Thanks for the interesting thread. I suppose what I feel is that we are all going to therapy for different reasons, have different experiences, hopes and fears and relate better to certain types and methods.
STRM
quote:My T uses touch in our therapy. It is an integral part of the training that she has received. We don't do typical "talk therapy". The typical talk therapy was not helpful for me in resolving my trauma, but the work that I do with my T now certainly is. She doesn't use touch every session and when it is used it is appropriate, permission is asked for and given and it is very therapeutic and healing. My T has very good boundaries and has never once made me feel like she was crossing any sort of boundary with me. She is extremely cautious about sharing any personal info and has only done so extremely infrequently and only when it served to further our work. I am also very clear about who she is. She is very important in my life and in my healing. She is my T. She is not my mother or my friend. I wouldn't want her to be any of those as it would completely disrupt the therapy process.
Once again, I totally relate to what you have written so beautifully. I feel very similarly about my T and that makes the boundary stretching a bit easier, so for me the touch is not a problem but an important lesson that I am learning, that touch can indeed be safe and nurturing. I would not express any emotion or shed a tear (and have only shed a couple) with someone who just sat and looked at me, however empathetically, that would be soooo triggering; likewise someone who was too sympathetic or too overpowering with their physical comfort would do likewise. So it the balance that is important and the T knowing you well enough to know where the individual boundaries lie. I think it is different with opposite sex relationships in therapy, can understand the need for less elastic boundaries there.
starfish