Can anyone explain very simply to me how therapy is supposed to help heal childhood trauma?

[bewilderberrie]

I'm going to a kind therapist I feel comfortable with. She is very experienced in one of the issues (relinquishment trauma) I'm seeing her for and I have generally a good impression.

However, I feel like I just talk about stuff and then feel even worse when I go home again?

What am I supposed to be doing that heals myself via the therapy process? I'm not sure I'm doing it correctly. I don't get it.

I've asked her if generally it is supposed to start hurting less at some point and she said yes, the act of airing the traumatic stuff and talking about it typically does make it hurt less at some time. Also that sometimes when trauma is pre verbal it can be very tightly locked in and hard to get at - so what am I supposed to do in that case?

Different therapies do different things but I found explaining, discussing etc was a great first step to what I've since found out is "transactional analysis" which was amazing to learn about and helped me reformulate family relationships to a much healthier level.

Hey, I have cPTSD, PTSD and a form of DID. I started therapy 7 years ago. My therapist suggested anxiety medication to get through the initial bits. I also did intensive therapy at the beginning 3x per week so I wasn't left too long with a hangover after the intensity of the sessions, transitioning to once a week. It is really hard and intense but if you work well with the therapist you should start to feel like you're figuring things out, moving forward and gaining deeper understanding.
So basically it is a long process but it also has to be with someone who gets you and you work well with
Good luck

Different therapies work for different people. Digging into the past didn’t work for me. The thing I’ve found mot beneficial is finding a good psychotherapist who practices CBT properly. Deals with the here and now, teaches coping strategies and dealing with negative thoughts and emotions as they arise

I had seen a few therapist s in my life . I would say - go with your gut instinct. If you like the therapist and she has qualifications and is registered with one of the Regulatory Bodies then trust her advice. If you start feeling on the gut level she is leading you on a wrong path- switch the therapist. I hope it helps

You might need some emdr or brain spotting therapy to go with the talking therapy. Talking on its own doesn’t necessarily take away any triggers or desensitise.

EMDR therapy was the only therapy, that really got to the root of the issue.

For me, having therapy meant those memories don't stop me from living life, like they used to. They never go away, but I'm desensitised to them now. Therapy also helped me see that no, I didn't deserve it, it wasn't normal, and I done nothing wrong.

I'm not saying all is great, but therapy has been worth it, even if it took a while.

OP I would love to give you the answer but honestly - I have childhood trauma from CSA and therapy did absolute fuck all. I quit after a few sessions. Total waste of time IMO.

If also love to be able to tell you ‘But THIS worked’. I can’t. Time, love from others and healthy relationships and a fulfilling adult life are what get me through. But I’ve squared it with myself that I’ll always be traumatised.

Sorry. I just think it’s important to counter the inevitable ‘therapy is great’ posts

I'm meant to have a session this evening and just feel like late cancelling to be honest. I wonder if that's instinct telling me it's the wrong kind of therapy for me.

Disclaimer I'm not a professional.

From what I understand, traumatic memories are formed when we can't make sense of something frightening, and because we can't make sense of them, the brain doesn't really know what to do with them and tends to "splinter" them so a bit of it is stored here, a bit of it is stored there. One bit might be the words someone said, another bit might be a smell, another piece might be a flash of like video, another piece of video/image somewhere else, another is a feeling etc. And any time anything reminds you of any of those individual parts it will bring back the fear and the associated response. But you can't bring it all together because it's too difficult.

Therapy is meant to bring the memories together and create a narrative out of them so that you can understand what happened, with hindsight and more of an outside perspective (sometimes an adult perspective too) this is clearer, which helps you process it which means bringing all those parts together so that they are not just randomly attached to feelings of fear and loss of safety without you knowing why. And that can help you live in general without being triggered all the time and having that low level constant disruption.

Hi OP, I really had good results with EMDR for PTSD - perhaps ask your therapist about it?

There's lots of data that says it works although AFAIK there's no real understanding about why - but this has a go at explaining:

https://www.ptsduk.org/how-does-emdr-work/

Wish you all the best.

