Therapy as Life Support versus Healing
In response to an earlier post, someone commented that there are two stages of therapy. The first is recounting facts like a newspaper reporter and the second is experiencing feelings and emotions. We commonly refer to this as intellectual knowing versus emotional knowing or awareness.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I don't think that represents the stages of therapy, rather the stages of healing.
If we were to look at the stages of therapy, I would suggest another way of looking at this. The first stage could be therapy as life support and the second stage could be therapy as healing.
When I was first in treatment, looking back many years ago, I can only categorize it as life support. I am sure I made some significant progress, but at the time everything was about life and death. I remember my longtime therapist saying at one point back then that "there's always the elephant in the room." I was so angry with him for saying that, thinking there was no way I could possibly heal with these life-threatening challenges which never seemed to disappear.
But they did abate. Fellow blogger Kate is posting Survivor Aftereffects Lists and I'm struck by how much I identify with each of them. But, I identify in a different way now than in the past. I don't feel so much that I've solved all of them completely, but rather that I've addressed all of them and made changes so that they are not such a big problem now.
Everything years ago was experienced in the extreme. The eating disorders, for example, weren't the mild secret they had been for my whole life. They were life threatening. I had almost no ability to regulate my emotions and I was constantly in a state of suicide and acted out regularly, sometimes quite seriously.
I remember often wondering what the point of it all was back then. Why would so many people try to help me? I thought I was a definite lost cause. I couldn't begin to imagine having any reasonable life. But, the "life support" I was receiving actually allowed me to get to a place of healing.
The progress I made back then led to hope. As Kate posted, to have hope requires us to make progress and then based on that progress we can see for ourselves a better future. Not everyone has hope. I am lucky to have found it.
Even though I don't often deal with the life and death issues of long ago, my therapy is in many ways much harder now. I feel there's so much to keep track of and be aware of. I have to recognize triggers and figure out ways to deal with them. I have to learn to regulate difficult emotions. I have to soothe parts of me (but first I need to acknowledge and respect them). This seems hugely complicated to me. But this is what healing is all about. This is the hard work. This is what makes us courageous.
I tend not to use that word when talking about myself. But as I look back and look forward, I cannot imagine a better one.
We have found the healthier people in our life the more healthy we get, thus enhancing proper healing rather than superficial ones
Hi Paul,
I tend to agree with you on this. However I remember having a lot of emotions and feelings when I was in the beginning of my healing work, especially in processing trauma.
I also dealt with a lot of really out of control life situations and had very little coping skills. The therapist that I was seeing at the time did not teach coping skills, though I was asking about help of that type then. She only dealt with memory/trauma re-expierencing during our sessions and that was ill serving me in managing my daily life, my out of control work situation, my suicidal thoughts, and learning how to manage and accept being multiple. None of which she helped me with.
For me being suicidal all the time was the thing that interfered with really making progress in healing, yes it was life support in therapy in order to get to the next week.
I know that I did a lot of healing during that time as well, so I think that personally I combined the stages somewhat that you are describing. Though I will have to say that the depth of my emotions now and the self love that I am able to feel for myself is entirely different than the small range of emotions I could accurately identify and feel early in my remembering and healing work. I do see differences in my healing path to what you are describing, but I also see that I am very similar in many ways.
Kate
Very interesting. And a different way to look at things.
I've always thought of therapy as like a scab that covers us when we are raw and healing and protects our life's blood of emotion and fear and all that torments us from spilling out and drowning us until we don't need the "floaty" any longer.
Gruesome, I know.
It's interesting that you describe therapy as the scab Ivory. A previous therapist described the dissociation as the scab and therapy as the thing that picked at the wound to stop the festering memories from poisoning the body. The skill of the therapist and client is to know where, and when, the wound is safe to pick at. It does sound gruesome doesn't it?
I have a feeling I'm getting hung up on words rather than their meaning while reading this entry - it's a great thought provoker. Many times I've regretted starting therapy as it has forced me to consider why I act the way I do. At times it's felt more de-stabilising than life-saving. But I also know that the consequences of not seeking help would have been major. I suppose this is a reflection of my inability to find a therapeutic environment or model that suits me, rather than what you state here.
Take care...
Paul, this is very thought provoking, and describes my experiences with therapy, using both analogies.
For me, the first stage came in two parts - one that was definitely "newspaper reporting" although it also dredged up a lot of feelings that I was ill-equipped to deal with, and so therapy also became "life support".
I then moved into a second part of stage one: an intellectual phase to try to deal with the emotions and find the support I needed. After much wrangling within, and a seemingly endless search for books etc that would give me the "magic" solution, I realised I was still intellectualising (something I've been good at my whole life).
I think I've finally moved into the second stage, whichever way you want to describe it: experiencing feelings, emotional knowing, healing. They are one and the same to me. This is where my true healing, and true growth happens, although in many respects it is A LOT harder than the first stage.
I've had two therapists who both described the trauma as a cancer that festers and eats you up from the inside, and therapy as the thing that allows all that built up toxic waste to be released.
Kerro - I so relate to your comment - I am excellent at intellectualising but very bad at experiencing feelings - besides those I feel for my children and at times my husband. T keeps bringing up the "feeling" part and so far I've been avoiding it like the plague. The newspaper reporting time was hard enough. And I have read many books.
The one thing that resonates with me as I read these posts is that healing takes time. I started therapy just over a year ago and thought it would be a quick process once I divulged my secrets. Doesn't seem like that will be the case.
OLJ
OLJ: No, unfortunately this is not usually the case. But there are great joys that come with healing, that I hope you will get to experience. It's not all about scabs and wounds. I hope you find that.