Feeling so small

This is exactly what I am saying. She should not be taking to anyone except you. As far as abuse, I already told you my opinion. You can think whatever you want.

As far as your therapist's speculations about your childhood abuse and dissociation, they are not entirely baseless just because there are no proven facts of your specific case for her to base them on.

Dissociation is a very common defense for victims of sexual abuse. There is more than enough clinical data collected by therapists, social workers, lawyers, medical doctors to have this as a common knowledge. So, it is a fact that dissociation often takes in cases of sexual abuse, but not only in those cases. Different types of trauma can also trigger dissociation if the trauma is severe enough.

So, there is a general data your therapist uses as a basis for her speculations. It is true though that in your specific case she doesn't have enough factual information to say assertively that there was childhood abuse from which you have been dissociating. But she can still make a speculation, as long as she is clear that this is a speculation and not a fact. As a professional, she is allowed to state her opinion, but she should explain what it is based on.

Now, that aside, the main problem I see with your therapist is not her speculations about what happened in your childhood, but what she is doing about it and about your present situation now.

I repeat, since you are the client and you are an adult, you are supposed to be the only person she should be talking about. Period. It is especially important if a therapist suspects that the client is currently being abused and/or has been abused in the past and that the alleged perpetrator is still pretty much a big part of the client's life.

I agree with the above. It seems that you like this T and find the therapy useful given that you keep seeing her - other people can have many different opinions and I would just take what is helpful to me and leave the rest.

You know I don't like pushing assumptions either but I think anybody can speculate and a lot of what goes on in therapy generally is indeed speculation, it is far from some kind of hard data science. Also, I think the way people perceive what counts as abuse or not can vary quite widely in cases that are not severe and where harm is not clearcut, what is important if how you feel about it - I never think it is a good idea to let others pull you into victimhood. However, you do have an intense interest in figuring these things out, but no real data (memory or other evidence) regarding your childhood, so speculation is pretty much what can be used to target it.

Oops, not "talking about" but "talking to" of course

I just know that she is helpful in alot of ways for example: she does this thing called future templates where if something is happening she will tell me things to do if it happens again. Like with my dad. She will say if it happens again what will you do and if I dont know give me examples. Like she said I could tell my dad I dont feel comfortable when you do that or I could move. She I want you to repeat that back to me. Like you were talking to him. I however couldnt do that. Its too triggering. It reminds me of when little kids tell on there abusers I cant handle that yucky feeling it gives me inside. I really do think she has good intentions but sometimes she seems flakey.

If she isnt accusing him of anything how would it harm?

I didn't say it would. It might, which is not the same as it would.

I have no idea what she wants to talk to him about and you don't know that either.

She, most likely, does have good intentions. It's not her intentions I am concerned about, but, mostly, her judgment.

To be fair to her, she is dealing with a challenging situation here. If you were a kid, it'd be easier because then she'd be required to report your father to the police and the CPS. But you are not a kid. So, she can't report what's happening. She can only work with you on finding ways for you to protect yourself without complicating the situation further given that you don't live independently. But talking to your family is a very bad idea IMO.

I don't know if she ever asked you if your father has any access to children. She should've asked, and if he does happen to be around children, that would allow her to report him to CPS.

My T and I use metaphors of "residue" and contamination etc , and for me T meeting with my father would rub off on him, and create a magical thinking association that would harm therapy. This should be your safe space that is yoursImo.

Have you asked her why she is "speculating?" I'm not sure that's the proper term given the behavior you said he is engaging with you as an adult. It seems unlikely to me that he did not engage in this kind of stuff when you were a kid.

Even when you have recounted what she's said in the past like about your mother, you reported it more as she said she thinks its possible, or likely, and perhaps it is you who hears it as her saying she "knows."

There are a few reasons and probably many more than I can think of for her "speculation." First is that you are dealing with a very challenging situation that seems to be at a crossroads where you need to know/do/be something different than what has been going on. As you have said, you've gotten nowhere in therapy before this. If I were in your shoes, I would want to know my story and it seems like this T has at least moved you forward in some understanding about your family. And it makes sense to me that her discussing things with your mother seemed to be helpful and that's why she wants to talk with your Dad. But I don't think she's insisting that she "knows" the truth in a certain kind of way.

I don't know what her specific field is, but the world of social science (borrowing from science) follows a "hypothesis testing model" and don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming therapy is scientific in this way, but if the hypothesis is "maybe your father sexually abused you" (and this isn't the way a scientist would precisely formulate it), the question is how might you figure out whether this might be the case? The first is to "speculate" to you to see how it fits, and you're not running screaming in the other direction at the possibility. The next step might be to talk to the willing father-- and conversing with family members with client permission for their information (not to violate confidentiality or give him any information) is an accepted way to go about things. Therapists actually do this all the time, especially when people are in the hospital. Maybe she won't learn anything helpful, maybe she will. But speculation about what might be at the root of your very difficult problem isn't wrong, not at least as far as I could see. But you talking about it with her seems like a good thing, if you don't entirely understand it.

I don't have a dog in this fight about what you do or don't do in your therapy. It does seem to me that you've been making progress with this therapy, or maybe it's just coincidence that you've been able to reveal your father's current behavior towards you. I can't tell from your descriptions whether your therapist is a genius or an idiot, or somewhere in between; frankly I don't think anyone can. And your feeling "small" suggests that this has kicked off something significant that's about your childhood, and that seems to be a positive thing. Wish you the best.

