Trauma survivors know all about perpetrators. Dissociative trauma survivors know all about sadistic perpetrators. Dissociative trauma survivors with a background in ritual abuse, or mind control, or sex slavery organizations know all about truly evil perpetrators. Those of us in the world who were not directly exposed to such darkness have a hard time grasping its depth. It seems surreal to us. … [Read more...]
Developing Internal Communication – Starting with the Basics
There are a variety of ways to develop basic, effective skills in internal communication with your dissociative system. Most of these skills are very similar, even the same, as the communication skills used with real people in the everyday world. There is no fancy trick to learning to talk to your inside people. Everyone can do this. Remember, it's like talking to other people. Have you … [Read more...]
Being Kind to Your Internal System
Hey hello - How are you today? Thanks for coming back and reading more of the Discussing Dissociation blog. It's exciting to see the number of site viewers growing each week - I think you all must be spreading the news! I appreciate all of you who have already become regular readers, and thanks for telling your friends. As a follow-up to yesterday's post about giving- making- creating- providing new and … [Read more...]
10 Qualities a Therapist Recognizes in a Good Client, part 1
Most clients quickly think of the many qualities they want in their therapists. However, are those clients also thinking about whether or not they are presenting themselves as the type of client someone would want to work with? As an experienced psychotherapist, I am proposing that there are many criteria for clients to consider about themselves as well as about their prospective therapists. Many of the … [Read more...]
Blocking Therapy vs. Therapeutic Mismatch
Let's start with Castorgirl's comment to the article "Therapy for Trauma Survivors": Hi Kathy, An interesting post. It raises many issues that have been a struggle over the last three years of therapy… The question whenever things don’t seem to be going well in therapy always seems to come back to - “Is this our fault?” Are we sabotaging our own recovery, misinterpreting what has been said or … [Read more...]