Maybe it felt like a really difficult session because of all the negative transference in the room with you.

I had a lot of negative transference with my T because of the horrible traumatic experience with my oldT. It took years for it to subside. But my T worked hard to get past it. He provided a totally new and different experience to oldT. He is there for me and as you know allows outside contact. While I think you have a good steady T... I do not agree with his withholding contact. He is just reinforcing the lack of nurturing and comfort that you didn't get as a child. Gee, no wonder why there is such a load of negative transference in the room with you. Sheesh... I just wish T's would get this.

TAS, can you explain why he withholds contact? I never understood this. Did he offer you a therapeutic reason? I really believe that if you are to move forward this aspect of the relationship needs to be discussed and cleared up.

TN

True North: He said the contact seems to be causing more negative transference. I had a very difficult session yesterday. I am trying to be respectful of what he has asked, and also TRUST (which is huge) that he is making the decision based on what is therapeutically needed.

It's just when I can't contact him, emotions hit me and I feel that I can't continue in therapy. It's just too much...feeling that he doesn't want me...that I am struggling with this on my own. He has reminded me to remind myself that he does want to continue to work with me, that he doesn't hate me, etc. It just feels so raw and that he does hate me.

I feel that I am in a catch 22. How am I supposed to deal with these awful emotions once the therapy hour is over with? He tells me to leave it in his office. He may as well be speaking to me in french. I don't know if he is trying to help me be more contained with all that I am dealing with.

When he called last night, he was brief, as he always is, but he sounds so terse. I just don't want to do this anymore. I am trying to respect his boundaries...but they are hurting me so much.

He is supposed to let me know if he has an opening on Saturday...if he doesn't...I am letting him know I am taking a break and that I will come back when I am ready. I don't care if he tells me it is a bad idea. I don't care. I can't do this. This is requiring every bit of effort on my part.

Thank you for replying.
T.

Catalyst:

I didn't even think of the negativity as a defense mechanism! Truly.

I think what you said has given me something to think about instead of only being so pissed off at him.

Thank you,
T.

(((TAS)))

What if getting into those intense feelings - which are probably negative to begin with - just gets associated with him because you are experiencing them with him in the room with you? Like white-coat syndrome. It's hard for our brains to sort this stuff out.

I don't know how many positive feelings you have in your brain but I didn't have a lot. Mostly pain and negative emotions. There wasn't anything else there to experience at first with my T. Of course it was negative.

I know you are trying to trust your T but I do think you need more support from your T with the intensity of and regulating your emotions during the week. I know that I keep advocating for a scheduled check-in call but I still believe it would be highly beneficial. Look at the predicament you are in now. He's asked you not to contact him. The emotions were overwhelming after your last session. He's your attachment figure so of course you are going to reach out to him. But he's asked you not to contact him in between sessions so now you feel terrible about yourself for not listening to him and for needing him and for needing support from the person who might push you away - because you know he doesn't want you to contact him between sessions.

TAS, it's just this awful pattern that keeps playing out and making you feel bad about yourself and afraid of the person who is your attachment figure.

If you had a planned check-in call that you knew he agreed to and then when you were hit with overwhelming emotion in between sessions, you would know that you were going to talk to him in 2 or 3 days at a specific time and that you could hang in there until then. Just my 5 cents.

Hang in there.

I would also find it impossible to work without contact between sessions, but I can understand your T withdrawing it if it seemed to be causing more damage than good. It doesn't mean his decision is necessarily the right/best one for you, but I think that's what he is trying to do. My T triggered me badly by withdrawing something he was doing (sitting with me on the floor). Tuesday, I had the benefit of hearing him describe to a support person he is introducing me to his whole impression of our treatment so far, including that episode. I really have confidence that he was just trying to do whatever he could to make our work more manageable. It didn't end up succeeding, but I know he was trying for my benefit. Eventually, the way we work got renegotiated, not because I pressured him to change it, but because I was (despite being terrified by his withdrawal) determined to be completely honest about my experience of the situation. I wanted to run, badly, in so many different ways, but I kept talking about it.