I have always felt like if I could know that I was sexually abused I could shed some blame for things. This T is hell bent on something having happened to me so I like it. There is the other part of me though that says she doesnt know so I cant shed that guilt. It is a cycle. I was in it with the last therspist I was with. She suspected too. Every symptom she would say ok thats from sexual abuse. This one does it too. I dont know that its productive to keep pressing on with these ideas if I cant know for sure. I will always just be in this loop. So yes I am in a happier spot when people suggest it. I want to be free. To be happy. I am happiest when I feel I may have been abused. I dont want to live a lie though.

I did want to apologize to everybody that has been abused. I know many of you remember your abuse and are like why would you want to be abused. I am in a different place than you but I dont want you to feel like I dont care about your experiences.

Dnester, those thoughts and temptations that you tend to find so disturbing about your own desires - did any of those change since you have ventured into these explorations about your father?

I am rarely around kids. I dont think about kids when I am not around them. When I am around them I have bad thoughts and they still cause me anxiety. Nothing has changed as far as that goes. I am triggered a little less. For example: shows like Law and Order SVU are less triggering but I dont know why. I am still triggered in therapy though. Like when my T told me to repeat after me and say I dont like it when you touch me that way (talking about my dad). I told her I couldnt but didnt tell her why. It just gives me a yucky feeling like when kids tell about there abuse. I dont claim to know why. Actually, I did send her an email why but I couldnt tell her in session. I did feel some kind of shift since EMDR but as far as anything with this stuff with my dad and anything changing with anything no. I was at a Christmas party this weekend and my little cousins were there. The whole party went well because I was sitting with them. I was with my sister. I didnt want to be rude and not hug my little cousins bye though. So I gave them a quick hug and then left. That was anxiety producing though. I have had these issues since I was around 8 years old. I cant imagine they will ever go away.

I am still so confused on how thats possible since I am not a child and I highly doubt the legal system would be alarmed about this.

I haven't been sexually abused, but I do know that knowing you have been abused doesn't take away the guilt. Abusers often shame children and tell them that the abuse is their fault. And abused children can carry that shame into adulthood. I have to talked to someone in her 50s who is still struggling with shame over what happened to her as a child.

The parent is always in a more powerful position psychologically even when you are no longer a child. That power imbalance never goes away no matter how old you are. The parent may no longer be literally in a position of authority, but emotionally he/she is always perceived that way. That's why the entire responsibility for keeping the boundary of the relationship intact lies squarely on the parent, never on the child, even when the child is an adult.

From a legal perspective, incestous sexual activity has various degrees of prohibition and punishment in many states, the severity of which depends on a particular jurisdiction. Unfortunately, those laws seem to hold both parties equally responsible, which is purely medieval IMO and reflects that our collective consciousness is still on the level of the dark ages.

However, if there is evidence of child sexual abuse that continues into adulthood, I assume, only a perpetrator is held legally responsible, but, with some of the crazy laws in some states I wouldn't be surprised if that's not the case.

So, from the legal standpoint, your situation may be quite complicated. From a psychological perspective, to me it's absolutely black and white in terms of who is responsible for what's going on, and that is definitely not you. In terms of the emotional dynamic of your relationship with your father it is also quite complicated, not black and white at all.

That's why a part of me feels for your therapist, because this is not an easy case to deal with. Still, I would approach it differently. But then, I also have to consider that I am not there and I don't have the same opportunity to talk to you in detail as she does.

Yes but I cant prove he did anything to me as a child. All I remember is one not so fatherly kiss. I do remember that he used to buy me gifts and not my sister. When my parents split he wanted custody of me not my sister.

I already have gone through the question of whether abuse took place in your childhood or not. I understand that you don't have evidence and the only indications of possible (and IMO very probable) abuse are some memories you've recalled recently. All I can say to you is that I believe that you were abused in childhood based on what you have reported so far and based on my professional and personal experience with this issue. I can't say that I know what happened in your childhood. Do you understand the difference between "I believe" and "I know"? So, I do believe that you were abused, but I don't know that.

Since you don't have evidence of childhood abuse, this is exactly what makes your situation complicated and difficult for your therapist to work with.

That being said, it is not her job to become an investigator and to collect information from outside sources like your family. You are an adult and you are the client. She is supposed to be working with you only and to deal with the information you give her the best she can.

With respect for your knowledge and experience in some kind of therapeutic world, this is just not true. I've been professionally involved with many psychologist-psychiatric types at the higher ends of the therapeutic spectrum, read tons of hospitalization and therapist records, and it is quite common for professionals to meet with the family members of clients and to talk with the family members of clients, with the permission of the client. Information from sources outside the client can indeed be helpful to someone's therapy. To make such a sweeping statements that therapy is "supposed" to be any particular way is almost always going to be wrong, sans sexual activity and financial exploitation. I suspect your experience may be more limited, but it is absolutely okay for a therapist to get information from a client's family members (and it does seem to me from my own experience that "investigation" or detective work is very much a part of what goes on).

But I'm not going to get into some petty argument with you. The OP and anyone else can decide what they want to believe. I'm going to bow out of this thread and wish the OP the best. I hope you (the OP) will update us in the future if you want to and let us know how it goes.

FWIW, I'm one of those people and I haven't interpreted your searching as anything you need to apologize for. I don't take what you are experiencing as a *desire* to have been abused nor a lack of concern for other people. But as you continue to post, it seems you do remember some abuse from your childhood and current inappropriate behavior from your father. Whether you ultimately come to see this as abuse and as potentially having an impact on your current struggles, that part of the story hasn't yet revealed itself.

I think self blame is a very complex animal and many people, abused or not, feel guilty and ashamed of who they are and what they've done. Sometimes shedding the blame and shame has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the now and the future. Sometimes it is just that we no longer need to carry it anymore. I have a hard time constructing a reality where blame and shame are good for people, so I think it's worth working on no matter what you believe your past to be.