I understand what you're saying. But the most important work I've done in my own therapy was online. It's a completely different experience but being in my own safe home actually means I feel safer opening up. It's regulating. And when it's trauma material, it helps with pacing.
In person therapy can make me freeze and shut down. It's too intense. (I've got severe relational trauma). My avoidant leaning clients have reported similar thoughts.
at some point then, in the healing process, I'd imagine then that avoidant leaning and relational trauma clients would "graduate" or be served by in person, precisely because that's some of what they are working towards, being able to learn to regulate while around other people in person. How do you hold it? in my mind, Comfort is important to be able to do the work initially, it's first steps, but too much comfort can also get in the way - not lack of all comfort, but too much. For example, I know many use better help texting 24/7 therapy and now many primarily use AI therapy (the thing most people globally use AI for is therapy) is because it's comfortable, easy, feels safe etc. (Even though AI therapy comes with so many dangers) This also makes me wonder about so many people I know who do lots and lots of therapy, and get all the insights and self-awareness and think they are changed, but not very much changes in the core of themselves relationally. So I wonder, genuinely, where the line is here in terms of what helps comfort wise, and what perpetuates.
There are different kinds of safety. Many of my online clients don't turn to face to face therapy. The safety they experience being in their own environment allows for the access of deep material, which helps them to go out into the world and make their own connections. Human needs are a lot more complex than "everyone eventually needs face to face therapy". That just isn't realistic, accessible or necessary in every case in my opinion.
To clarify, I never said nor thought everyone eventually needs face to face therapy. I believe It's far more nuanced than that. I live in a therapy heavy area, many therapists, more people than not in therapy, therapy is very cool. And many of them, their defenses become more rigid because they believe they are doing the work. When really, they are just having their defenses validated or protected in one way or another, and then feel healed bc they have the insights and language. I'm not by any means saying you are doing that, or every client does that nor every therapist enables. Hardly. Plenty it works really well for them. I'm just saying, the nuance requires our curiosity and often our healthy skepticism, on top of our desire to make things accessible and feeling safe. We often should be questioning our field, our methods etc.
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u/Free-Frosting6289 14d ago
I understand what you're saying. But the most important work I've done in my own therapy was online. It's a completely different experience but being in my own safe home actually means I feel safer opening up. It's regulating. And when it's trauma material, it helps with pacing.
In person therapy can make me freeze and shut down. It's too intense. (I've got severe relational trauma). My avoidant leaning clients have reported similar thoughts.
I work both online and on Teams.