Obviously, communication and "keeping" your T outside of session is a real struggle for you. I think the outside communication probably WAS increasing the negative transference, but perhaps not the communication itself, but the way it was enacted. You might have had all sorts of invisible expectations about what sort of responses would soothe you in your need to reach out. When your T fell short of what was needed or simply could not provide it in his own time constraints, it left room for you to project your sense that you could not be valuable or worthy to him onto him. The only way I found to work through this issue was direct honesty:

-Being directly honest with T about what I needed (i.e. "I just need to know you're still there.").
-Being directly honest with T about what I feared (i.e. "I'm afraid you're mad," or "I'm afraid you don't believe me!").
-Being directly honest with myself about what I could reasonably expect from T (i.e. not to process huge amounts of information outside of sessions, but simply to "hear" me and, when he had a break, to let me know he was still there).
-Being directly honest with myself about where the negative thoughts about my T were coming from, that he hates me or is mad or wants to get rid of me, is all because either other people treated me that way or I have a deeply engrained sense of being worthless myself).
-Being directly honest with T when something he said or did triggered those messages, so we could discover its source together and I could distinguish between his intentions and my reception of him.

Anyway, it is ridiculously hard work and I don't think I could do it if my T wasn't willing to reassure me in between that he was still there. But, I think when it's creating a negative reaction, it can take a lot of work to find a method of reassurance that works for both of us (due to his schedule and my needs and my triggers). I honestly think, since this is such a sticking point for you, that you should keep talking about this need (that doesn't mean you need to demand he change things) until it feels resolved. If he is unwilling to hear everything that's coming up for you with it, take that in and continue to evaluate whether the course you guys are on is what is in your best interest...then I would be concerned. But, if he really seems to hear you, to want to understand your experience, to check in with himself what he believes will help you heal the most, then I would try to give things time to develop naturally. It was hard, but that's how things went with my T and we ended up with a really good relationship, despite the fact that both of us stuff up on the regular.

Anyway, I AM sorry this is so hard. I wish I knew a way to make it easier. But, as I tend to say, "the only way out is through." You can choose to stay "in" it if through is too painful, but "out" is much better, if you can make it.

quote:

True North: He said the contact seems to be causing more negative transference. I had a very difficult session yesterday. I am trying to be respectful of what he has asked, and also TRUST (which is huge) that he is making the decision based on what is therapeutically needed.

TAS...when you speak of negative transference what do you mean? In my case I would accuse my T of not having any empathy for my situation or I would say he is just like oldT or my mom. I would get mad at him for saying something that could be taken in a good way or a bad way and of course I always saw the bad. Like one time he told me I was "prissy"... oh boy did that cause a storm with us LOL. He explained a few times what he was really trying to describe to me but I always saw the worst in what he said.

One time he told me to think of him as my anchor... well that triggered memories of oldT and how I thought of him as my anchor and so then I accused my T of being just like oldT... telling me to think of him as an anchor and then abandoning me to drown in high seas. Any innocent remark and I was accusing him of wanting me gone or that I was too much for him or that he was mean and unfeeling. I threw a lot of stuff at him but he never took it personally and was secure in his knowledge that he was none of those things and that it was the negative transference.

But what happened was that he kept replacing those negative thoughts of mine with very positive experiences. He didn't "tell" me what to do, he allowed me to experience the good and to take it in. When I accused him of not paying attention to me he showed that he was paying attention. When I accused him of being cold and unfeeling he sat closer to me and had me look at him... reallly look into his eyes and what I saw there touched me and I started to FEEL his warmth and care. And then a funny thing happened....

When I would start to feel the negative transference I couldn't carry through with it because it didn't fit... it didn't make sense and sounded hollow and untrue even to me. How could I accuse him of wanting to be rid of me when he was always there for me? How could I say he had no empathy when I could clearly feel and see it and hear it in his voice? And little by little who he is to me became clearer and the negative transference dissipated like fog when hit by sunshine. And now I see him clearly as someone who I have a very good and solid relationship with and who cares about me and is attached to me (as I am to him) and I don't see oldT or my mom or dad any longer.

