When Retelling Stories (Including Trauma) in Talk Therapy Doesn’t Work
As a somatic, EMDR, and trauma-informed therapist in NYC, I often receive inquiries from prospective clients, all expressing similar frustrations regarding their experiences with past therapists. Usually, it goes something like this…
“I’ve been in therapy in the past and have gained awareness but nothing much has changed”
“My therapist is a great listener but I can also get that from friends”
"I wish my therapist asked me less about how I’m feeling and give me things to work with!”
If you’ve found yourself on this page, chances are you’ve been to therapy before and have noticed feeling stuck in your process. That can be frustrating since therapy can be an expensive investment! In this post, I’ll share with you things to consider if you are noticing that talk therapy is no longer working.
Is your therapist a good fit?
I want to name one of the most common reasons why therapy doesn’t work—it’s not a good fit. You might not feel entirely comfortable with your therapist, your therapist may not have the specialization to help you work through your presenting problems or your therapist doesn’t understand the complexities of your lived experiences or identities. This can certainly be true if you hold intersecting identities such as LGBTQ+ or BIPOC. It might be worth bringing this up (which can be hard, but necessary) and seeing if it is something that you and your therapist can work through together or if it’s best for them to refer you to someone else.
Are you disconnecting from yourself in sessions?
Disconnection can occur if you have trouble accessing your emotions when re-telling painful or difficult memories/experiences. For example, when recounting a traumatic event, you may be unable to access the complex emotions or physical sensations associated with the experience, and can only manage to intellectualize it.
“We cannot truly process trauma unless we are more embodied in therapy sessions—meaning we need to connect our stories to our emotions and physical sensations.”
If you’ve been to therapy before and tend to be more verbal or analytical, you may be limiting your ability to process and release trauma. In order to process trauma, not only do we need to process it cognitively, but we need to allow our bodies to process the trauma as well because it also stays within our nervous system. Somatic experiencing allows you to work with your whole system and release the trauma response so you can create new behaviors that serve you.
Are there defenses present in sessions that are not being addressed?
Defenses aren’t usually intentional but actually might be a habitual response to stress. A typical defense might be separating yourself from your emotions because it makes you feel more comfortable. It’s a strong protective mechanism that I see a lot in clients especially those who have experienced difficult life events, complex PTSD, or childhood trauma. There is usually a tendency to minimize and/or repress experiences.
With this, we explore the resistance together by reducing the talking process and starting to bring awareness to physical sensations and emotions that arise, however small. By being aware of the sensations in our body, new meaning may emerge to combat the old automatic patterns that once served us.
Are you hiding conflicting parts of yourself?
Each person consists of many different parts. These parts are neurological pathways that operate similarly to implicit memory, in that each part has its own beliefs, feelings, coping skills, and behaviors, much of which are automatic. All of these parts make up who we are and we intentionally or unintentionally assess these different parts during certain situations.
Have you ever noticed yourself acting or behaving a certain way in certain situations or with certain people? Maybe you act more childlike when you feel emotionally charged or activated. Maybe you shut down or resort to yelling when confronted with a difficult conversation with your partner—this could be your younger, child part. This child part may feel unseen, unheard, or even scared, so you resort to old learned behavior, a defense that kept you safe in the past.
Sometimes that happens habitually in therapy too— only certain parts of the client’s personality or experiences are present while the other ones stay in the background. Examples include:
A person that leans more towards people-pleasing tendencies as a trauma response and may behave in specific ways in session to be a “good client.”
A person who needs to feel in control over their emotional responses, limiting what they share and intellectualizing their feelings so that they don’t actually have to feel.
A person who is kinky may feel uncomfortable sharing their sexual desires for the fear of being judged.
The selected parts that appear “normal” dominate, leaving out the vulnerable parts, which are in need of more attention.
Therapy is most effective when…
Therapy is most effective when you are more embodied in sessions (modalities that include mindfulness and somatics help with this), are willing to work through the parts of yourself that are scary or messy, are able to find self-compassion and feel a sense of connection to your therapist in the process. I find that especially true with trauma work. Healing is only possible when there is an empathic witness—we can’t go back and change the past but reprogramming the way we share our stories, the visceral experience in our telling, and extending love to oneself is key in letting go of old behaviors and building resiliency and kindness with ourselves in the process.
Holistic Therapy Modalities:
