All therapy is really self-therapy in the end

[Slackjaw99]

My big complaint last year fueled by my fatalistic cPTSD outlook was the lack of "trauma-informed" therapists in my area willing to treat me. This was confirmed, of course, by the grand total of two trauma practitioners I met with. The first was a "Somatic Experiencing" practitioner who immediately had me lay down face up on a massage table. She placed a hand underneath my back, ostensibly grabbing my kidney, and asking if I felt better. For the $250, she could have at least grabbed something more pleasurable.  The second was a "SensoryMotor" psychotherapist. After spilling my guts to her, she seemed so visibly disturbed by me that I almost expected the followup email stating that we "weren't a good fit" and ending with a list of referrals. All I can say about that was at least the kidney grabber didn't cause me additional rejection trauma.

From what I've gleaned on this site my complaint is shared by at least a few others.

On the third try I did find a person that I would say fits the description of a "good enough" therapist. This person while being "trauma informed" wasn't able to apply their preferred trauma focused modality to my particular flavor of cPTSD, but they did allow me to direct my own approach to therapy taken in large part from Pete Walker's From Surviving To Thriving. They were also open to experimental sessions using a certain plant medicine recently legalized in my state. Less than six months later and I now consider myself to be trauma free.

The lesson I learned from these experiences is that there are only two kinds of therapists out there, and I'm not referring to trauma-informed vs. trauma-uninformed. There are those who want to run the show, and there are those who will let you run the show. Over the decades I've suffered at the hands of therapists who like to run the show. I'm referring to the psychiatrists, psychologists, MFTs, LCSWs, etc who each come from their various schools of thought and research, and who specialize in treating certain "disorders" and even one or two who've invented new "disorders". My favorites were the self-proclaimed "addiction specialists" who hypocritically helped me trade my alcohol and benzo addictions for dependencies on powerful insomnia meds, brain-destroying anti-psychotics, and sex. In the end, all that was accomplished was a futile loss in a game of whack-a-mole.

Another lesson I learned is that relying on a therapist to "know it all" is a bad bet. A better bet is to take the initiative to read books written by therapists expert in cPTSD, distill the knowledge and apply it to my particular therapeutic needs. The takeaway from my recent experience is that to recover from cPTSD I had to become my own therapist- literally. My healing sessions required a "dual awareness" (mindfulness) approach where my left brain played the role of therapist/parent while speaking to my right brain AKA inner child self AKA emotional brain to effect a massive catharsis of grief.

While I am now working with a therapist who is "trauma-informed", I'm probably more trauma-informed than he is. But none of that matters. It wouldn't even matter if he wasn't trauma-informed. What does matter is that he respects the knowledge that I bring into therapy from authors like Pete Walker or Bessel Van Der Kolk. He's open minded, and is open to experimenting to find the right modalities for my situation. Beyond that, he listens to whatever I want to kvetch about without judgment. I believe that in order to do that, a therapist must have dealt with their own issues successfully. Because of these basic attributes, I found the first therapist in my life who I could *trust*.

Having a therapist that is trustworthy and empowering is much more valuable than a therapist who is necessarily trauma-informed. I say this because cPTSD is not a disorder you can ever recover from by relying on a therapist to hold your hand through the process. Conversely I say from my own experience that learning how to self-parent, and by extension being your own therapist, is a critical factor in ultimately reaching a place where its safe to release the pent up traumatic grief once and for all.  Would love to know WDYT.

[Hope67]

My healing sessions required a "dual awareness" (mindfulness) approach where my left brain played the role of therapist/parent while speaking to my right brain AKA inner child self AKA emotional brain to effect a massive catharsis of grief.

Hi Slackjaw99,
I found what you wrote to be extremely interesting - and beneficial to my own queries about whether a therapist is something that I need/want right now.  I have been trying to be my own 'therapist' via self-help literature.  I do have some experience of past therapy too - although that is limited.  I have quoted what you wrote - as that makes a LOT of sense, and I wanted to say that I think it's great that you've managed to make such good progress pretty much on your own for much of the time. 

I flinched when you mentioned that the Somatic Experiencing practitioner actually grabbed your kidney!  Wow, she charged you money to inflict that pain on you.  That is awful.

Thank you for sharing your experiences, and your progress, and I hope very much that you continue to benefit from everything.

Hope 

[woodsgnome]

Your post, Slackjaw99, touches on so much of what I've found in the whirl of matching my own variable capacity for healing to the counsel of a skilled-enough therapist willing to work with me, and not presume that their expertise or learned specialty can be a sure fix. That can set up an agenda based on false expectations built mostly on hope and not with the client's perspective as the priority.

I ran the gamut of therapists, but also devoured loads of material on my own. I'd pretty much given up on this search resulting in a satisfying match until I met the current therapist. Which isn't to say it's at all easy, but she's better equipped to deal with the wild swings of emotional states encountered, if one is being honest.

I'm not looking for a comforter, but she can (or at least will try) be there in ways that truly help. She can act as a pointer to things and subjects I'm reluctant or unsure about, based on what she's found out about me. She knows she's not a be-all magician hung up on her professional background only--"professional" being a word which too often seems to describe a snob instead of a caring human. Yes, background is important but if it's used in a way just to impress the clientele, who cares?

Having been burned so often, living with cptsd seems to come with its own level of natural distrust. For me, it got to the point where I could do fairly well on my own--sometimes! But there's also times when I'm desperate for someone with listening savvy as well as expertise. Preferably someone who hasn't spent their entire career stuck in place just because they've played the credentials/education game.

Therapy is more art form than rocket science. The best practitioners can admit to their own shortcomings (and pain) as well as thump their own credentials and market themselves as everyone's fixer. The latter leaves out the most important side of the exchange--the client. I'm sure it's tempting for therapists to use marketing in lieu of creative caring to base their careers on, but it's not what most say they signed up for. Mind you, they also have huge pressures dealing with the likes of government and especially insurance industry overlords.

Bottom line--it's tough finding a therapist worthy of the name. It can be worth the effort to find one, but it's yet another of those often tiring and discouraging extra efforts needed to make even a tiny dent towards tolerable living with one's trauma. Having survived one set of circumstances, it can be devastating to have shoddy therapy on top of that.