Posted by terra miller on July 26, 2002, at 22:07:06
In reply to To anyone who dissociates..., posted by Dinah on July 25, 2002, at 14:15:39
> What does your therapist do if he can see that at the end of a session you are clearly in a dissociative state and not fully aware of your surroundings? Does he send you on your way as usual?
no way. it's really important to get a foothold on the real world before walking out of the office. if, after his doing his thing (i'll get to that) i am still out of it, he tells me not to drive until i am ready. but at the end of the session- we do this most sessions- he'll start to talk about the mundane day to day stuff... the idea is to bring me back to "reality." it has the effect of shocking me out of the state that i am in because i have to focus on something completely different than where we were at.
sometimes i initiate it. i'll ask for a story (usually if i've been seriously childlike) about something funny that his dog has done recently. he's real good about telling the story in "dad" mode (cuz i'm in still in childmode) but by the end of the story, i've pulled out of it and can get back into the swing of the world. so now it's a cue for us, that if i ask for a dog story he knows that i'm really far gone and afraid that i won't be able to get back out and we both know that the story will do exactly what we need to happen.
i think other standard op. procedures include telling you where you are at, what is going on around the room, etc. sometimes my therapist will bring up my biological kids (ie: "so, what are your kids studying in school?") man, that's a REAL shocker into reality when i'm in a state that i don't know that i'm a mom. that kind of stuff...
terra
poster:terra miller
thread:730
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020702/msgs/746.html