Hi Hopeful,

Yes, my T tells me I think too much. He used to say it a lot more than he does now though I'm not sure I think any less. I do naturally have strong analytical skills so I'm sure that plays a part. But learning in the FOO that most emotions were off-limits, I learned some serious repression/suppression techniques.

quote:

Also, any suggestions to phrasing things would be helpful.

What types of things would you like to phrase?

I echo what Liese said about thinking too much. My T often reminds me that logic really does not have any place where emotions are involved, as we can't "logic our way" out of feelings.

T calls me on it pretty regularly, when I try to think my way out of a situation that involves feelings. I also do it automatically, and am slowly starting to catch myself doing it, but that is only after T has pointed, and continues to point it out regularly.

I'm not sure what you mean by phrasing things? Clarify and I'll see if I can help!

My T both praises and points out the defense mechanism of my tendency to intellectualize and analyze rather than feel and accept. As in, he praises the ability to make deep connections about what is going on inside (and its usefulness in keeping me safe in a variety of past situations), but also points out when he thinks I am using it to avoid experiencing/integrating those pesky "feelings" things. I think it's one of a number of effective defenses when feelings were explicitly labeled or implicitly demonstrated (perceived) as a threat, either to others externally or internally, because lack of supportive/soothing behavior from caregivers in situations of overwhelming affect or an environment ill-suited to validating emotions and helping the child learn to self-regulate/soothe when overwhelmed.

Do you mean, how does one phrase things to seem less analytical? I'm not sure what the question is here either. I think as trust has built, I have found myself able to rely less on intellectualizing and other defenses with my T, but it has taken a lot of time and some pretty intensive work, which I'm trying to be OK with.

Liese,
Thanks for replying. I "feel" that I have strong analytical ways about me also for the same reasons as you "FOO." It's so good when others relate to this...learning to communicate in person with T and I can tell she is challenging me to make it happen as she did not do the "how are you?" last session so I basically had to. I still get anxious before a session...oh well!

R2G,
Thank you for responding also. A few sessions back she said this is where we "intellectualize" and "process"...I wanted to say "No, this is for emotions" but she seems to have learned to just go with what I seem to do. She had this reaction last session it seemed but I was going too fast and almost miss her reactions often so she won't call me on them much but when she does it seems to be like a look of shock...I was repeating back something about the process as I had thought I had heard her say something about me being there to learn about psychology but not trying to get into my feelings. I think I am also trying to catch myself but habits are just coming to awareness.

Anon,
Thanks for responding also. Everything you say makes sense also. I am learning how to accept and tolerate my feelings as I felt dismissed always so it's hard to accept them...although I am learning, but also to have another let me know it's ok.

Phrasing. Each of you wondered what I meant and I wasn't very clear. Have any of you found a different way to do things from the beginning of a session? I tend to start telling a story and might never say "I feel" during the story but more often I probably say "I think." Maybe I should just start off with "I feel" and then go into the story. I am trying to be more effective and trying to get into feelings more. I almost always start to feel a little something and then try to get out of the feelings by rushing or not stopping long enough so that's opposite of what I should be doing. With experience have any of you adjusted how you start out your sessions? I do trust her and am becoming ok with my feelings and with her hearing them.

Anon,
Yes, I want to seem less analytical!

Hello Hopeful, your post reminds me very much of the problem I have with therapy.

For a long time I blamed myself for being too intellectualized and analytical and tried very hard to stop the endless thinking about and focus on feelings instead, until I realized that none of my therapists were the slightest bit interested in helping me get in touch with how I felt anyway. I suspect because their approach was based much more on helping people with out of control emotions rather than people like me who have huge problems feeling their feelings in the first place.

So despite my best efforts at trying to feel instead of rationalize, I found that the Ts themselves were more or less either actively discouraging the expression of feelings and instead encouraging talking ABOUT them (which just exacerbated my propensity to rationalize and analyze and explain everything cognitively) or they expected me to be able to 'emote' all by myself in a vacuum.

I'm assuming that your T is not as lousy and inexperienced as the ones I've seen were, and therefore wonder if it might not be useful for you to talk to her more openly about helping you get in touch with how you feel? I found that it would have been so much more useful had my Ts done the cliche of asking 'how are you feeling now' - some way of grounding me in the moment and experiencing what I was feeling instead of using my mind to keep myself three steps removed from my own experience. It sounds like maybe you are similar, and talking to your T about exactly what you want from her in terms of overcoming your intellectualizing might be a useful thing to do?

Also, you talking about slowing down once you do get a flash of a feeling, YES. Only, easy said not so easy done, if your set up is such that you instinctively and automatically jump in with the thinking and rationalizing the moment you feel something - that's where you need T to be able to intervene and keep you focused on the feeling. Like you I tell myself, slow down, take my time, sit with the feeling but for the life of me I can't stop the observing thinker from getting in on the act (what does that mean, what does that tell me - bad - about myself, why am I feeling this...) and by that time the feeling has long gone. Having someone else take the place of the observing thinker is a way of breaking that instinctive (and defensive!) pattern.

Oh dear I didn't set out to pontificate like this, I hope what I've written is in some way useful, it's only my own experience of what I think is a similar set up to yours

LL

Taking down again. I do not want my T to find and read here...although she probably doesn't have the time I would need to say things to her so this makes me uncomfortable.