How does therapy actually help with...

issues from childhood? I mean ya you can talk...but what does talking do to really help change it?

I have a pretty bad issue that keeps repeating in my life, I know WHY I am this way... but it doesn't change anything. I talk in therapy, its' nice to vent but it does not change anything. I am just wondering how stuff like this is supposed to be fixed so to speak? I don't want to spend years in therapy just talking about it. I want to change my pattern and end it, somehow. I just have no idea how.

EMDR is a way to get over anything in T. It does take a bit longer based on the amount and severity of trauma in your life but is certainly worth a try.

It probably depends on your world view, lets call it. Like some people believe in an inner child, some don't. Some believe in transference, others believe their actions today are influenced only by their immediate surroundings today, nothing from their past.

So a question about how therapy could change a person, would need to take into account, the makeup of that person.

Say you had a job walking dogs. Would you just go get the dog every day, take them around the block, and not interact with them? No, that would be weird, and not enjoyable. Thats what just talking to your t and not "attaching" is - mechanical dog walking.

But from what little dogsitting i have done, i know that even a few days can result in fixing a barking problem. Thats why they say: "therapy - it is the relationship that heals."

So theres a couple ideas. Hope it helps.

There's a believe that for many sufferers of childhood trauma, the damage is neurological, and therefore talk therapy doesn't work all that well. I'm finding this approach applies to me somewhat, but I'm just learning about it.

You might find this video from the Crappy Childhood Fairy up your alley:

I'm tired of switching T's or I would try it

I get the analogy but I don't want anything to do with attachment or that stuff anymore. Lesson learned there. I don't need a relationship. I just need to know how to stop my patterns. I wouldn't even need therapy if I could on my own

My T does several different things. He does EMDR although we haven’t gotten far with that. He does a lot of experiential stuff that I didn’t think I would like at first but really seems to be helping. He also has training in psychodrama that I think he is using with me. The most helpful thing he is doing though is simply modeling healthy relationship patterns. Setting appropriate boundaries gently without making me feel bad or rejected, being supportive and nurturing, not repeating previous patterns from my life.

Emdr T says that Emdr will help me get ro the point where my childhood trauma will not have such control. We haven't even attempted it in about 14 months or so though.

How would you get the dog to stop problem barking if all you ever did was walk him and not interact with him? Im saying its impossible to do without the interaction. Even pavlov rang a bell. Okay.

The pattern doesnt occur in a vacuum. Try operant conditioning on yourself?

It depends on the type of therapy/therapist, but my current therapy helps with those types of patterns in a few ways:

By bringing out the feelings behind them (so not just looking at the biographical facts of where it comes from, but also the emotional impact those events and experiences had then and now).

Exploring why it's been hard to change the pattern and what happens when I try and can't make the change.

Looking more closely at the situations that cause the pattern to repeat and reemerge, and the feelings and actions that come up around them.

Talking about what it would feel like for the pattern to change, and looking at what happens along those lines as I actually start making changes.

It's been slow and difficult, but it's made a huge difference for me.

For me, getting to the root of why it happened helped me the most. Why did my mom not want me? Why didn't my dad help me? Etc. When I was able to see things from their perspective, I actually found compassion for them. But my trauma was neglect mostly. And my parents are still alive and I was able to confront them. That helped a ton.

Talking enables what's hidden to become unhidden and then thought about.
It's in the processing that change occurs. If we want change that is.
Sometimes that happens yrs down the line.

You don't have to snog a T, Just trust a T that's trustworthy .
This takes time and requires a skilled T that's experienced these things personally. If they're just out of grad sch or never undergone in - depth therapy then they don't know these things on a feeling level, How can they help with something they've never experienced, and I don't mean thy have to have experienced same traumas, Just that they've had the experience of bringing up unconscious stuff to consciousness and then thinking about It.

It will like just venting if the T hasn't the skill to show you what the venting is about.

I thought all the parts work we have done in different fashion like IFS, and ego state was helping but what was actually helping was the attachment to my T and my subconscious feeling like I had a real caring attuned parent.

Now that my T has switched gears and done a 360 and no longer pays the attention he used to do all the issues I went to go see him for are flooding right back.

Children that are abused or neglected preverbal and and through out are permanently broken.

All therapy can do his help calm down the symptoms but I still feel internal anguish daily.

Broken? Nope.

Isn't helping to reduce symptoms a huge thing? I've found it so. To be able to tolerate difficult emotions rather than be disabled by them for weeks is huge.

I'm curious about this claim. Because it is so general, I don't simply believe it's true. Certainly there are certain pre-requisites that must be filled in order for the EMDR to work and the question is what are they?

I have once gone to an EMDR specialist and when I told her my background she told me that she does not find EMDR suitable for me, because I don't have specific trauma episodes or memories in my background but my childhood was just one single gigantic neglect, which seemed perfectly normal to me at the time because I knew nothing else. I did not feel good in relation to my parents but I mostly did not feel bad either - I just went completely numb.

I also don't think there is any one size fits all answer to such a general question. Something from childhood... There can be a million different things and million different treatments/possible solutions. I think you need to be more specific to get more useful responses, or if you don't feel like doing that here, definitely within yourself and in your therapy.

