Great, great thread..

This is such an important theme.

I think therapi- work most important ingredians(?) are love. (you know Freud once said to Ferrenzi, that therapi/talking cure- was noting but A LOVE CURE!)

I just take a guess here: Love, defined as:

- Listen to you (carefully)
- Show interest in you
- accept you
- help you to help yourself
- contain and hold your frustration
- keep a loving distance-
- accept your needs (not meet them)
- respect you
- be open and honest with you
- allow oneself to be moved/touched by the patient (counter trenseference)
- wanting all the best for the patient

all this things that the Good Parent want to give their child, but whitin a therapeutic context with all its boundries and limitations.

But i realy do think that the "nature" of the therapeutic relationship- creates love.
You T do Loves you, the way he/she can. That often means NOT the way we want. ah..looks so nice and lovely at the paper, so often harsh and brutal in real life, i think..


Amazon: I agree with you - i dont dear to call my T´s love (whatever) for real LOVE. Its easer to see it is a general thing.. but not in MY therapi, not MY T...if you understand? (cant find the right words here..hm..)

quote:

Originally posted by Frog:

I just take a guess here: Love, defined as:

- Listen to you (carefully)
- Show interest in you
- accept you
- help you to help yourself
- contain and hold your frustration
- keep a loving distance-
- accept your needs (not meet them)
- respect you
- be open and honest with you
- allow oneself to be moved/touched by the patient (counter trenseference)
- wanting all the best for the patient

My T matches all these traits, aside from counter transference. I mean, I'm pretty sure he experiences it (I've seen him tear up before), but he's very good at not showing it.

Just last night, we talked about this topic. He explained that I am "pre-loaded" to expect to be rejected and treated in a cold, distant way, and to feel that he doesn't give a damn about me. And he's right. In spite of all the things listed above that my T provides me each and every session, I still feel like he's cold and detached and lacks human warmth. He said, "you HAVE to feel this way. You brought decades of feeling this way in response your father into therapy with you, and you don't yet know how to respond in any other way, in spite of how you're treated."

As much as I hate this, he's right again. As much as I say that I want warmth, affection and emotional intimacy, it scares the living crap out of me, and I've got layers and layers of defence up between me and it. It feels totally threatening and, especially, strange and alien to me. And yet, there's a part of me that's not only dying to receive it, but dying to give it, but because it feels so "not me," it's frightening.

My T think that I need to learn intimacy partly by taking some risks and not waiting for it to come to me. He means this in terms of both himself and the people close to me. He's right again, because I'm only able to partake in emotional closeness when it's initiated by someone else, and even then, it's very difficult for me. I rarely, if ever, initiate it myself. Somewhere along the line...probably sometime between birth and age 5...my trust in people was totally destroyed by being rejected by my father, and not being connected very closely to my mother. Also, when my father was dismissive and rejecting of me, my mother never, ever stood up to him and/or defended me. She was scared to death of him, too. So, there went any sense of safety and security I might've had.

Result? No safety, no trust = seriously compromised adult. I feel like I have to learn how to feel safe and trusting all over again at age 43, and hope that in the process, my god-awful anxiety and depression fades.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

Russ

quote:

And my T does give me love through those means...

quote:

I do feel loved by my T. He does care about me-and from how he talks of other patients-I see how he truly cares for all his patients.

quote:

I have been internalizing his love, and as a result, I see a new beauty to life. His love gives me strength to get through those times, where I come out stronger than I was before...I've never felt this kind of love from another adult and it's a whole new world for me.

All I want to know is: how did you do that?
I don't know if my T is giving me love. I seriously don't know if I can call this love. I don't know if I should feel loved by my T. I just can't reach there. I feel sometimes like he is pushing me to say something, something about love, but I really don't know.
Once, long time ago, well few months ago I said to him, that I would like to be loved by him. He replied that he can't give me what I want, but he will be with me through this. He also asked if I feel loved by him. I couldn't answer this question. I was shattered. I was crying so hard during this session. It was so painful. I don't know if I can and want to go there again. At the end he gave me a real hug. It was so wonderful, that I was feeling happy again.
I don't know if there is any love there for me.

UV, I would like to be able to have it too, but I don't know how. I don't know if it's there, so I am too afraid to find out. How did you do that? How did you began to feel loved by your T?
Sometimes I think that I don't know what love is, when is it love, what is it like to feel loved.

quote:

As much as I say that I want warmth, affection and emotional intimacy, it scares the living crap out of me, and I've got layers and layers of defence up between me and it. It feels totally threatening and, especially, strange and alien to me. And yet, there's a part of me that's not only dying to receive it, but dying to give it, but because it feels so "not me," it's frightening.

I think it is so much true for me. It is something I always craved, but I didn't know how to find it, what to do to have it. An maybe there were times, maybe... I don't know... that I could have it, but I run away, because I didn't know what is it. There is part of me that craves it, and another part of me that rejects it to stay safe. So I end up being anxious and depressed when I'm alone, and I was also anxious and depressed when I was in a relationship.