How Do I Trust?
First of all, use rational criteria for evaluating the trustworthiness of your therapist:
* Does your therapist respect your boundaries? Does s/he, in fact, explain and model healthy boundaries?
* Does your therapist listen, respond appropriately, attentively and helpfully to your concerns?
* Is your therapist truthful, even when the truth is painful?
* Is your therapist consistent and reliable?
* Does s/he have a body of experience with ritualistic abuse or, if not, is s/he educating self and consulting with others who do have this experience?
* Does your therapist refrain from tactics that replicate your abuse?
* Do the actions and attitudes of your therapist reflect caring, concern, tolerance, and openness, while retaining a serious and thoughtful regard for the dangers and difficulties of recovery?
After you have done your best to rationally establish a basis for trusting your therapist, begin to practice trusting. Take some risks with honesty. Ask how your therapist might help you identify needs and get them met. Try to remember therapists are human, that they are not your perpetrators (in most cases), but hold them to their ethical commitments to mutual honesty and respect. Realize that trusting is gradual; that as you learn to trust yourself you will find it easier to trust others.
Finally, be aware that trust must be re-established at the developmental level of your original abuse. In other words, remember that you need to reassure the inner child in a way that is understandable and tangible to that child.
Author Unknown
Background by someone in The Valley of Ancients
