 Therapists who work with Cult Survivors are very familiar with the "No Talk" rule with which their clients comply to the detriment of progress in therapy, and more, the inability of the survivor to voice what they have held, often for many years, and in which lies their agony and memories. We Therapists are also not backward in coming forward to quote this much used phrase, "The No Talk Rule" - as a reason and justification for why we do not seem to be making any headway with our clients. One thing we all need to keep in mind is the distinction between how "telling" is perceived. The abuser . You know what happens to those who "tell" If you ever try to "tell" no one will believe you. You will be thought crazy, hallucinating, attention-getting, a liar, what you say could never be real, and you will realize that the only safe place with is with me/us. If you tell, you will be punished severely. The survivor. "Telling" means breaking the "No talk rule", "breaking the Silence" and the conviction it will always bring excruciating pain, more terror and unspeakable consequences if caught again. However, it can also mean the possibility of healing, escape, and Hope of a better life if there is courage and endurance enough to take the risk. The Therapist. For a client to "tell" means providing a safe, accepting, supportive, empathic environment to help the survivor believe there IS the possibility for above goals to be reached, and the risk-taking will be worth it. The assurance he/she will stay the course and not leave or abandon the survivor no matter what "telling" reveals. Spouses and support groups. "Telling" means acceptance of, and belief in, what is told no matter how unbeleivable. Like the Therapist it means providing what is stated above without trying to play therapist. Children. "Telling" children depends on many variables concerning them. Age, maturity level, relationship with the Mutliple and spouse, what they have observed and thought about it etc. Relatives. "Telling" relatives about the DID or any family "secrets," cult or group activities is something the Multiple needs to decide, and this includes telling the children. Workmates, Colleagues, Acquaintances. "Telling" regarding DID or personal trauma history is best considered with MUCH caution for it can be used and misused against the person. Once told, labels and stigma are almost impossible to erase. This article addresses my personal thoughts on the matter of Silencing the Client. One of the, if not the most, distasteful and traumatizing aspects of Therapists' approach to their clients is the Paternalistic attitude that TELLS them what they should do, how,why and where they should do it, as well as what they are thinking, how they are feeling and why they behave as they do. Paternalism - the ubiquitous, " Father knows best", " Do as I say OR... " As Therapists, we may not OVERTLY tell our clients to be quiet but paternalism COVERTLY silences per position of perceived authority by those who are told how to behave and what is and isn't good for them. How does this differ from Cult edicts or abusive home rules ? - seems the same to me. We sometimes not only TELL our clients what to do, but in the doing, we SILENCE them as surely and as totally, as those who torture their victims into silence with the NO TALK rule. BOTH have equal accountability in my mind, for the silencing of the survivor's voice. It is also my conviction that whilst perpetrators implant this No Talk rule in children at a very young age whether it be a parent at home and/or cult trainer, goverment experimentation programmer, or occult indoctrination, the same conviction " I should not, must not TALK", can be sown in a client's mind through continual silencing instilled by the therapist in a variety of ways. Criminal and atrocious as the former perpetrators' methods are in enforcing the belief that to talk will not only be met with disbelief from anyone they might share with, but the punishment for doing so will be worse than anything yet experienced - this trauma is not,in my mind, as damaging as the Silencing from the therapist to whom they come to find healing and freedom from the life-long crippling of their emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing. My reason for this thinking is that Today, the Therapist can RETRAUMATIZE the client,as my website title says, " You hurt my Hurt" by ADDING more abuse ON TOP of the ALREADY sustained wounds and injuries inflicted in the past. This is the ultimate betrayal of trust and Hope for the survivor seeking reprieve from their daily struggle and mental torment. I have searched my own practice habits for I know I have silenced my clients in the past and no doubt other people in the present, and can never feel I am beyond robbing people of their voice even though I am retired now as far as having a practice. We need to be constantly self-aware of how it feels to sit in the client's seat longing to be heard, looking for understanding and belief in us and most of all, to be empowered in such a way that we can learn how to draw from within ourselves . That we are able to believe in ourselves sufficiently enough to make