Therapists Speak out on Healing

Which factors have you seen that tend to retard progress? denial, unwilling or unable to commit time or money, fear, trust issues, emphasis on presenting alters rather than on programming/structures/systems , lone ranger counselors who burn themselves out

Survivors of ritual abuse have often had a multitude of painful betrayals in their lifetime. Alice shares her thoughts on this painful topic:

It always helps to process betrayal...all the betrayals from spiritual to parental. It also helps to label specific behaviors as abuse in the framework of healthy parenting and group dynamics.Sometimes clients have difficulty with their corrupted belief systems as regards themselves...i.e.- "I have no soul"

Survivors of ritual abuse often have difficulty trusting others, and John shares his perspective on this issue:

What helps the most is the solid listening and them coming away from session after session with a strong sense of being listened too. The second mostimportant eliment is to treat the presenting problem properly and that is usually a deep seated depression that masks itself in some other format. ODD or BiP or BPD etc. and to gain releif here and build trust over time....

One of the facinating things that I have found is that in the fourth or fifth year of treatment sometimes the depth of the dissociative aspect jumps out and you have alters in your office who have watched you for a very long time and they can finally trust you to share. I had one lady who had been treated for 8 and half years before I got to her and it was late in our third year when I meet the first alter. The Alters knew the truth of what happened to her and it was ritual abuse by her mom. It went on every day and on several occasions nearly resulted in the clients death, and all this happened per age three. Mom later confirmed this. I had used the principal of the ISH and garnered its support in the healing and the client now 39 has her child back, is holding down a full time job, is in a relationship that she is happy with and is clean and sober drugs and alcohol 6 years..She is on Rx for her depression and probabily will be all the rest of her life... but she is having one now.

I found these responses helpful and insightful. These are caring people, who have invested hours and hours into helping survivors in the

Go To Page: 1 2 3