Quote From: srndpty333Any knowledge I have on this issue is from reading and doing research…I have just started therapy and am still not convinced I have the right therapist…I haven’t even started to address my own abuse…I have only talked about my guilt over how I dealt with my son’s abuse by my brother.
Unfortunately, most therapists do not specialize in this area, and received minimal training on the issue. There are different schools of thought regarding incest and sexual abuse and one of them is to, “ignore it” i.e.; “picking at a wound doesn’t encourage healing” …that is fear based thinking…if you are being told to “get over it” you are talking to the wrong person…the long term effects of CSA need to be managed not ignored. You can’t will yourself to be healed….it is a process requiring hard work and commitment to face it. Dr. Phil is right on the money when he says, “Monsters live in the dark.”
Marilyn VanDerber stresses the importance of finding the right therapist. Don’t settle and don’t ever give up on you.
I myself just recently discovered Ms. Blume’s check list…and I have got her book…”Secret Survivors” on order through the library. The more I am validated the stronger I get. And I’ve recently discovered that the more I talk about this on message boards or through journaling the saner I feel.
I am going to do some research on Judith Lewis Herman. I hadn’t heard of her and I like to read as much as I can on this topic.
I too struggle with emotional immaturity and sometimes feel like I am two people…one of me is strong and sure and one of me is a terrified lost child hiding from the world. I just wish I had control over which one of me is in charge.
As far as therapy suggestions…I am searching too…but I think that talk therapy has shown proven results from what I read.
Here is an interesting article I found at http://cms.psychologytoday.com
Talk Therapy vs. Drugs
By: Hara Estroff Marano
Summary: Two different kinds of treatment, drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy, combat depression but affect different parts of the brain.
Talk therapy and drug therapy both combat major depression, but a new imaging study shows that the two treatments have distinctly different effects on specific parts of the brain.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) changes metabolic activity in the cortex, the thinking brain, to modulate mood states. It works from the top down, altering how people monitor and react to negative emotional stimuli in their environment. Drugs, by contrast, work from the bottom up, modulating neurotransmitters in the brainstem, which drive basic emotional behaviors.
Reporting in the Archives of General Psychiatry, neurologist Helen Mayberg and colleagues at the
University
of
Toronto
found that the unique metabolic changes produced by CBT in the cortex reflect newly learned ability to detect troubling emotional stimuli and to keep them out of working memory, where they get amplified by rumination. Such changes may make a relapse of depression far less likely.
The effects produced by both types of therapy point to a larger, complex circuit of depression in the brain. "Our imaging study shows that you can correct the depression network along a variety of pathways," says Mayberg. "Drugs change the chemical balance in the brain through effects at very specific target sites. Cognitive therapy is tapping into a different part of the same depression circuit board."
I think you're so smart for doing so much research.
Having been at this for twelve years (during which there have been improvements), I commend you for being careful about a therapist. (Some continue to believe in "borderline personality disorder" rather than PTSD; IMHO, run, don't walk, away from those.)
My own expereince is that drugs and talk therapy work best. Also, I went to a fourteen-week incest group therapy which was invaluable; that cured me of guilt quick. Deep breathing therapy is fantastic. But the most important is the talk therapy. The drugs, should you opt for them (and most people recommend them) will help you manage the symptoms you have now and get through the therapy.
Right now I'm looking for something called "social skills therapy." As Dr. Phil said, one remains frozen at certain points and fails to mature. I think the social skills therapy would help with this.
Don't fret. I feel like I'm three, seven, six, fourteen, forty and eighty. It's inevitable. You're so smart though; and cautious too. You'll no doubt know the right choices for you.
After years of suffering in silence, a family turns to Dr. Phil for help on a forbidden topic. Their silence stems from years of incest that took place between all five siblings. Becky, the oldest sister, is terrified those years of molestation and pain could cause her younger brother, Kenny, to die on the streets as a homeless drug addict. Find out what happens when Kenny faces his brothers and sisters as they confront their incestuous past. Plus, Alexis wants help with a heart-breaking secret. Her father got her pregnant eight times, beginning when she was just 15. Her children don't know that their grandfather is also their dad. Should Alexis tell them? Talk about the show here.
