Hi, this is my first time posting. I have complex trauma from early life experiences onwards, including emotional and physical abuse. My parents also had complex trauma from their childhoods. For 17 years now I have sought help from talk therapy. The first therapist I saw ended up transgressing boundaries unprofessionally with me and essentially massively re-traumatised me leading to major dissociation and panic attacks. I talked to my GP who agreed the behaviour was wrong and gave me a referral to someone else. This started out ok. However, one particular incident that was another inappropriate (but less serious) boundary transgression triggered me and the situation became untenable and I felt I had to leave for my own well-being. This therapist also talked at me without being present with me, if that makes sense?
In more recent years I was back at uni. I saw one of the uni psychologists who was actually very helpful. She had training in somatic experiencing which I’d been learning about at the time, though she didn’t practice it at the uni, but at least could draw on the principles of it with me. This somatic approach was way more helpful for me than top-down approaches like CBT. However, I was limited to 6 sessions per year at the uni and when my enrolment changed I could no longer use the service. This psychologist advised it would be good for me to have ongoing therapy support, especially as I’d just been through significant grief and loss followed by a traumatic incident of abuse that had led to acute PTSD symptoms, compounding the complex PTSD I already had.
Since then I’ve tried several therapists but I don’t feel the talk therapy has gotten anywhere, and in some cases has caused further harm. The one person who really helped me did two approaches with me, something called TRE (Trauma Releasing Exercises) and BWRT (Brain Working Recursive Therapy). At the time my body was essentially still lying on the side of the road during the abusive attack, reliving it 24/7. This approaches lifted me right out of that. This therapist was extremely compassionate and emotionally present, which made all the difference.
So this largely resolved a single-incident PTSD event, but not the more complex trauma I still struggle with. Have others with complex PTSD failed to be helped much by talk therapy? What things have worked? I’ve given a huge amount of time, energy and money to talk therapy, but feel it’s been very limited help-wise and even harmful.
