Posted by fleeting flutterby on September 8, 2009, at 16:53:01
been researching about PTSD-complex and therapy........(having and oh so difficult time at the moment)... found an article that has so much I can relate to... thought I'd share a couple sentences here..... as to the idea that for some clients a therapist "just listening" can cause more damage-- like a further injury to the trauma......
--"As long as patients are prone to dissociatively re-experience such fragments of their traumas, passively listening and meaning making can be counterproductive. It is critical to label what is going on and help patients understand and process these somatic experiences. In this context it is useful to reframe many of the patients' behaviors as symptoms of having felt overwhelmed by the physical sensations associated with trauma; self-destructive impulses, hypervigilence, self-loathing and shame.......... They cannot teach themselves how to be safe, because many of them simply lack a baseline understanding of what that means"--
just thought I'd share,
in case this can help someone else to not feel like a failure in some therapies, like I have. :o(
flutterby
poster:fleeting flutterby
thread:916117
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090907/msgs/916117.html