Stuck on ISTDP process in Unlearn Your Pain

Hi there. Just wondering if anyone else has worked through the ISTDP exercises outlined in Unlearn Your Pain solo, without a therapist or friend to guide them?

I began the process the other day, envisioning and journaling about my anger exacting revenge on my mom in early childhood. Pretty quickly, my rage toward my mom turned to guilt, as Schubinar says it often does. So I sat with and fully felt the guilt and self-soothed before starting the process again, hoping to go all the way through to feelings of love, but instead didn’t feel much of anything anymore. I don’t know if I worked through the anger or put up my guilt defense and went numb.

I’m resisting the urge to pressure myself over it and just letting it be something I get to when I get to it. But if anyone else has done this without a therapist or friend to guide them, I’d love to know how it went for you! I can’t afford a therapist right now, and I’ve had to cut ties with almost all my close friends since experiencing the huge perspective shift that kicked off my healing journey, so. I basically am forging my own solitary path for now. And that’s ok.

Thank you for giving me the space to express myself here❤️

 

This does not respond directly to your request, but you might be interested to know that ISTDP therapist Kristian Nibe has written a self-help ISTDP book for laypeople titled Reconnect to Your Core. Amazon sells it for about $30. Nibe is from Norway, and it is obvious that English is not his native tongue, e.g., there are some subject-verb disagreement issues. Despite this shortcoming and his annoying practice (to me, at least) of using less-than and more-than signs for quotation marks (i.e., <<like this>>), I think the book is pretty good. You can find significant excerpts from the book on his website here:

https://kristiannibe.com/reconnect-to-your-core-content/the-real-cause-of-psychological-problems/ (The real cause of psychological problems - Kristian Nibe)

The various excerpts available are listed in a column on the left side of the page.

 

Thank you!

 

@Duggit

Thank You for this amazing link

 

This page is very interesting:


https://kristiannibe.com/reconnect-to-your-core-content/anxiety-has-different-symptoms/ (Anxiety has different symptoms - Kristian Nibe)

 

Plum, this is a great list, but a bit disconcerting for people who suffer from nerve type pain such as myself. It’s not really on this list.