But it is often helpful to advise the client that the Counting Method is an option for some future date, and can be scheduled when client and therapist agree the timing is appropriate. This demonstrates respect for the power of the traumatic memory and gives control to the client. It allows, metaphorically, elective rather than emergency surgery. It suggests that other dimensions of the therapeutic alliance come before tackling a core problem. Once therapist and client agree that Post-Traumatic Therapy is underway, that progress is occurring, that the client feels less like a victim and more like a survivor, the Counting Method can be scheduled.
Silent recall allows privacy.
Hearing the therapist's voice links the painful past to the relatively secure present. Feelings of terror, horror and helplessness may recur during counting, but they will be time limited and, most likely, modulated by connection to the therapist. The traumatic memory itself may be modified. That, after all, is the ultimate objective. If and when the memory emerges spontaneously at some future time, it may be attenuated by the experience of the Counting Method.