What is your princess?

It is clear that my younger wounded child parts do not want love care and compassion from the adult version of myself. They do not. It does not work me visualizing caring for these parts. I have tried this over and over with this therapist and another therapist.

It is surmised that the reason is because I just have not learned to have compassion for myself. Not sure how to get that.

Another possibility is that they do not trust any possibility of love and compassion coming from you, or any other female?, because of the pain and disappointment in looking for that when they/you were young.

Well, I guess the thing is that isn't even what the compassionate parts will be helping them with...
the younger wounded parts want the kind of love and care that can only be given in childhood. The type of love and care they want is the love and care of a responsive and loving parent. And there is no parent here to give that anymore.
The compassionate adult parts help the wounded children come to terms with the fact that they never got what the needed. That window has closed. The parents screwed up. The compassionate parts step in to assist with the grief.
However, once the grief is done THEN the wounded younger parts are able to accept the care , comfort and love of the compassionate adults. But only once they realize that what they desperately yearn for is no longer there to be had. And until they truly realize that they will keep searching for what can never be found.

Well like my T said everything has always been up to me. Everything is a choice. If I actually want my princess than I have to do the work and this is the modality he feels will bring me closer to my princess.

Just curious... what modality do YOU feel would work best?

When I was in therapy, I was really drawn towards my therapist’s re-parenting, object relations, good enough mother modality. At the time a part of me also knew I wasn’t making progress that way, and that I was spinning and cycling instead of moving forward.

Retrospectively, I think I would have done great with CBT or EMDR.

I know there are other modalities that I could never do that seem to work well for others. For example IFS.

You are right about the reparenting situation. I have a part that just that and I feel he has become the wind beneath my wings that soars me to new heights and I become more successful out of therapy. Without that from him I crash. So I need to find a way to feel that motivation and energy without relying on someone else.

I have done year of EMDR. That has brought me to a higher functioning but it has stalled because i think I am blocking it.

So he is being strict with keeping me focused on this new modality I posted in the other thread.

I’m with you on wanting more independence. It’s awful to have to rely on someone else to stay functional and I can relate to trying to avoid crashes.

Hopefully by trying something new it brings you closer to where you want to be.

I tend to disagree with this belief. Perhaps it is my literal tendencies. I do believe we are able to receive this type of love and care at many times throughout our lives. I feel and believe that there are moments where I am receiving this type of love and care from my T.

And perhaps it is also that I tend to change the word here from parent to primary caregiver. Even with that change, when my life event happened, I did look toward my mother to give me a brief moment of that type of love and care. Perhaps that is because I have issues or perhaps it is natural when experiencing a life altering event to want to have a moment of the type of love, comfort, and support that one had as a child.

This I would in part agree with. I do believe that coming to terms with the fact that we can't go back and make it be something it wasn't; that it was what it was; and grieving is a part of it.

I think there is also some deprogramming that might need to happen for the adult parts depending on what the history is. I know I've had to learn how to talk to my child parts without the undertone or passive aggressive criticisms; and I've had to learn that my child parts are not bad, disgusting, weak, annoying or whatever for being scared, making mistakes, wanting reassurances, and the likes. I've had to learn to quit telling it to "just shut up already". Some might say that if my adult was interacting with my child in this way, then I wasn't working with my adult selves. It was/is the only adult set of selves that I know of, so my only frame of reference.

I honestly hope my child parts continue to search for what they need. They are allowed to exist. Their wants and needs are valid and valuable; and tell us things about ourselves. They also bring wonderful gifts that help me be a more complete me. I do believe what they yearn for can be had, once the separation is made from what is wanted or needed and where it is gotten. In other words, if the young parts believe that the only place they can get their needs/wants met is through the parent then the whole will continue to struggle internally. However, I think once it is accepted to have these wants/needs and that they can be received in many ways, then the young parts will be more open to receiving the things needed/wanted from myself and from my support network (peers).

** And maybe this is just how it works for me and what I think/believe at this stage of things. All of this is subject to change as I grow and continue in my journey.

ETA: I also think that one of the reasons some of the stuff works this way for me is because I am not a child and I do not need this type of care and love 24/7. So what is needed to be good enough is significantly lower. Good enough now looks like moments here and there; sometimes a simple phrase, sometimes a full session. Sometimes some element of it day after day; other times weeks between moments.

My T has asked me this question as well, expecting as a response something like “I want to understand myself better” but I have responded him honestly that I keep coming because I want to be together with him. If that’s how I felt at that moment why should I have to make up an “acceptable “ answer?

I have had many sessions when I have asked him what’s the point of therapy because even if we talked about it on the previous day and as a result of this discussion I finally understood it, I tend to forget it until the next day. My rational adult self just does not ever go to therapy because that part of me does not need it. This me who goes into therapy and who needs it doesn’t remember very well the things that happen session to session. So no princess for me.

Yes that is right. My adult self checks out at the door and the child checks into session. My adult self when, actually in the drivers seat, does not need therapy. I go because I want to be in his presence.

Do therapist not understand this?

Yeah I made up acceptable answers so he did not kick me out the door.

I guess my princess would be to stop self harming, and to not rely on others/self harm to fill that hole of emptiness inside of me but instead be able to fill it myself.

Wow....I posted this in July of last year. Things never got better and what I feared came to pass and now I sit here licking my wounds.

Yes, but if someone would have told you to walk away a year ago, would you have done so?

Sadly no.......

I understand. I wouldn't have, either. Because what I think is that there's some work that is begging to be done with all of this transference hell. So many of the decisions we make are subconscious decisions. Our minds know what we need to work on, I believe. But the trick is finding a match, a therapist who not only gets it, but who can handle it.