Stage One: Stabalisation

For all those that have gone through some form of trauma therapy and their therapists have used the three stage approach can you share your experiences of stage one.


I am finding even acknowledging and telling my therapist i feel unsafe fundamentally unsafe. Telling them thats how i feel makes me feel even more vulnerable.


Going through grounding techniques with someone and letting them see me like that and know i am essentially vulnerable makes me feel worse and freak out. I had no idea grounding and the first stage would in itself be difficult. I have gone to hynotherapy before and had no problem and actually really enjoyed that process where as this feel really hard.

I'd not say my T uses a strict three stage approach, but he's mentioned more than once that he wants me to be stable before we talk about things that upset me.

I struggled with getting to the point where I feel there's more days on which I'm stable than not for quite a while. It took me about 2 years to get there. Sometimes there's still times where I'm worse again and we 'go back to stage one'

One thing that helped me was only doing the things I'm comfortable with. For example my T used to insist a lot that I sit when I'm trying to ground myself (instead of lying). I had to convince him for a while before he didn't bring that up anymore, but now I can pretty much have whatever posture I like. This helps me relax.
I also used to bring stuffed animals sometimes to feel safer.
Another thing that helped me, since rationally I knew that my T is safe, was to write things I struggle with down. He didn't have to see me write it and how I reacted to it, and I didn't have to see him while he read it.
Lastly, I think over time it just got better. I'm more used to my T now, I trust him more, he's shown how he reacts to all sorts of stuff and that I don't need to be scared of him.

I think the second woman may have been trying something like it. It did not do anything for me from what I can see.

T tried very hard to do grounding techniques with me and to do stabilization. It is ingrained in every cell of my being that admitting feeling unsafe, scared, vulnerable..... any of that is potentially deadly. So... T has struggled. A couple months ago T took a risk and said that he had held a few other clients with similar histories to mine and that could be an option for me if I were interested. We discussed it on and off for three sessions. There were no strings attached except that I had to be the one to initiate. The first time he held me I was just in shock that it was for real, it hadn’t been a lie or a trap and that there were truly no strings. The next session when he held me I initiated trauma processing and he allowed and supported but was clearly caught off guard. T is still very unsure of my processing trauma without what the books would deem stabilization.
Tomorrow this will be discussed as part of our session. Holding me provides a dynamic grounding that I cannot achieve with the normal techniques. T keeps anticipating some kind of triggered reaction or decomposition after sessions where he holds me and I spontaneously start processing but so far I have stayed very present and grounded.
That being said... I still trigger when he tries to stabilize me.

My first year was to stabilise me.
But it never took on any form, ie, grounding exercises, ect.

Ts never been into them. I mentioned once and then only after reading here. And T flicked her hand and said "there's loads of techniques in the internet.

I think she I've like I knew now. That don't work for me. Whrn I'm in a 'state' in in until its finished its business.
By the time any grounding works, you're already conning back into the here and now anyway.
So the first Yr we bust talked and of course I was triggered. Can't go there unless you go there.