decisions, to enjoy much that has previously been hidden from us, enlarging and growing in a newness that is SELF, and NOT other, motivated and directed. Some of the ways we therapists, can, and do, silence our clients I will list below, taken from stories related to me personally from abuse survivors who are multiples and monos, who have given me persmission to quote them. ** The therapist tells the client to leave the office and sit alone outside ( in this case, a darkened stairwell) because the T. cannot handle their abreaction ( reliving a previous trauma AS THOUGH it is happening today) A reactive gasp might be heard on reading this behavior and yet, if we are honest with ourselves, how many times have we relegated our clients to cope with their most terrifying moments alone ? Perhaps not in the physical sense of exiling them from the office, but in keeping a physical and emotional distance because of not knowing what to do which is just as dismissive to the client as telling them to leave. It is good to ask ourselves how do we react to situations we feel inadequate to deal with ? I know I have, in restrospect, said and done things in my ignorance and arrogance of which I am very ashamed. There is a lamentable lack of good education and training in the counseling arena that teaches us how to BE with our clients in whatever may arise. ** The therapist tells the client that DID is their specialty and having practiced for 25 years or more, knows more about it than the client I find such remarks not only insulting to the nth degree to the client, but crass ignorance on the part of the therapist ( unless the Therapist is a multiple). This is Paternalism personified. It shows as much understanding as a keeper of hippopotami telling their audience they know exactly how a hippo thinks because they have spent 25 years looking after them. Not all mutliples would state they know how other multiples think, and this would be an honest statement. I have not met two multiples who are the same just as I have never met two monos/non-mulitples who are identical. Each person is an individual in their own way and right. ** The client asks the therapist if they should see a doctor, fearing possibly havng contracted an STD ( sexually transmitted disease) following cult ritual rapes and is told, " Why ? I don't tell someone every time I have sex". Not only was this remark dismissing, minimizing, ignoring and completely irrelevant to the specific question asked, it shattered trust in the therapist, silenced the system from ever sharing anything else, and resulted in termination of therapy after many years of not being heard. Whenever we therapists bring in our personal experience as an illustration of our client's, which it can never be, we silence them from trying in their desperation to be heard from THEIR space and place. ** Continually correcting the client by pointing out what they should not have done or said and what they should say and do. I cannot think of a better silencing tool than the therapist's own agenda. It is a complete shutting down and shutting out of the client's voice, life and world. It is a retraumatizing repetition of the original abuser's demand that the client get it "right", do it "right, say it "right", because you don't know how and I'm going to teach you." Whether by implication or directly, when we Therapists in whatever manner, correct and tell our clients how to be according to our own agenda, we are no different from abusers who did exactly the same in another time and another place. It takes honesty, colleagues, to be willing to really listen to ourselves, to recognize when we are being paternalisitc, running our own agenda, speaking to, and for, the client instead of allowing the client THEIR right to BE. ** It you do not sign a contract that you will contact me first when you have suicidal thoughts, I cannot see you again", or " If you are going to act out violently I cannot allow you to come back". When there is an abuse history one knows that the child grew up under the shadow of continual THREAT. There is terror at the thought of losing the approval, attention, of and from the significant adults on whom their lives depend. Terror of being sent away, abandoned and rejected. I have heard many stories of friends and clients where their therapists have threatened to terminate treatment if certain conditions were not met. Examples of conditions I have been told as criteria for ending therapy: Not signing a suicide prevention contract; acting out; talking about SRA ( satanic ritual abuse) because "it gives me nightmares "; touching, "I do not allow that"; not seeing therapist referred specialists for perceived diagnoses, thus illustrating noncompliance with the therapist's advice. and on and on. Perhaps the greatest message of abuse scenarios is that the perpetrator needs to show their control of every aspect of their victims. In my begining years as a therapist I was totally unaware of my need to be in control. As the years have passed I have recognized how MANY ways this tendency can manifest itself, and the more I recognize it in myself the more I see it in others. How many therapists