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On line therapy seems to be growing in popularity. Yet, despite the many incentives, there are folks who are very clear that video or a web cam is not for them. As they have explained it, they have issues they would never bring up in therapy because they lack the ability to say the words they'd need to say out loud.
For them, some things are so horrible or embarrassing and shameful, they feel they will be judged even if they hadn't actually done anything wrong. They prefer email and forums as ways to get help.
This might seem like a reasonable way to take care of oneself around shame based feelings and beliefs but, ultimately the decision to rely on emails and forums for human interaction boils down to a defense mechanism referred to as "avoidance".
It's a kind of psychological firewall that ultimately keeps a person trapped inside his or her own self judgment. Emails and forums are awesome tools for us in many respects but, I believe they are not very effective ways of teaching someone radical self-acceptance and compassion. For that, you need a human "witness" to your process who will model these things for you.
Are you codependent? Take a self test now.
Shame begins within. Regardless of whether or not someone else shamed us, it can only be real if we internalize it. As the saying goes, "Have you no shame?". A little shame may be healthy way to keep from doing things that aren't in our or our community's best interest. But, a little shame goes a long way and can become toxic.
The judgment from others which someone who is bound by shame worries about originates inside himself or herself and is a projection onto the outside world. Healing is possible when a conscious choice to move through resistance is made and you are then free to be who you are but in the eyes another who is absent of judgment and present with acceptance and compassion.
The therapist becomes a mirror for the grace you haven't been able to give to yourself. Mirroring compassion and acceptance is a therapeutic intervention that can't happen very easily with emails and forums but can with real time streaming video via web cam and a willingness to learn something more adaptive than avoidance.
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