I did not have significant traumas in childhood and my family was as loving and protective as it could be, I definitely received a lot of attention, often too much. The one thing from my childhood that always comes up when I ponder adverse experiences that had lasting effects was long-term peer bullying about my weight (I was overweight until age 10). And being overweight was mostly due to my mother's not knowing how to express her excessive desire for care in very constructive ways and in healthy doses, so she chronically overfed the whole family. The consequences were quite diverse, including an eating disorder, self esteem issues, perfectionism etc. My solution, as an adult, to all this: knowing that it was all in the far past and there is no way on Earth it could happen again now. Nothing from that past is current now and they haven't been for a long time. I talk about it sometimes with people, like now on this thread, when I feel it can be interesting in a context to highlight something with examples, but that's about it. I see no benefit in discussing it any more because it really has no relevance to my life now other than actually some benefits from having to endure those things, e.g. having an ability to "armor" myself quite easily, not being vulnerable to others' BS, insecurities and manipulation. So, some of that old stuff could be turned around quite effectively and I did not use any therapy for it, just my own research, trying to work on my lifestyle and choosing positive relationships. I also still like to keep an eye on my weight and don't feel comfortable gaining beyond a certain limit, so do not allow it. That keeps the problem non-existent because I do not let it manifest and bother my mind that, I know, is "primed" for it. So this is an example for an old issue and solution to it over time. Again, I find it most useful to tackle specific problems with tailored solutions, I don't believe anything generic works well in mental health. Or if it does, the result will likely be quite weak as well because the definition of the problem was also vague, to start with. Another old issue I had going back far into childhood was procrastination and poor discipline. It never even caused significant problems until my mid-30's, but then it started to be center-stage because I took on a bunch of responsibilities that were just not compatible with poor discipline. I could easily trace it back, where it came from in childhood and why, but that alone never solved it. Action did, to some extent, put I still struggle with it at times. I can talk about it forever but it will make zero difference if I don't do things differently as well.

But in terms of using therapy for benefit - I really don't believe that just going to an office however frequently, and doing nothing to follow up and implement changes in our lives, will provide any very effective relief. If someone only/mostly needs emotional support and a compassionate, understanding presence, maybe it is enough. But I think most mental health challenges do not remain there purely. Plus, it's possible therapy is not the answer at all. It didn't do much to me. This might sound as a judgment but I never truly understand why some people go to therapy for long years, even decades, when they feel it is not working and, in the end, they conclude it was useless. Maybe because it is not always easy to judge the usefulness of something in the moment, sometimes even for a long time, while the problems are still ongoing. Sometimes we also like to cling to hope alone. My last T said once said though that the biggest part of the therapy work occurs (or should) outside of the actual sessions, in the client's everyday life and psyche. I could not agree more. I did not find my actual therapy very useful as long as it lasted but all the reflection, revisiting, discussing it with peers, applying whatever comes up mentally to everyday decisions has been extremely useful. Why I also keep coming to this forum, in part (the other parts are curiosity and entertainment). I like to say, especially when I am feeling a bit too full of myself, that I have done it all by myself... technically perhaps, but not without significant external influences from many different domains of life, and I think therapy played a role as well, just not directly.

So, if you feel lost at how to use therapy constructively, maybe try to open up your mind and supplement it with other new things. Also, people often say therapy takes a long time to be effective and you may not even notice it's working in the moment but perhaps you have already grown from the experience some at least? I think this "real change takes a long time" is true for many things, not just how therapy can work. You may be familiar with how challenging it can be to change even a single bad habit if you have ever tried to overcome one?

Finally, I would second unaluna's points about interaction. I don't think it has to be attachment at all, but interacting with the world and other people does help. We can easily become quite misguided and even delusional (including about our own powers) without interacting with the world and human realities. Maybe some people are truly resistant to it and are perfectly happy/efficient on their own, but most of us aren't that way. I am definitely not and, from all I have seen about you from your posts, you don't seem truly satisfied without interaction and relationships either - you can perhaps just suppress it for a while, periodically. But we discussed similar things on some of your earlier threads already. Attachment is a loaded word, especially on this forum, and I don't like it much because people mean many different things by it, some more in the realms of obsession than healthy attachments. I think interaction is better.

As far as EMDR, did you have specific, more isolated significant traumas that still bother you and hold you back? More distinct events than chronic non-events? If yes, I believe that's what EMDR is designed for.

I agree with you to a certain point. I found talking about my trauma helpful while it was "fresh," or while I was still having intrusive memories or flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks at things that reminded me of my trauma, etc. I think talking about it over and over desensitized me to the fear reaction and I think I'm mostly over that. But the older trauma...the stuff from my childhood I've talked about over and over every time a therapist asks about it, and I see no point in doing it anymore.

I no longer have a strong emotional feeling about those memories, but I can still see certain patterns in myself--such as when authority figures are inconsistent or moody I get freaked out which I equate to always being on edge with my father's alcoholism. But knowing that doesn't change my reactions.

