(((TAS)))

I am going to try and explain what your T may have meant without thinking about a lot of the background between you and your T (because I think your T could be a lot gentler and I think that you struggle with his affect/style/manner and I would as well).

I once spent an entire session explaining to my T that the people I feel close to are people I see regularly usually several times a week (people at work, other parents I see at the school or activities). When someone stops being there regularly I stop feeling attached to them and very quickly "forget" my relationship with them. I was trying to explain why it was so difficult for me to see him only once a week. He listened to me, asked questions about past relationships, people who existed like that (most people) and the few who didn't and I could not see for long periods of time and still feel close to. Near the end of the session I got angry because he wasn't doing anything to help me (no phone calls scheduled etc), no ideas on how to change how I felt, nothing. He told me that it was possible to be attached to someone without seeing them frequently and he thought that would be less painful for me to investigate why I felt I needed to see people regularly to feel attached to them.

That story may not have helped but what I mean to say is that it is possible for someone to be attached to your T without him changing his boundaries (not everyone of course and maybe not you). So I think attachment is about how you feel about the people you are in relationships with, what does a secure relationship look like for you? what is required? what is not necessary? Do you feel the need to check in frequently? etc. Boundaries in this case (and the case of his DID patient) are about what your T is comfortable with. So I don't think all attachment issues are boundary issues.

I hope this helped and if not please ignore it,

hugs

I think this is a hard question. One one hand, attachment issues and boundary issues are different things. I think if you have an attachment issue, it means you have a hard time feeling safely connected to another person. So either feeling close and connected to someone feels threatening to you, or you are afraid they will abandon you at any moment, or you don't want to feel close to other people at all in the first place. On the other hand, if you have a "boundary" issue, it could mean that you have a hard time respecting other people's limits, or that you don't have any of your own. So if for example, you never say no to other people, even though you want to, that's a boundary issue. Or if someone else tells you no about something, like "don't call me after 9 PM" and you do it anyway, you might have a boundary issue.

So I don't think they are necessarily related, but they could be. For example, let's say you were sexually abused as a child, by someone close to you. Then you might associate attachment with having your boundaries violated. So you are afraid of attachments because you feel like the other person will violate you and you won't know how to say no.

In your case, it seems like the attachment to your T is making you want to be close to him in different ways, but this is running into his very rigid boundaries. Not everyone is so big on boundaries as your T. For example, a different T with his DID client might not have carried the object in his pocket, but might have agreed to leave it on his desk, or carried a photo in his wallet or something. But your T is all about the "no," apparently. I don't know if that's necessarily good or bad, but it's just his style I guess. Although I will add that for some people there is going to be a "no" eventually because the client will ask for something impossible (like "can I live under your desk?"), just because their attachment needs feel greater than what can be realistically met in therapy. So that kind of pain is inevitable in a sense, no matter where the T's boundaries are, depending on how strong the client's needs feel.

I don't know if that helps, TAS. I know your T seems to have very rigid boundaries compared to most. What you have to decide eventually is whether that is good for you or not. Some people have found that kind of thing healing, while others have felt more helped by a T who was willing to have more contact outside of sessions, etc.

TAS,
Boundaries are simply the demarcation between where me and my responsibility end and another person's begins. But we're not born understanding them, in fact we're born not understandng we're a separate person, let alone that we have to be responsible for ourselves.

It is through our early attachement relationships (our parents or other full time caregiver) that we should be taught boundaries. Mainly implicitly, through having them demonstrated. In an ideal world, our caregiver would respect that we are a separate person, and through the dependency period of childhood, they would slowly teach us what is ours and how to take care of it (what are our needs? what feelings are we having? how is it ok to express them? how do we get them met?). Having good boundaries is just another way of saying you know how to have a healthy relationship.

For those of us who did not have secure attachment, who lacked a caregiver's attunement or did not have healthy boundaries modeled for them, have to go through the (incredibly) even more painful and even harder process of learning these lessons in adulthood.

So the attachment part comes is that your therapist steps into that role of older, wiser other who is focused on your needs becoming the attachment figure that you can then learn healthy boundaries from, both explicitly, by discussing them and implicitly, by having them modeled.

And yes, TAS, I have a blog post to recommend:

Boundaries, Dependence and Interdepence.

