The one who keeps it together
He is good at his job. Nobody at work would guess. He has never told anyone what his stepfather was like, and does not intend to. It was a long time ago, and other people had it worse. Then last month his six-year-old spilled a drink, he heard himself shouting, and he saw his own face reflected back in his son's. He does not want to talk about his childhood. He wants to stop being a person his kids flinch at.
What the work could look likeWe wouldn't start with his childhood. We'd start with the shouting, and with what happens in his body in the two seconds before it. Once he could catch that, we'd use EMDR on the memories his body is reacting to. By week seven, a spilled drink could be just a spilled drink. He might still find parenting hard. But he'd stop believing his kids are frightened of him.
The one who looks fine
Good career, good friends, and a childhood she describes as fine. Nobody hit her. Nobody was particularly interested in her either. She is exhausted by how much effort it takes to seem normal, cannot order dinner without rehearsing it, and feels a step removed from her own life. She has been to therapy before. It was pleasant. Nothing changed.
What the work could look likeThere's no single event to process, which is why previous therapy stalled. We'd work instead on what it cost her to grow up unseen, and on the belief that her needs are an imposition. The first shift would likely be small, like telling a friend she's tired instead of saying she's fine. By the end of the block, she could be making decisions without running them past four people first.
The one in the same relationship again
This is the fourth version of the same relationship. Different man, same ending. She reads about attachment styles at two in the morning and recognizes herself in all of them. She needs reassurance constantly and hates that she needs it. When someone gives it freely, she finds a reason to distrust it. She does not think she has trauma. She thinks something is wrong with her.
What the work could look likeNothing is wrong with her. She has a strategy that made sense when she was nine and does not now. We'd map the pattern, find where it was learned, use EMDR on the experiences still driving it, then practice something different, starting inside our own sessions. She wouldn't be cured of wanting reassurance. But somewhere around week eight, she might notice she has stopped auditioning for it.
The one who is supposed to be over it
Her husband died two years ago. She handled everything: the paperwork, the kids, going back to work. Everyone said how strong she was. Now the casseroles are long gone, and people change the subject when she brings him up, so she has stopped bringing him up. She isn't in crisis. She just can't figure out how to want a life that doesn't have him in it, and she is starting to wonder whether this is simply how it will be now.
What the work could look likeGrief like hers isn't a disorder, and I wouldn't treat it like one. First she'd get room to talk about him without watching anyone's face for when to stop. Then we'd work on the part that's actually stuck: the guilt about the last week, or the belief that enjoying anything means leaving him behind. She wouldn't be over it, and that was never the goal. But she could carry it differently, and start building a life with room in it for both of them.
