Posted by lucie lu on November 15, 2008, at 12:34:49
In reply to Re: rambling thoughts about attachment » lucie lu, posted by muffled on November 15, 2008, at 10:17:15
I was thinking about the use of metaphor, which made me realize another way I think therapy has directly remodeled my brain. An important job of therapy is supposed to help us learn to put words to our feelings. That started out being very hard for me. I am very right-brained and think in pictures, which for me are more like images with visual, emotional and even sensory components, rather than words. Hence I had SOOO much trouble articulating anything early in therapy other than usual day-to-day conversation. No wonder my T fell asleep a couple of times in the early days - it was frustrating and boring for both of us! I literally had no words to describe my inner thoughts. Therapy was slow. The best I could manage for a long time, the first two years at least, was speaking in metaphors. I couldn't say what something "was" but I could often describe what it "was (or felt) like." The next two years or so, since I wrote a lot for work, I journaled to learn to access my inner thoughts and feelings. The way I did that could best be described as free associating and then looking down to see what I'd put on the paper. Sometimes I was very surprised to see what I'd written (sort of like a Ouija board!). But that exercise, together with follow-up discussions in therapy, helped me to start connecting words with my thoughts and feelings. Finally, after several years, I was increasingly able to articulate in words the sorts of things we deal with in therapy. I still have a rather rambling and often impressionistic verbal style - not at work, where the words are clear, but for self-expression. For me the clearest ideas in my head still tend to appear as images, hence the metaphors. My T is by now very practiced at understanding me, at least much of the time, and my husband, after 20+ years, thankfully is an expert :)
Anyway, I really had been thinking just the other day how in my sessions now I actually communicate mostly in words instead of my old verbal finger-painting (lol). Now it is easier, although my talk is still peppered with "what's the word I am looking for?" which has become somewhat of a game. Speaking articulately will probably always be more difficult than writing, but I think the increased verbalization skill that I have achieved may represent another concrete example of how therapy can really physically rewire the brain. I am no neurologist, but I wonder if anyone has measured whether the verbal centers of the brain change during the course of therapy? Anyone know? Daisy, any seminars on that?
poster:lucie lu
thread:862771
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081104/msgs/863196.html