapists will jump to the conclusion that the woman is expressing feelings of a romantic or sexual nature.

Thank you, yes I was clear that I wanted a hug so I don't know why it got that reaction. He talks about how I never had safe touch as a child...so it is scary to be refused it when it took courage to ask him in the first place.

I have not read the body keeps the score, but I think I might have bought it before and put it on the shelf, I will check. If it helped you with that, maybe it can help me too.