Therapy actually can be short. Here's the combo you need:
1. an excellent therapist (do a search in the group or on my blog of "what makes a good therapist" and you'll see a bunch of articles.)
2. a client who had a lot of emotional support growing up.
3. a client who did not experience abuse or trauma.
4. or a client who may have had abuse or trauma but has already had a lot of helpful therapy behind him/her.
What's With The Trauma? Why Does That Matter?
Little kids don't have the life experience – or the brain maturity – to put what happened to them into perspective. If they were mistreated or someone died or their parents divorced, it would be the most natural thing in the world for them to blame those events on themselves.
This may sound strange, but it makes perfect sense when you look at it more closely: One thing children don't have is power – which is scary to them and upsetting. In a chaotic world, any sense of control helps a person feel more "on top of" things.
Therefore, if the child can blame herself then she has control!
Obviously, she doesn't actually have control. You know that and I know that, but kids don't. And they grow up to adulthood with unclear and untrue ideas about who they are – and how bad they are.
So on the one hand, they gain the feeling of control by being the cause of problems and on the other hand, that makes them "bad." A lose-lose proposition.
When they get to therapy, a lifetime of self-blame, hurting others, and childish thinking led by these protective habits, have been going on and need sorting out. That's a process. And it won't happen so quickly.
But for the child that had an adult who gave a reality check to that child - "No, honey, the divorce was absolutely not your fault" – the child will not grow up with that burden hovering over him or her.
Instead, he will be grounded in the reality of the kind of person he really is and how he affects those around him. Such a person won't need the sometimes long, hard work of disconnecting himself from negative thoughts about himself.
Basically, the rule is: the more trauma, the longer the therapy; the more support in the form of bringing reality and validation to the child, even with trauma, the shorter the therapy.
Requiring more therapy is not a reflection on the person; it's a reflection of what the person went through.
Here's A Quick Way To Tell If You Were Affected By Trauma
Emotions!
If you find yourself reacting emotionally in ways that other people would say are an "over-reaction" or a lack of reaction, that is an excellent sign of trauma history. Here is a small sample of the possibilities:
*feeling like you got attacked when the other person insists they were not attacking you (unless that’s part of their abuse itself, known as gaslighting)
*suddenly getting angry for no apparent reason
*feeling like you've been taken advantage of; feeling like a victim
*feeling hypervigilent, bracing yourself for an attack that could come
*unexpectedly feeling scared
*hating yourself even when things seem good and people are treating you well
*being totally detached from your emotions; unable to cry when grieving; unable to feel another person's pain.
Let's take some examples to illustrate this:
Margie asks Don why he was late coming home and he blows up. To Don, his wife is "grilling" him even though it's a normal question.
Dennis invites Maddy to go over the bank accounts and Maddy avoids it rather than confronting her poor math skills.
Tom is suspicious of his wife flirting with other men – which she isn't – because he doesn't believe he is attractive.
In these cases, we don't know what the trauma history was; what we do know is that the emotions have taken over.
What To Do When You Would Benefit From Intensive Therapy But Don't Want It
I've had more than one person tell me they did not want to "open up a can of worms" into their pasts. And I don't blame them. Trauma is painful and no one wants to relive it.
So, I have created a group coaching program that includes all the same tools and tricks as therapy – but without the therapy. It's obviously cheaper that way, too. It has other advantages as well –
*It's not restricted to what state you live in, which therapy is.
*You get the support of others in the group experiencing what you're going through.
*Although the initial signup is 4 months long (for couples and 3 months for individuals), you can take as many additional months as you want.
*Because it is skills-based, you will catch on to how to use the tools over time from the repetition in our group coaching calls.
It's a less intense experience than therapy but will get you to your goals. The best part is that if you choose to transfer to the Immersion Experience (which has therapy), I will credit you for what you paid for the coaching.
You can see that you may end up with a "long" version of the process by adding on extra months, but it will be easier to swallow because it will not require you to dig too deeply into the past.
To learn more about the coaching programs, please go here: https://drdeb.com/register/coaching-love-yourself-love-your-marriage-course/ [for couples]
Or here: https://drdeb.com/register/coaching-love-every-part-of-yourself-course/ [for individuals]
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