quote:

Is it my pride and need to always pretend I'm ok,or fear of rejection if she minimises? Or that I'm frightened of my feelings if I do tell?

Starfish,
Could it be that you learned the hard way that talking about your feelings is a bad thing to do? You may have a LOT of experience that tells you its not a good thing to do. Often when we did not experience a lot of attunement as children or have the parental relationship as focused on our needs as it should be, we learn that expressing our real self, our real feelings, or expressing our needs can get us in to trouble, hurt or punished. So although in an intellectual way we can recognize and even understand that we are safe expressing ourselves with our T, on an emotional "gut" level its still going to feel really scary. It really struck me that you talked about being bad about your T not noticing your distress. I've often had that feeling. The truth is when we're kids we're not supposed to have to work to make our needs or distress known. Our attachment figure is supposed to be focused enough on us to see when we're in distress and when we need something. A VERY important part of what they are supposed to teach us is how to recognize what we're feeling, what our needs ARE, and how to appropriately express those feelings and needs so that they can be met. So by the time we're adults and expected to let other people know what our needs are (it's no longer appropriate to expect other adults to figure it out) we don't know how to. And we're still longing to be understood without telling because its a longing that went unfulfilled.

This isn't about something being wrong with you; it's about not getting what you needed when you needed it. That's why it's so important to talk to your T about these feelings. The "corrective experience" part of therapy is in being able to express your needs and feelings and having them understood and accepted.

And one more thing, the whole "oh it must not be bad or she would have noticed or made a bigger deal out of it" is your attempt, again based on what helped you survive, to minimize your needs so that you wouldn't feel like it was necessary to express them so you wouldn't get hurt again. These behaviors all make sense when seen in the correct context but I know they can make you feel crazy, or immature, or pathetically needy when you experience them. But none of those things are the truth.

AG

AG thank you so much for your wise and intuitive reply, you are so very right - those were all the cosequences for me if I expressed emotions. So I have learned not to, at almost all costs . . . except therapy is slowly changing that and I am learning by that by constant, safe, corrective feedback from my very patient T that I am now ok. But I still change back to a child with all those child fears and memories so quickly, so remain very wary. It is a painfully slow process and yes AG I do feel pathetically needy, when really I'm fiercely self-reliant.

BB do let me know how you get on if you do DO it. Your question was interesting and one I can't answer - maybe again too scared of someone filling that gap for me. . . self reliant or fear of being abandonned? I'm not sure.

starfish

quote:

The othere question I have about this concept, is- isn't it reasonable to want your P to fill in that gap for you? What would happen if they did?

I COMPLETELY understand this question since I've been asking it for years!

First off, it's perfectly reasonable and completely understandable to want your P to fill the gap! These were healthy, normal, very human needs that went unfulfilled. Of course, you still want what you didn't get. So there is nothing wrong, and a lot right, in the desire you feel to get these needs met.

One of my therapist's favorite things to say was that "therapy isn't enough" (to which my general reaction was "then WTF I am doing all this painful stuff for?!?). I didn't understand what he was saying for the longest time. I've spent a huge chunk of my life and an enormous amount of energy looking for "the" relationship, that person to love me, who would make it all right at last, only to realize that there were some losses that could only be mourned, that it is just impossible for another human being to fulfill those longings because it is past the time when they can be fulfilled. No matter how much or how well another person loves me, they can't make my childhood losses disappear. There are some things that we can only take in as a child and make them part of ourselves on a very deep level. We can definitely have a reparative relationship in therapy that will give us what we need to face the loss and go on, but it won't be the same as if we could have been given it when we should have as children. Or be enough to make it as if the losses had never occurred. Some things can't be changed.

I was only able to make that realization because my T was willing to "frustrate" me. For me therapy has been about facing the losses, mourning them to heal from them and be able to move on and enjoy what I am capable of getting, which is alot. My T made it clear that although he could be there to teach me to regulate my feelings as I mourned and be able to hear my grief, he could not meet those needs. He gives freely and unstintingly of the things that are appropriate to our relationship but will not do something that even hints at my getting something he KNOWS he cannot provide.

The best description of therapy for me is actually a Rolling Stones song "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you can get what you need." My T often does NOT give me what I want (pretty much on a daily basis ) but he very much provides what I need to heal. Hope that makes some sense.

AG

Hi Blackbird,
I'm not familiar with Affirmation Therapy or the book but I do see alot of points of congruence with how my T practices. I do believe that a T/P needs to love their patient in order for them to heal. I know my T believes that although he won't speak directly of loving me. But he has often compared the theraputic relationship as the closest thing to unconditional love that we can experience from another person. You are totally accepted and there is nothing you can do which will end the relationship (he is honest enough to admit that there are limits; if you start threatening your therapist's family that's probably going to put a cramp in the relationship.) We all talk about unconditional love but since we're human we can only approximate it. We probably all, unlike God, have a point past which we won't go. But within reason, a therapist will stay even when you do things in a relationship that would drive another person away.