There are different types of therapy. EMDR is supposed to be good for trauma, but it seems like hocus pocus to me. I do think it is more useful if you have those strong emotional reactions when thinking about it than for behavior change.

DBT is specifically for behavior change as well as emotional management. It has good clinical research behind it. It's also intensive and hard to find some places. I'm trying it. So far I have found it not at all pleasant. Going into a therapy office, complaining to a sympathetic listener and paying money is much more satisfying in the short term. But since I've been doing it for decades and am still not doing as well as I would like to be, I figure it's time to try something else.

I completely disagree with this, and so would every therapist that has worked with me.

Yes, I felt permanently broken. That mistaken belief that I was inherently flawed and broken drove my thinking and emotions for a long time, but it was a mistaken belief.

Therapy was able to not just calm down the symptoms, but to very much alleviate them. I do hold a PTSD diagnosis, but those symptoms rarely are an issue in any way now.

I was not permanently broken.

Thats fantastic Artley. You do not need therapy anymore. Saves lots of money now.

I haven't been in therapy for 7 years.

I never found it helped. It was not useless as a place to vent when my person was sick, but as to helping with anything else - it did not.
I think, from what people post, therapy may be able to help some people with some things. I do not believe therapy helps all people with all things. I also do not believe those who are not helped are to blame for not "working" or whatever other derogative terms people have posted to further shame those who found therapy to be useless.

Similar to starfishing's answer, my T and I talk about the feelings and coping/compensating strategies that developed at a young age, how those manifest now, whether they work and what might be better, etc.

I think the relationship does help this to work. There is a lot of shame around childhood trauma for me (and many others), so it is something that is hard to think about alone—I don't want to, it's painful, I'd rather just act like it doesn't exist. So I need another person who will ask questions and get me to think about it, with the feeling that this is helping me and not hurting/shaming me. And then being able to talk about it without being hurt by it, takes away the power somewhat.

I don't think it's possible to work with someone for a length of time without getting attached at all. But I don't think being attached is bad; it's not necessarily a huge passionate thing. For me it is just a comfortable relationship, like a friendship.

Insight is intellectual. I love insight, find it absorbing; but insight doesn't heal emotions. So I guess the question to answer is, where does the pattern that you want to change reside? If it resides in cognition, then non-attachment type therapy, like EMDR, CBT, DBT, RET, etc can be helpful.

But if the pattern resides at an emotional level, then I think it takes emotionally based therapies to heal. And those therapies involve attachment to some degree. And if the pattern is attachment-based, I don't know about any effective approach that doesn't activate the attachment.

Over the last 2 weeks, T and I have watched the movie Inside Out (not sure if you've watched it or not). In it there's the part where Bing Bong sacrifices himself so that Joy can get out of the memory dump. I asked T why the memory of Bing Bong had to be sacrificed so that Joy could exist/live. She related it to a book I brought in some time ago about a group of trees. Every fall all the trees but one would shed their leaves. In the spring they would get new leaves and grow. The one held on tightly to their leaves all through the winter year after year. After many years, the other trees towered above this one tree, blocking out the sun.

I guess, at the moment, I'm seeing the talking with T about childhood as a way to dislodge the memories that are blocking out the warmth/comfort from other connections, allowing those memories to fade away so that other memories can be made, producing feelings that help us meet the needs of different parts and grow.

In the movie, while Joy is in the memory dump, she is looking at different memories she holds as precious. She looks at one specifically, scrolling it forward and backwards. As she does this, the memory goes from being a joyful memory to a sad memory and back to joyful. It helps Joy understand the purpose of sadness as a way to build the feeling of connectedness. I think for some of us, this is one area that went astray in our childhood and possibly talk therapy helps here as well.

When I first started talk therapy, I didn't believe it would work or maybe more I didn't understand how it was supposed to work. I read books on the neuroscience of psychotherapy. I believe completely in that model. A big part of it, is in the attachment/connection/interactions that make up the therapeutic relationship.

Like other's have said, people need different things in therapy and go to therapy for different reasons. Cognition level vs. Emotional level; Implicit learning vs. Explicit learning and so on.

Another thing my T has shared with me (kind of more confirmed my belief) is that we might not be able to change all my patterns, that some of them created a template so early on in my life, that they are not changeable. What we can change is our awareness that we have or are about to start a pattern, that the pattern has been triggered; how well we regulate ourselves through the pattern, how we handle being triggered; and our rebound time, how quickly we can recover or get out of the pattern.

A different therapist once asked me, so what if I have a food obsession. What stood out to me in her question is the 'so what'. I'm still trying to see how to work with the acceptance that concept rather than trying to become someone that does not have food obsessions. My point here is that sometimes it's more like throwing poo at the waterfall and seeing what sticks. We are individuals and what makes an impression on us is different from person to person - the more you talk, the more opportunity you have for those types of things to be thrown and for one (or more) to stick.

*my 2 cents

There are therapies which are not talk-based or at least have less emphasis on words and speech. Art therapy, wilderness therapy, somatic therapy are examples. It's notable that you returned to talk therapy despite your reservations. What attracted you back to a therapy type of which you are suspicious? Perhaps there is some information in your choice which might show how you can use talk therapy to help you.