I sometimes have a difficult time feeling that my T genuinely cares about me. I know logically my T does, it's just hard to always internalize and believe it, especially between sessions. And then it makes me feel like I'm just unlovable or something. I think it partially relates to the boundaries. I think I might ask my T about touch today, it could be very triggering, but maybe at least then I won't think it's because of something bad with me.

Are there things you do, especially between sessions, to hold onto and feel your T's caring? Are there things your T does that help you believe and feel it more?

Hi Someone,

I used to find it hard to internalize my T's care too. Do you have any outside contact with your T at all? I found it very grounding to read over her texts/emails when I felt the need for connection in between sessions.

I hope it goes well speaking to your T about touch. It is a big topic. My T used to hug me at the end of sessions which I loved but it could also be very painful.

Butterfly

Thanks Butterfly,
Yeah we can text\email, which is helpful. I try to be careful not to abuse it, maybe I should let myself reach out a little more. I've also found that reading over or repeating to myself good parts of our old texts\emails can be helpful.

Did you find the hugs could be painful because they reaffirmed what you can't have with your T, or another reason?

Hi Someone,

For therapy to work at its best, it's very important that your T cares about you but also to know that your T really cares about you. It's important to look into why you think she cares logically but not emotionally. Your left and right brain could be taking in different aspects of the relationship and coming to different conclusions.

It could be you, you might have a hard time believing that you are worthy of T's care. Or, there could be something about your T that you are uncomfortable with. For instance, my T dresses really nicely. I don't think he always did but ever since his wedding band came off, he seems to be paying more attention to his appearance. Anyway, I had it in my head that he couldn't be a caring person because of the way he dressed. He and I talked about. I still have a hard time with it sometimes because I just don't have a template in my head from the past for someone like him. It's always been my training that people who neglected themselves and cared for other people were the caring people. And the people who took care of themselves were selfish. And, so as I let in his caring, I'm hoping a new template will form in my head. But, he's also been more caring lately towards me, which I really needed. He brings up times when he thought about me out of session. He cut out a newspaper article he thought I would like. Little things like that. He's showing me within the bounds of the therapeutic relationship that he does care. And, it's nice and it helps A LOT. It helps me FEEL his caring.


Maybe there too, maybe there's something you need T to do for you that would show you that she cared.

And, so I would encourage you to explore this more because I think it's a really important issue in therapy. And it might help you figure out who you trust and why IRL and who you don't trust and why IRL and how and why that might be causing you some problems.

xoxo

Liese

someone - I often doubt my (obviously very kind) T's sincerity of care for me, just because I feel it's impossible anyone would feel that way toward me. I've learned that the best way for me to deal with it is just a simple, straight-forward text telling him what sort of projections are coming up and that I would like some reassurance when he has a moment. Then, I'll get a simple text back addressing whatever the particular issue is (i.e. he's not leaving, not abandoning, it was a pleasure to see me, he likes hearing from me, everything I've shared is OK and isn't going to make him reject me, he's not mad, etc.). I don't know if that would be "abuse" of contact with your T, but mine has, since very early on, emphasized how much he feels blessed that I reach out to him in that way and keep him apprised of how I'm doing between sessions. He feels it really helps him to know where I'm at and me to feel connected, thus safer, which is a way he wants me to feel.

Hi someone,

I feel the same. I know that logically she cares but emotionally I don't think she does. I think 'She's going home to her family, the people she truly loves. Her own life. She can't be thinking about me. And anyway she probably has 20 different patients plus she is not my mum or my lover'

I like how she smiles. I've practically fallen 'in love' with her already. But if she remains silent or looks too glassy then I assume that she does not care. Or I am just another boring person to her. I have a bit of an ego in the session because I'm addicted to her smiles and niceness.

It's a bit painstaking. I then find the whole relationship unreal and attempt to detach myself from her care. I'll bury her care down until I can't locate it anymore but it always pops up somewhere.

I secretly wish that when I close the door behind me after the session, she thinks of me and thinks how lovely I am and how she would like to get to know me outside the session. Though I know its boundaried for us to work on ourselves, it hurts a little.

I have a tendency to seduce and be very impressionable with myself. I do it a lot in session. In reality I am very scared to be talking to her and uncomfortable the whole time. I am great at putting on a mask. Through the mask I have told her how I feel about her help and how lovely it is and how lovely she is. I put on an act through an alter-ego but underneath the child in me wants her there all the time.

Sometimes I feel like I will never get through my emotional nurturing because the attachment to her is very, very strong.

I guess though the logic that helps is that the therapist enters the profession to do a duty of care to people who are in need which is better than walking across people who don't care about you or who pretend to or use or take advantage. The care to a degree is very genuine and becomes safe enough for us to venture into the world with more confidence in ourselves.

I hope.

Thanks guys, a lot of great insights.

Liese, you're right. I do have a hard time believing that someone like my T could like me. That I'm good enough for that. Yet sometimes it's hard not to feel like the boundaries are because I'm not worthy or whatever. My T has done a couple things like mentioning times thinking of me out of session that help. Maybe I should show more appreciation when my T does this, maybe it'd happen more often then. I wonder if there are more things within the bounds that we could do.

quote:

Maybe there too, maybe there's something you need T to do for you that would show you that she cared.

That's sort of what I've been thinking about the touch. I don't want it to make things worse though, or make me keep wanting more and more from my T. But I think it could be very helpful, guess we'll have to talk about it.

yakusoku, that is a good idea. Maybe I should contact my T a little more freely. I don't really know if that would be abuse of contact either.

Nada, I follow what you're saying. It is very painful at times.

(((SOMEONE))))

It's been about a week and a half since my T has done or said something "special" to me or for me. And I love it when he does. At first, it felt a little mechanical, like he was just doing it to make me feel good. But the more he does it, the more I accept it and the more I LIKE it. It's nice that someone is thinking about me.

