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Re: What it's like » gardenergirl

Posted by Racer on January 30, 2004, at 21:52:48

In reply to What it's like » Racer, posted by gardenergirl on January 30, 2004, at 20:40:51

> Thank you for sharing that. If I understand you correctly, it is a way to access, express, or try to get rid of pain that has accumulated and has not been validated by some significant other person (i.e. parent, partner, friend, teacher, etc?). SI then is a way to try to release it or access it?
>

Um, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that any specific person didn't validate the emotions, more that the environment inhibited the expression of strong emotions, usually utilizing shame as a weapon. For most of the women I've talked to about this sort of thing, anger was a big trigger point. Most of us had experienced a situation or situations in which we were hurt, were not protected, and not able to express the pain of that betrayal. Many of us had experienced some sort of sexual trauma -- molestation or rape -- and were told that it was shameful, that we had to pretend it never happened so that no one would find out. Some of us were even told it had never happened.

The end result, though, was generally a feeling of being filled to overflowing with emotions that had to come out somehow. For myself, it was self starvation, so I'll try to tell you something about that. (I do think they come from the same place, just expressed differently.) First, there was a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, a sort of feeling of "please, someone tell me that you SEE me, see what I'm doing to myself, and make me stop!" There was also a sense that I could limit the amount of emotional overload by limiting my food intake. And, of course, I'll be "right" if I can be thin enough. That really was the last part, though, and I knew it even while I was doing it.

Of course, it's not an adaptive defense to the problem, and in my case -- and the cases of some of those other women -- it led to a vicious circle. For the SI women I knew, it usually led to hurting themselves much more because no one said anything about it. For me, I got thinner and thinner, until I was unable to comprehend what people were saying to me about being too thin.

> If I understand that correctly, and please correct me if I don't, then would working in therapy to express the pain and having the T validate it be helpful?
>

You know what? If I had to give you advice about dealing with this client, it would be really simple: ask her if she knows of anything that can be helpful to her. Ask her if she wants to talk about it, ask her if she wants to build up to it, and respect her response. Validation doesn't mean saying, "I understand that you're in pain," necessarily, it can be experienced in a lot of different ways.

Speaking for myself, I never trust anyone who says something non-specific. I don't trust the "you'll be just fine" type of comfort, but I do trust "well, you are able to have insights as proven by [x], which is likely to lead to progress [y]" feedback. I guess that's being honest and matter of fact. (Of course, in my case, it's still part of the pathology... Oh, well...)

Good luck.


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