If you start feeling on the gut level she is leading you on a wrong path- switch the therapist

I definitely don't feel she's leading me on the wrong path. I trust her, pretty much. I just feel there is no path for me, it doesn't make sense to me how it all is meant to work.

Doesn't EMDR work best for particular traumatic moments and memories?

I found the first while very difficult. You're opening the box and getting everything out and examining it, so it can definitely feel traumatic to start with. Miraculously nobody told me this and I had several false starts with therapy as I was expecting to feel better right away not worse, so assumed it 'wasn't working'.

But with my final therapist she explained the processed much better. The getting it all out of the box but was to understand the trauma. Then slowly she helped me see how it was impacting my life and then what I could do to work past it.

Its a long game but I found it completely worth it.

If you are really struggling do tell her and if you have support around you let them know you
are struggling too. You need care going through therapy x

It can help to actually say things out loud.

A good therapist will help you explore what happened and why. And, assuming you were not at fault for a childhood trauma, they can help you look at the reasons why this happened. Understanding the background of a situation can be helpful. Doesn't change anything, doesn't make it right, doesn't mean you have to forgive, but if you have deep feelings of guilt or hatred etc., they might be impacting other areas of your life, so it might help to get these very negative feelings in to perspective and allow you to put them to one side and make room for other feelings - doesn't have to be positive feelings - ambivalent acceptance is a good place to aim for.

This probably won't help , but when I felt like I was just going over the same stuff, I got to a point where I had grieved. just cried a lot, then I felt angry then sort of in limbo. she had done work on why I reacted they way I did with other people around me, and at that point I stopped going through lack of money, but probably spent another 6 months just reflecting on everything, stuff she'd said, and old and the newer issues.
then it all sort of slid away.
I can't really explain how.

sorry if it's no help, I think everyone is different.

it was psychodynamic counselling I had.

I would go along tonight, tell her that you almost cancelled and why. Then use this session to work out if this is the right kind of therapy for you. See if the therapist can offer anything else. Ask her what she expects to see happen.

A therapist shouldn't be trying to talk you into anything you're not comfortable with. Be honest with her and see what she suggests.

OP I would say this could be a protective instinct coming up. You know that by having the session, you may feel uncomfortable or hurt or a whole host of emotions. Perhaps you are trying to protect yourself from that.

For me, the only way to heal was to go to those terrifying, dark places within me and shine a light on them. It didn't happen just like that, it has taken a long time. But I had to do the work.

I can relate to it feeling like it gets better before it gets worse.

I would feel exhausted after some sessions and would need a kind of waking nap where I could literally feel things being shuffled about it my brain. Kind of the way REM sleep helps us to process things, stuff isn't necessarily tangible or logical but the brain moves it around to move past it.

Very hard with post adoption wounds if you were very young I would imagine. I had vague fragments of abusive memories but I would imagine it would be really hard to work with tiny baby stuff.

It can help to actually say things out loud.

I feel much worse after saying things aloud.

It reinforces them in some way.

I felt worse after saying things aloud. For a time. And loads and loads of anger was unleashed. It took me ages to move past being angry with them.

I'm ok now but for a good couple of years in therapy anger was always simmering below the surface.

For me, just somebody acknowledging that what I had experienced wasn't usual and was damaging, was hugely helpful.

Survivor of childhood emotional neglect and domestic abuse.

How can a child be 'at fault' for the trauma they experienced? Bloody hell.

And, assuming you were not at fault for a childhood trauma, they can help you look at the reasons why this happened

I can't assume it's not my fault though, this is the problem.

Everyone tells me and rationally I know, my mother wasn't in the right place to bring me up herself and it's not my fault.

But it feels at core like there is something wrong with me and no amount of me talking about it or other people listening can shift that. It feels actively shameful and dreadful to even talk about it.

Like my skin is being sandpapered off, when I talk about it and somebody listens.

Psychoeducation helped me with shame, op. Understanding why human beings experience shame (evolutionary survival) helped me to recognise the feeling but not treat is as factually true. There are lots of resources on shame - Carolyn Spring is a good place to start.

@bewilderberrie hopefully you'll get to a place where you can see about what happened to you, not, 'there's something wrong with me'.