Kate’s Couch Session Five: Who ARE You? Who? Who?
After Kate cracked me open like an egg during our fourth session, she started helping me put the Humpty Dumpty pieces back together again during our fifth session. We often have to demolish what was in our life before we can rebuild on firm foundations. Step One is to figure out who we are beneath … Read more
Kate’s Couch Session Four: Bastille Day
Mt. St. Helens in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State blew up the same day as my marriage: May 18, 1980. My father passed away on Bastille Day, 2005. Bastille Day commemorates the storming of a French prison to liberate political prisoners. During my fourth therapy session, Kate drew a volcano on her white board … Read more
Kate’s Couch Session Three: Which Dog Do You Feed?
Therapy is very much like excavating an archaeological site. We gently dig around in the dirt until we unearth buried treasure. As we continue with our healing process, we naturally jettison the junk: the unhealthy aspects of our personalities and lives. We take out the trash.
After we take out the trash, we need to fill up the empty spaces. Nature abhors a vacuum. So, we need to replace the junk. . .to showcase the treasures we unearth with our digging. . .we need to replace the negative with something positive and valuable.
Kate’s Couch Session Two: Are You a Queen?
In the midst of a PTSD episode, we often feel abject powerlessness. Everyone seems to have control of our destiny but us. How do we effectively ask for help. . .especially when our life’s pattern is that nobody shows up? Last week I was at a domestic violence event. The host remarked about human nature: … Read more
Kate’s Couch Session One: Midsummer’s Eve
My first session with Kate was appropriately on Midsummer’s Eve: the day of women’s empowerment. I knew instantly that I was in the right place when she said her role was to serve as my enlightened witness. An Enlightened Witness is an adult person who acknowledges for a child that abuse is inappropriate behavior and … Read more
Kate’s Couch: Sharing My Complex-PTSD Therapy Sessions
Therapy for Complex PTSD (multiple traumatic events) is more shot-in-the-dark than science. Mental health professionals don’t have viable treatment protocols for PTSD (one traumatic event), and most are totally clueless about treating Complex PTSD. Sadly, too many still think, for example, that EMDR is effective. It isn’t.
Practicing What I Preach, Part 3
What is PTSD? Post-traumatic stress disorder was called “shell shocked” after World War I and “battle fatigue” after World War II. After the Vietnam War, it was further sanitized to “post traumatic stress disorder.” Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is diagnosed after a person has experienced multiple life-threatening traumas.
Approximately 160 million people have PTSD.
