Where is my soul?

Last week my T said my soul had got hidden away when I was very little, so I don't have a soul to work with at the moment.

Has anyone found their soul? How did you do it?

I've felt very soulless and empty since he said that...it made me really upset to know he sees me as a shell of a person with no soul.

Does he have Shamanic beliefs? A Shaman believes that people experience 'soul loss' due to traumatic experiences, that their soul can literally become left behind and needs to be recovered.

I understand how horrible and upsetting it probably is to hear him say you don't have a soul at the moment. However, I very much doubt that he meant you are a shell of a person or anything negative, more than you've lost a part of your essence (which could be understood metaphorically) and he could work with you on regaining your true sense of who you are. That is really what mainstream therapy is about at its depth, except most therapists shy from using the word 'soul' as it has difficult or offputting connotations for some people.

Could you talk to him about how his words have affected you?

I did go through something like this with a shamanic practitioner but I didn't resonate with some of her beliefs. I got something out of the process but I have made more progress with more conventional therapists and my own spiritual understandings.

That is really odd - definitely does not align with my beliefs about "the soul." Seems like an dangerous and damaging thing to say to anyone who does not have his apparent beliefs. I would not be able to work with a therapist who said something like this to me, no matter what THEIR beliefs are, they do NOT have the right to subject me to them. Sorry, this just really angers me.

Agree with Lonely, he may have shamanic beliefs, where soul parts can be left behind due to trauma and can be retrieved later and returned to the person. a shamanic practitioner will work with their power animal to locate the 'lost' soul parts and bring them back. I had a session like a month ago with a shamanic practitioner who did this for me and it was an overall positive experience that I have talked about at length with my t, and it opened up some new material for work in therapy, which I guess is part of the benefit from it.


Even if this is what he was talking about, soul loss, it still strikes me as odd that he would say you have no soul at all. This is my opinion of course, I'm no expert, but I don't see how that is possible.

There is a big difference between a hidden soul and not having a soul at all. It seems to me that it is not his business to decide whether you have a soul; only you can know that.

that's a good point i missed that on first read, both 'hidden' and 'don't have'.

Yeah, the use of the word 'soul' in this context throws me. Everyone has a soul... that would be a damaging thing for me to hear from a T, that's for sure.

Does everyone have a soul? What about the people who don't believe in souls?

Thanks, he isn't a shaman, but he does use a variety of things in therapy. He has never talked about my spirit animal though.

I'm not sure if a soul is a real thing, but I am worried I will never find it, like T says. I feel things really deeply and have a good imagination, I make art and I love. Still he thinks I am not in touch with my soul because I do not know what I want to do with my life.

Soul, I am sorry if you are hidden away and scared - if you are there please come back to me.

You know it's pretty challenging to believe that your soul is hidden if you can phrase such words like these.

Not knowing what to do with our lives is not necessarily our fault. It's pretty hard to navigate in today's society. Too many possibilities to choose from...it's hard choosing from a menu if we can't even be sure if we just made it out what's in there. It's pretty hard!

i so agree

I am only talking about my beliefs and how such a comment would throw me.

Anyone is free to believe anything they want.

That statement from him sounds extreme. If your soul was hidden away, you would not be sitting with him. I would have been very upset too. It seems so judgemental to say you can't be worked with at the moment. That is ridiculous. My ex-therapist referred to me as "uneducated" when I began seeing him. I brought that up next session and he said he did not mean it. I know he meant it....he said it! Sometimes they do say the stupidest things.

You might want to ask him what he means by "soul"—my guess would be that he's not so much going for the religious concept as a core sense of self or something like that.

Just a thought.. is it possible what he called the soul is what many people consider the core self. T and I discuss my core self frequently which due to my trauma, I do not know who that is

Thanks, yes I think he probably did mean this core self part. I wish I could just know it. It's so unfair we had to press it down due to trauma.