Wow your replies remind me so much of what Amazon said above, you describe the truly positive and healing aspects of attachment so beautifully. It sounds like both you and Amazon have taken the best of attachment feelings and transformed them into self love (a GOOD thing!)
quote:the attachment itselfs workes (should work) for the better in meny aspects in life- you become more attached to both youself (your real self) more attached to your life (the persons around you, etc).
Sounds so wonderful *sigh* but I can guarantee that in time honoured LL fashion I would manage to make a pig’s ear out of it. See I don’t have any real experience of loving or being loved so it’s all a very alien concept to me at the moment, I think that’s why I’m asking all these questions, so as to get some kind of handle on what it’s all about, what it’s like to feel that way.
So I love the truly positive way you describe it for me - I may not really ‘know’ what you are talking about (in my head yes but not in my experience) but it’s truly inspiring and lets me feel hopeful that maybe I can get to that point too.
Lol judging by what you’ve said already about your T, I should think that putting him on a pedestal would have been really easy! When you say that, does that mean you no longer have him on a pedestal? Do you see him differently now?
The new T I now have (wow four whole sessions so far
) is psychodynamic Jungian psychoanalytic - so more or less ‘traditional’ psychotherapy - I’ve only ever had experience of one proper psychoanalyst before (a truly horrendous and mind bendingly bewildering and alienating experience) and that put me right off having anything to do with a therapeutic approach that wasn’t humanistic. Very short sighted of me, because the psychodynamic approach seems to be the very thing I’ve needed all along - that seemingly cold detached objective uninvolved persona of a psycho T actually helps me so much more than a T who is all smiles and friendliness and flexible with boundaries and oh so ‘human’. I might post about it all later in a separate thread, it’s all a bit new at the moment and I’m still not REALLY sure that this new T is going to work out (that’s me being superstitious) - but I sure hope so.All the best to you too Frog!
Monte lol I’ve missed your incisive witty remarks (glad you’re back
), you have a knack for revealing fundamental truths in a way that makes them so clear. quote:For me I suspect the real healing from this is coming from the painful and gradual acceptance of loss...not so much from anything my T might give in response to my needs.
Funnily enough what you say here came up really clearly in the T session I had today (my fourth with this new T so far). I spent half the session arguing with him about trying to get him to do something in terms of starting each session and it (he) finally got through to me that getting what I wanted wasn’t the issue, it was working with and through the NOT getting that was the point of therapy. I know I’ve read that and heard that and even intellectually understood it before now, but it actually made real sense today.
And it’s made it really clear to me that the criteria by which I’ve judged previous Ts have all been to do with getting something emotionally from them (and never getting it, natch). Monte you’ve put it so well - the realization that I don’t need to get those ancient needs met, in order to heal. I just wish I didn’t have to go through the pain and frustration and misery of facing this knowledge over and over and over (inevitable, as I’m only starting out and I just KNOW I’m going to get into major fights about trying to get my needs and wants met
)I think I’ve been distracting myself while on this depressing and painful mission to find the right T, with trying to anticipate and know in advance all the potential things that might surface in therapy - I guess all I can do really is go along with the process (now that I finally have the opportunity to HAVE a process) and see what happens. But it’s been really good to read all your experiences and thoughts on this because it means I now have an internal reference - I won’t be stumbling about blindly and confused if and when attachment feelings do surface for me.
Thanks again everyone.
LL