How can therapy help me speak up?

The difficulty of being unable to speak your mind can come from many places. If it has been with you for decades and since you were a young child, it may take time to get to a place, even in therapy, where you feel you can speak up and be the authentic you. If this leaves you curious to hear more about therapy with me, make contact via phone or email.

Speaking up starts in a safe relationship

The type of “speaking up therapy” I do with people is not a quick-fix assertiveness course or a “rewiring of negative beliefs” via me challenging your thoughts and giving you homework. This is often done in Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). I am a narrative therapist and work differently with a strength based approach, empowering you in finding inner resources to speak up.

We will touch on different areas of life, weaving between past and present time. This happens gently and gradually, as you bring to mind what pains you, working through the difficult situations you face in your everyday present life and relationships, where you find your voice silenced.

The pacing and the regular time set aside for you to come to therapy in a safe space will, over time, spill into your other relationships as you find internal resources and steadiness to speak up.

For some, we may also find storylines that have people in it from the past who might have allowed a space to speak up and feel safe and supported. In narrative therapy, we aim to bring forth connections that were positive and re-member them.

Other people may not have much of a place to start, finding safety to speak up, which is why a present relationship with a safe other, such as a therapist, can be the foundation. You might also find it difficult sometimes to speak up in my company, and that is something we will try and notice and find words for, which is done from the premise that we are shaped in relationships and we heal in relationships.

Speaking up should not be a confessional or forced exercise, but a place where you feel safe enough over time to say what is on your mind

I want to touch on the potential pressure or expectations to “confess” or force speaking up, especially if you have experienced severe breaches of trust and someone in power silenced you by threatening you.

It can feel triggering if you have had traumatic experiences to speak up. Dread, terror and spacing out (dissociation) may wash over you when recalling memories, where you were silenced. Trying to put words to what it means for you and slowing things down in a co-regulated space in therapy makes it possible to work through, and panic and stress will lessen over time.

Naming social and interpersonal injustices

We should also, over time, be able to allow anger and deep feelings of injustices out. Terror and fear can smother anger and rightful rage about what has or is happening to you. Therapy for speaking up is a process, and naming social and interpersonal injustices is also part of healing (Pederson, 2024).

References

Pederson, L. (2024). Honouring resistance and building solidarity: feminism and narrative practice. Dulwich Center Publications.