stop at the end of the day to review their interventions in session and ask themselves in what ways have they imposed their own thinking, ideas, advice and even rules, on their clients during the course of session. How many Therapists have found themselves getting angry, resentful, irked, triggered when their client doesn't seem to agree with, want to comply or conform to their agenda? So often it is all about aware or unaware control issues. It becomes sad and also retraumatizing to the client when the therapist's need to control segues into threats such as the above examples to keep the client in therapy. One of the wiles of cult conditioning is to implant in the mind of the survivor that there is NO other place outside of the group where they would be accepted, believed or welcome. Threats are used to keep them in compliance, to silence them, to mold them into the role and thinking of the ones in the power position. Reenactment of this ideation in therapy is, to my mind, more damaging than the first threat and control edicts for it violates the vow of Mental Health Services to keep the welfare of the client paramount. It does not purport the agenda of the therapist as being paramount It hurts the unfathomable Hurt of the Survivor to hear OUTSIDE the familiar abuse environment the same message, " Do this, OR...." Such examples of, " Here is what not to do if you do not wish me to stop seeing you" does not change the old message. We need to be seriously honest to acknowledge that this has been our own behavior at times with our clients, and to revamp a biblical quote, the owning of this truth can set out clients free ** The therapist completely ignores the presence and input from insiders where multiplicity presents, and refuses to listen when these alter personalities seek to share their concerns and memories. Uninformed therapists will sabotage their own treatment plans when silencing their DID client because in refusing to acknowledge the totality of their client's psychological structure, comprised of the host and inside community they can never understand the Gestalt embodied in the one they seek to help. This approach would be similar to therapy with a mono and willing to see and hear only a percentage of their issues and persona and denying the existence of the rest. A doctor, if you will, treating the arms and legs of his patient and and ignoring their head and torso. It is possible for a client to enter therapy presenting with Major Depression but misdiagnosis and disbelief in DID keeps the therapist refusing to accept that switching from childlike to adult behavior is anything but one person's mood swings, attention-getting or hysterical symptomology. In the case of an extremely dissociated person where their parts can number into the several hundreds and the host's memories are completle blocked to any cult or Mind Control involvement, silencing the majority of voices of those who hold such experiences would result in a VERY mini version of the total history. The therapy could possibly terminate with the underlying abuse history untouched, only to surface later with increased distress due to very angry, aggitated or distressed insiders who were ready to talk but who were ignored and silenced. ** Interpretation of a client's observations, actions and reactions as being the result of their abuse background. Any perceived error or flaw in the therapist, voiced by the client, is turned back as belonging to the client. e.g. " I can see how, because of your abuse story, you would think I am this way, or act like this". " I can see YOU think this way and see it as such and such, but if we look at it from this aspect, the survivor's frame of reference you can see it gives a very different picture" When we therapists "turn it back on the client" is often an evasion and unwillignness on our part to self-examine and admit we are out of our league and skills as far as helping the client. So, awarely or unawarely, we reflect the uncomfortable, and all challenging data back to our client to be the result of their abuse history rather than any indication of OUR possible weakness or failure. In my opinion, how Interpretation can be used is yet another HUGE silencer, and the psychoanalytic approach used to treat DID is at the bottom of the list, well, it is not even ON my list as a modality of choice for treating DID. How would I feel to have my thoughts, my words, my meanings, interpreted for me by my therapist? To be told they hold a meaning not remotely connected in any way to my own The twisting of my words according to my therapists' interpretation because he or she has years of experience with DID would silence me in spades, yet I have done this and seen the look on my client's face and the mental shutdown as it happened. The arrogance of assuming one knows how another person is feeling and thinking, (barring the gift of telepathy), and telling them, interpeting their own thoughts back to them as being different, beggars belief, and yet it is done time after time. Can we be honest enough to recognize we do it? As I say, barring a telepathic bent, we are NOT mind readers, we cannot, and, I