Voicelessness and Emotional Survival--Depression and the Subtext of Family Life pg. 3

overt childhood abuse or neglect-instead, powerful hidden messages or subtext that placed the child-turned-adult in the position of having to defend their very existence. They were simply neither seen nor heard, but had to enter their parent's lives on terms other than their own. This is a condition, described elsewhere in these essays, called "voicelessness."

Therapy for the "voiceless" involves addressing the original wound. In the therapeutic relationship, the client learns they are indeed worth spending time with. The therapist facilitates this by encouraging the client to reveal as much as they can, by valuing the client’s voice, and finding what is special and unique in them. However, the popular notion of therapy as an intellectual process is an oversimplification-over time a benevolent therapist must find his or her way into the client’s emotional space. Often, after some months, the client is surprised to find the therapist with him or her during the day (when therapist and client are not literally together). Some clients will hold conversations in their head with their temporarily absent therapist and receive comfort in anticipation of being heard. Only then does the client realize how alone he or she has always been, and the missing parent (and the hole in the client's life) is fully revealed. Slowly and silently, the internal wound begins to heal, and the client finds, in relationship to the therapist, a secure place in the world and a new sense of value and meaning.