I do think that your T denying you comfort and contact is more for HIS benefit than for yours. Can you tell me why the transference got worse when you could email or call him during the week? What would happen to make him draw such harsh (in my opinion) boundaries around the relationship?

Trauma patients really need that contact and the act of the T being there in order to learn how good healthy relationships work and to take in the nurture that was missing during their developmental stages. I would ask your T to explain how deprivation will help you heal the past? I would also ask how punishing you by taking away all contact privileges is helping you to feel cared for? No matter how much negative stuff I threw at my T he NEVER punished me or took things away from me. OldT did that. He would threaten me all the time to take away contact and because of that I was never able to feel secure.

TAS... if your T cannot explain this to you and won't compromise at all on contact (say 1 email or phone call midweek) then I would strongly suggest that you look for a new T. Suffering like this is not helping you at all from what I can see. Maybe if you had a warmer more accessible T then you would not feel like you want to leave every week. I know that part of this is your disorganized attachment pattern but I don't see how your T is helping this. He is only making you fear him which is likely what happened with your caregivers in the past. It's repeating a damaging experience.

I do hope you come back and respond to some of this because I genuinely want to understand and to help you.

TN

Hi TAS,
I know I don't comment much but I feel I've experienced stuff a little like you have and I always feel for you going thru this continually. I have a temporary T I've been seeing just for testing but I need to process some more but I've felt tempted to switch but not doing it right now. Anyways, I agree with what everyone here seems to be saying and a T that will let you contact them more and really make you feel that they look forward to seeing you can really change your feelings. I really hope you consider finding a new one because they all have different personal beliefs and techniques, etc. and maybe your therapy wouldn't be so difficult. Good luck TAS.

Hopeful

that was beautifully said, ((((TN))))

((((TAS))))

TN:

I think when he allowed me to touch base with him...he would reply. Then I would have a question. If he didn't reply the way I wished or thought he should have...I would rail against him. He wasn't good enough...didn't care enough, didn't reply the way he should have, etc. Even when I would touch base, I still didn't have a true sense he was 'here'. I wish I could articulate it better.

He did bear a lot of negativity from me, and after a while, it gets old, no matter who it is coming from. He says I test him a lot...I have to make sure he is in this for the long haul. I just hate the negative transference. I am hoping it will lessen.

Thank you,
T.

((((TAS))))

quote:

He wasn't good enough...didn't care enough, didn't reply the way he should have, etc. Even when I would touch base, I still didn't have a true sense he was 'here'. I wish I could articulate it better.

We ourselves break the connection by the things we tell ourselves - like what you tell yourself, that he didn't reply the way he should have, etc. It's a mantra. By bringing it to consciousness you will begin to gain control over it and develop a new way of relating.

FWIW, I still test my T. Thankfully, he always passes but it's much easier now for him to pass the test than it was in the past. For me, there was a lot of childhood fantasy stuff that needed and still needs to be worked through. Each time I work through something, the negative transference tends to pop up again though not nearly as strongly as it did in the beginning.

What CAT said about how she got more contact as the relationship unfolded happened to me as well. I couldn't handle seeing my T that often. I went from weekly to every other week. Now I go twice a week. But committing to the relationship and not feeling like I wanted to run was a huge hurdle I had to get over. Also, I had to get over letting him see me. I was terrified of being seen. All stuff that made me want to run. When I ran, though, I didn't feel grounded. He grounds me in a very significant way and hopefully I'll be able to do that for myself someday. And hopefully you will too.

Great advice Liese. Yes it reminded me of me....

It also reminded me of the contact changing over time. Me too - used to go weekly and then as the relationship developed as the healthy dependency increased - I needed more and more. each time it was a negotiation process / rupture but we worked it out together.

I think you have to fully commit for six months and there is no talk or thinking of termination within that time and really make a go of the relationship.

SD