feel, should not, try to speak for another person but this is exactly what interpretation does, does it not? It silences the client and makes them invisible. It nullifies their input, tells them that what THEY have to say is not important, of value or has worth if it needs to be rephrased, revamped and interpreted into something else. I am often asked why I question so much and part of this is to avoid just such interpretation and to discover what my CLIENT means when she or he shares something with me. I do not wish to silence anyone, and only THEY know what is going on in their mind. We do well to remember this. ** The Therapist, when the client shows rage, deep sobbing grief, or some intense emotion, changes the subject, tries to " make it better", "rescue", or states directly they do not wish the client to emote. It is one way to silence someone that is a direct repeat of typical abuse conditioning where the child or person is taught never to show any emotion, especially fear, anger or sadness. When therapists are unable to sit with strong emotions and need to try to rescue the client by care-taking, talking them out of their feelings, changing the subject or, as some survivors have told me, telling them they cannot be angry or weep etc. this is retraumatizing as well as silencing, for raging and crying are expressions of inside torment and memory that cannot be put into words. So much of what we as survivors feel cannot be put into words. There just is no description for it. Thus, when we therapists stop our clients from expressing themselves this way ( and this can also include their silence- how long can you sit with your client who is saying and doing nothing without needing to talk yourself?) we re-abuse them with a very familiar, " It is not okay to cry, or show I am afraid or angry, or ANY emotion " message. It is one of the most difficult things to learn to be able to truly SIT with our weeping or railing client and allow them their grief and rage. Not everyone has the capacity to do it and it is no shame if this is so, but to be aware of ones limits. An important sequela added to this kind of silencing is a very inappropriate change in roles where the client from thereon out is always watching to care take of the therapist to make sure they are not causing them to feel uncomfortable. In my book, when the client has the burden of watching out for their therapist's welfare instead of the reverse, therapy is ready to go down the tubes. ** The therapist relates personal events, how vacation went, what is happening in the family, details of their personal and social life. Again, the refocus onto the therapist and away from the client, who by nature of their upbringing has learned to pay attention to meeting the adult's needs, will refrain from thinking about their own needs and become the receptacle for the therapist's. It is a subtle way of silencing and inappropriate to boot. The client who DOES see what is happening remains resentful and silenced but the fear of the rejection and disapproval that could ensue from saying something, keeps their lips sealed. It is up to us as therapists to recognize what we are doing. This kind of silencing is, for me, very unprofessional, unethical and defintiely untherapeutic. Conclusion: There are a myriad ways in which we silence and are silenced and it behoves one to stop a while and reflect on ones possible participation in this damaging phenomenon. Silencing is Retraumatizing behavior. Doorstepping and making-the-client-invisble behavior. I hope that aspiring therapists and all of us who like to think we can help our clients heal, will take due note of this very demoralizing-to-the client habit, that is so easy to fall into. I would like to quote, with permission to do so, what one insider of a family and cult abuse survivor wrote me recently, after a discussion about Pain: "Softly, You have proven yourself so very safe to me. I can hardly believe that tonight, here I am...I've talked, spilled my guts, broke down the big scary "no talk" rule and shared where I am. And you heard me and responded to me with acceptance and understanding. The world didn't blow up! I'm still here! I TALKED and I'm still here!! Wow!!! That's powerful to me! I can't tell you what it feels like to know that I really can talk to you about anything and not be judged or punished. In that rich soil I can grow. I have tears in my eyes from the feelings of acceptance I feel from you. Probably not a big deal on the universal scope of events on the planet. But it's huge to me! " This is the ambience that a therapist would perhaps wish to create and maintain. One in which the No Talk Rule can be safely broken and Silencing is absent. Goessoftly Retired Therapsit (permission for reprints is required) http://www.goessoftlyishere.com   | Normalizing and Demystifying DID | DID and Littles.(Child/Young Alters) | ISOLATION | Mono's Disbelief | Distortion: Good and Evil | ASPECTS OF BODY CHANGES | Relationships | Across The Board | Across The Board | FORGIVENESS | I am BAD | Headaches | LYING AND DECEPTION | LOST and LOSS | EYES | Controversy. 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