I know for me, the kind of doubt and fear I experienced about his leaving or me being sent away during the first couples of years (which frankly is resurfacing now that I'm considering leaving) and the reassurance that I sought, would have driven away a non-therapist. The level of neediness was just too high. Which is part of the reason for the boundaries in my opinion, the therapist has to have some time away to replenish themselves in order to deal with what can be a demanding relationship. I talked about it in this post: Boundaries I finally think I get 'em

But I know that my T also believes that he is a conduit for a power greater than he is, that I think of as God. I remember once discussing with my T that the relationship didn't feel real, because he didn't offer me anything that he wouldn't offer to anyone who walked through his door. And he's been practicing for over 30 years. He answered me that he understood that it was hard to believe that it could be love for so many people over 30 years, but if you could accept that the source of that love was something beyond him, that it simply flowed through him, that it became understandable. And I do know in my deepest moments of healing, we both know the presence of something beyond ourselves and it is from that the healing flows. His office is a sacred space. It often makes be think of the biblical verse where two or three gather, there am I with them.

So all that fits with the affirmation therapy. As far as the boundaries about personal involvement, I know there's huge amount of debate in the psychological community about what's ok and what isn't. I can only speak from a personal perspective on that and say that in my case, strong clear boundaries were so necessary to my healing because there weren't any when I was a child.

My T and I talked about this at my last session or two. His way of working with a patient is to remain totally open to where the patient is and what they're experiencing. He essentially lets you lead and stays beside you. He doesn't presume to know better than you or even to know what you need to do to heal. He LISTENS to you to learn that, using his experience and expertise to provide insight and understanding to where you're going but its where you go. For me this was so incredibly essential. My whole life I have been so wholly concentrated on fulfilling the needs of those around me that I didn't even know I had needs, let alone being able to attempt to get them met. If my T had taken charge, and told me how to do it, or let me into his family, I would have concentrated on becoming the person I thought he wanted me to be. So I would have still been responding to someone else's needs but I would have done it by being the model patient. He refused to do that and so I was left (uncomfortably I might add) in a vacuum all by myself where I had to figure out what I wanted, what I needed and who I was. I found this so unsettling and frustrating in the beginning that I actually told him I wanted to throw things at him. If he had led I wouldn't have discovered that. So keeping his own life out of my therapy was a way of not influencing me in a way that would have denied me the chance to discover who I really was. This is SO hard to express that I hope its making sense.

Having said all that, I am the last one to say that everyone needs to heal the same way I do, I'm not sure that anyone needs to heal the way I do. My T believes that each person walks a unique healing path, his job is to listen well enough to help them discover it. So I am totally open to the idea that doing therapy this way may be exactly what someone might need. But I also know that even people who believe this is helpful know that it is a method fraught with danger for the patient and must be done with a clear view to it being about the patient's well being and NOT about the therapist's needs or desires.

AG

took me a while to find this thread... and this is the right one for me now...

I had quite a good session yesterday. I was quite brave, well, he said I was brave. I was a child for a while, then I was the older me and I was being as honest and open as I could. It felt good. Then the time was up and I put on my jacket, grabbed my bag and while standing, ready to leave, I quietlty asked him if I could have a hug. He said "I'm sorry but I have a cold" and I stood there for a while not knowing what to do, just standing still and feeling so lost and hurt. I wondered for a while what if I still try to hug him, I think I hoped for a while he will see how much I need it and will change his mind, I hoped I will see a slight movement that will mean "Ok, come to me then". Then when I was sure that it's not going to happen I held my arms together as if I was trying to contain this pain that I was feeling and then I could leave. He touched my arm as usual, maybe slightly longer, I wonder if he saw how I felt. I was holding my arms together, sort of embracing myself, I never looked like that when I was leaving. And I run without looking at him... As I drove back I was crying and I just wanted to hide somewhere where I could cry. It hurt so much. I was this little child again looking at him and desperately wanting a hug.

I started to think about the reasons. Does it mean I can't have any more hugs? Maybe it was to much? Maybe I shouldn't be grabbing him so much. I had no right. Maybe it's enough. Did he see how I felt? Did he see how much it hurt me? Maybe I should not want anymore hugs? They are not for me. I should have known that. There are things I shouldn't want, because it hurts to much to want them. Maybe if he saw how much it hurt me and how much a hug means to me he will realize that he should not hug me because it is not good for me.
I felt that I had no right to think his name, to think that I love him and to remember previous hug. I spend most of the evening crying and wondering and thinking, and being sad and lost...

Last night I had a dream that I was chatting to a friend over the internet about him perhaps. Then I typed his name to add him to my contacts and send him a message: "Could I have sex with you?" and he replied: "Absolutely not!". Then I wrote back: "Ok, I just wanted to make sure".

Ok, so that's my vent after the last session.

Hey BB,

Just gave a little update over at the EMDR thread (in Stories & Personal Accounts). First EMDR will be next week, it turns out, but I'm having trouble deciding on 'targets'. Also, my T is leaving in a few months, which is a bit distracting!

Thanks for asking.

J