ABSTRACT
Just as with the rules and beliefs with regard to suicide and dissociation, the themes in this chapter have to do with ways of not knowing and not feeling being hurt or victimized. We explore how what often looks like unhelpful behaviors or responses on the part of the client are useful tools in understanding the predicament the client was in as a child. Articulating dialectical and paradoxical constructs such as survivor vs. victim, bad kid vs. good kid, undeserving/unworthy vs. self-blame, and the problem with hope, honoring shame, learning to say yes vs. being compliant, we show how when both client and therapist can see that as a child there were no good choices to be made they can normalize past behavior (that still lives in the present) and in doing so open up possibilities for change in the future.
