Correct therapy type?

[Blueberry]

I watched a live video from Diane Poole Heller and Dr. Frank Anderson, which was chiefly for practitioners but OK for survivors to watch too.

They were explaining how it's not a one size fits all thing. So not just that a method such as EMDR or IFS or relational/attachment healing may not be the appropriate treatment method for a particular person, but also a particular method might not be the correct method for a particular person right now. That may sound logical but I for one am always forgetting it, constantly hoping EMDR might resolve all my trauma reactions, survival strategies etc. Not just that, from reading around on the forum and lots of my own experience e.g. with various psychiatrists over the years, it seems a lot of doctors, therapists etc are stuck in this mindset too.

Diane P.H. and Frank A. plugged the line about the necessity for therapists to know about a bunch of methods in addition to the one or two they're specialised in. Don't have to be qualified in all of them, so long as they're trauma specialists in at least one method, meaning that if they integrate parts of other methods in their work they'll be automatically doing it in a trauma-informed way. Yay! 
When I think back, all my really good therapists have worked like that! So some of you on here will have 'heard' me say that here there's never just talk therapy or just CBT/DBT, they're just part and parcel of trauma therapy, and although various of my really good trauma therapists have done Parts work with me, it's never been called IFS. "So what is it?" I've been asked. Aha, I say now :lightbulb: those therapists who used it with me to great effect like U, W, D were well-versed enough in the methods they otherwise employed to learn a bit in addition about IFS, adapt it successfully to fit in with their other methods, including adding to it but also possibly simplifying it and/or seeing how much of IFS-like stuff was appropriate for which clients, as well as which clients went to their adapted method like a duck to water (me!). Also seeing how clients adapted the methods for themselves in a helpful way. I'd say this is part of the integrative model of trauma therapy that D.P.H. and F.A. are explaining in their presentation.

Then there were therapists who were either not very good or not very good yet (everybody needs experience to turn learnt theory into good practice) who stuck too much to whatever Parts work or Inner Child work they'd learnt and overwhelmed Adult me of the time with e.g. all their questions on one Inner Child, leaving me sitting there thinking but not daring to say: "I have about another 15 Inner Children, you want me to do this with all of them??" I never did btw, not with all of them. Plus I'd already been doing that work on my own, which T didn't even inquire about.

One thing that is clear to me - I've been exposed to a lot of relational healing methods before trauma-informed therapy was really a thing and afterwards too. So I'd say the majority of what I did was very helpful, very healing, even before trauma-informed was a thing, though some of it maybe a touch or even a lot re-traumatising, which accounts in part for my long healing journey. Otoh things were what they were 20-25 years ago in therapy. I'm glad, grateful even, that I was in the healing places and environments I was in, most anyway. I learnt and practised and integrated and healed so much!
Sorry this got so long. Maybe I'll remove some of the more personal stuff tomorrow and put it on one of my Journals.

Oh yes, another thing this pair was plugging was client agency and how practioners can allow their clients agency without overwhelming them and retraumatising them. Maybe more on that tomorrow too...

[Kizzie]

Judith Herman wrote a foreword to a book I have about just this issue BB; that is, researchers and clinicians need to move away from single models to more of a mixed methods approach. I couldn't agree more actually as our trauma is complex after all. For me, the most important element though is as you say relational because what we were exposed to was interpersonal trauma that lasts over our lifetimes.

I do think elements of different types of therapy will be found to be important to recovery, even CBT.  When it comes down to it, we need whole person treatment so we also need those in medicine to look at our health against a background of complex trauma. My hope it that as they learn just how much trauma impacts us physically, they will educate patients about this and offer ways of tracking, protecting and nurturing our physical health.