My T is a male and just a couple of years older than me and has already announced a no hand-holding no hugging policy. Though sometimes I think it might be nice if I could lay my head in his lap and just cry. I don't need to be hugged.

Good luck with the hug discussion. Let us know how it goes and how you feel about it.

This is an interesting thread, especially after what I experienced in my session today. It was a really difficult session to begin with and I was sort of hiding under the blanket, yet my T coaxed me out (he's hard to resist!) But the conversation went back to a few sessions ago when we have that difficult talk about empathy and how I accused him of having no empathy for me and I felt so angry at him for that.

So today I told him that the most important thing I took away from that session and what stuck in my mind was the look on his face. I was crying and angry and he wheeled in closer to me and leaned forward and was just looking at me silently for a minute. Things sort of quieted down and I just remember at that moment being able to take in, in that right brain way, the look on his face. I thought it was either sadness or frustration with me because I could not "get" what he was trying to do with me.

And so today I told him that I keep seeing his face in my mind and he asked me what I thought I saw that day and I said either sadness or frustration. He told me to pick the most likely one and I said, sadness. He asked why I thought he was sad and I said because I was unable to accept or to feel or take in what he was trying to give me. He said that was right. He was sad and that was why. Then he asked me what this means to me. So I (very timidly) said... that you care about me. He said yes, that he cares about me and he enjoys me very much. So I told him that it is hard for me to believe it when he says that.

And so... he told me "good, I don't want you to believe it". Huh? I was confused. He said "I don't want you to believe what I SAY, I could be lying to you with my words. I want you to pay attention to what I do and how that makes you feel. If I make you feel cared for and about then you know that I do care for you. In other words watch what I do and how that makes you feel as opposed to just hearing me say things.

That really gave me a lot to think about. I have a hard time believing that anyone could care about me or that I could really mean something to someone like him. And I work so hard to block how he makes me feel because of this wall of defense that I have. Yet, when I can stop and really think about it... he has consistently shown me real care, real kindness, true respect and real happiness at seeing me. If I can dare to look and to "see" his face, then I can easily recognize the truth. It's all there if I am brave enough and open enough to look.

I love my T. He is a true gift that I don't know how I was lucky enough to be blessed with. And he cares about me. That is just so amazing.

TN

Wow TN, I LOVE hearing about your sessions with your T.

Thanks, SD. Glad to be able to share.

TN

Thanks for the support Liese.

That sounds like a great session TN.

We did end up talking about touch and there is a boundary there. The talk went fairly ok. It helped me feel a bit better about it. Although we'll see if it lasts when I'm needing it. My T told me that that's not really what she's like in RL (not touchy I think). That it mainly has to do with herself. I'm not sure that I agree with or completely understand her reasoning for not touching any clients. My T said that with me she knows it'd be fine. I just read the article on touch linked to in the other forum, and so I told her about a lot of the positives that can come from it. My T did seem at least semi-interested in what I had to say about it (my T is pretty new at this). I don't know if it'll really change anything. I'm hoping that maybe we might at least come to some type of compromise, like maybe a handshake or something could be ok. Or at the very least my T will know what I'm feeling. We'll have to talk more about it.

Thanks for the support.

Man, I'm having a rough time again with this lately. If I have to tell my T the things that she does that help me feel or not feel her caring, how can she then genuinely do them without me just thinking she feels obligated?

Do you ever have those sessions where your T is trying to talk about working on other things but you're struggling to feel a bond with them? So it makes it feel like that bond isn't there or they don't want that bond. Almost like you're trying to build the foundation of the house and instead of giving you cement your T is throwing you 2x4s for the walls. Or am I wrong in wanting a good bond with my T before working more on other things?

Sorry you’re having a bad time with this issue still (though take it from one who has problems with trusting a T – the ‘still’ is academic, it’s a long haul getting to the point of believing in a T’s care and authenticity.) I gather from your previous post that touch is a no go in your therapy?

When you said that your T is ‘pretty new at this’ do you mean therapy itself, or the idea of touch? Just wondered, as it could make a difference to how she responds to your concerns if she’s not very experienced.

About openly telling a T what it is you want her to do that would help you, yeah I get how it could invalidate the giving because effectively you’re telling her to do these things and so it might not seem genuine or spontaneous on her part. On the other hand, it can help a T if you are able to be more upfront about the kinds of things you need from her – and the fact that she might do them in response doesn’t automatically imply that she doesn’t mean them. It’s all about YOUR needs and wants and though it would be wonderful if a T could mind read these and just give without having to be told, giving T a nudge in the right direction is all part of the whole process (learning to ask for what you need, something that I hope to be able to learn how to do in therapy so as to carry that over into real world.)

And as for wanting to establish a bond with T before going on to work on other things, well I think that’s absolutely imperative. I’m pretty sure most others here would agree too. How can you possibly be expected to work on painful stuff when you don’t yet feel safe or trusting with your T? It sounds like you might need to talk to your T about all of this before anything else – she may not be aware that you are struggling with these fears and doubts and just be assuming that you are willing and able to plunge into the ‘work’.

Not sure if this is any help, just wanted to post and say that I sympathize with what you’re going through and hope that you are able to talk about this with your T.

LL

Thanks LL, what you write does help and makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, my T is fairly new at therapy itself. I'm curious what your thoughts are on how this might make a difference to how she responds to concerns.

I've talked with my T about most of this stuff, though not yet about how it makes me feel when she tries to work more on the other stuff. That is something I just realized this week. My T has asked what she can do to help me believe her caring. I've thought of a few things, but nothing that seems real profound or certain. Maybe there is nothing like that, I'd definitely welcome any ideas though.

Thanks again LL