But just a note, I think my T has fairly tight boundaries (don't call him the Boundary Ninja for nothing) but your T has even tighter boundaries. And while I believe you can work through attachment that way, for someone with long term trauma, I do wonder if boundaries quite that tight is the most helpful thing. Something like being able to have a transitional object seems pretty important to me and my T has never hesitated over a request like that.

AG

Incognito:

"He listened to me, asked questions about past relationships, people who existed like that (most people) and the few who didn't and I could not see for long periods of time and still feel close to. Near the end of the session I got angry because he wasn't doing anything to help me (no phone calls scheduled etc), no ideas on how to change how I felt, nothing."

I don't understand how this is supposed to be helpful. I don't understand why we talk about it if there is not a solution offered to the dilemma. I am truly not diminishing your Therapist, I just don't understand this. Someone is hurting and you watch them hurt, yet you do nothing for them.

I told him how so very hard this was and he said, "Yes, it is hard." I do feel the need to check in...every other second. This is impossible to ask of any human being but I am so scared he is going to go away. What more can he do? He has assured me and gives me an appt. card every week. I don't know what else he can do.

He can't win because when I see him I am pissed because I know in 50 minutes I won't see him for another week and then when I don't see him I am pissed because I can't touch base.

Yet, I know I should respect his boundaries but I feel as if he is being cruel and he is trying to wear me down. He wants me to quit. He wants me to lose heart and tell him that he wins. He has overpowered me and there is nothing I can do except to say, "You win."

Thank you for your kind words and sorry for rambling.

BLT: The thing is, I am feeling stronger on the inside. As if things are coming together or possibly, I am coming together. This is what is so confusing. If I trust him and say okay on this and not fight him, I feel as if I have let him have the power and he has prevailed against me. I am so confused because I don't let anyone tell me what is best for me. Only I know what is best for me.

No matter what I say, he is not changing his mind. What if he did change his mind? Would I feel as secure or safe? I don't know.

I have worked very hard at respecting his boundaries but this is just bringing up very difficult things for me and I think he knows it and possibly, one reason he will not relent is because if he allows contact every day I will not have to deal with the feelings I have pushed down for so long.

Thank you Hope T school is going well for you!

AG: I just wish, if he is seeing how difficult this is for me, that he would do something to make it easier. But he is not. So, I don't know what I am going to do. I feel he is helping me and yet, I want what I want.

He did give me a bottle of lavender once but I got pissed off at him and gave it back (twice). The first time he gave it back...the second time he said no because he felt when I got mad at him again I would just give it back. That is why he has not given me anything since then.

Now he gives me an appointment card and I did ask if he could write, "I am here" on it and he said he wanted me to hold onto the symbol of the card and what it meant. So, the answer was no.

Thank you and I will read the article. I appreciate your insight.

All the best to each of you,
T.

I've had Reactive Attachment Disorder, which means I pretend I don't need anything such as love, hugging, attention, etc. But underneath, I have deep need for those. It starts with severe rejection in childhood.
My understanding about boundaries is that therapy has to always be done with just words, not doing things. Attachment problems very much involve boundary issues because the patient has stored up intense unconscious needs. T knows it's essential for you to want to hug, give things, so you can work on those old feelings. But is not ethical to actually get physical. Hugs and minor gifts are still controversial in the therapist schools. I just want to leave you with the thought that good therapists want you to feel all your feelings for them, and try to work with them so that you can deal with it all.

I'd just like to reply to the boundary issues thing. When I first started with my T, I was about 3 months in) I sent him a text when I was away on vacation. I was feeling bad, didn't know what to do, etc. Well, long story short, he didn't respond the way I wanted him to. So...unfortunately, I returned a text with simply the letters, "FU". He immediately shot back an text that said, "Please refrain from sending any more emails. This is completely inappropriate. I am attaching all to your electronic medical record. We can discuss during your appointment." Of course, after reading that, I totally freaked out. I'm sure you can understand that I didn't want to go to my next session, but I did. I appologized for what I wrote. He said he accepted my apology. He also said, "I know you were frustrated and I was trying to empathize with you that it was difficult to be away, but there was not much I could do. I’m not a psychiatrist and also, you know, I want you to advocate for yourself and not ever allow yourself to ever be abused. So, I have to model that, too, that I can’t allow you to beat me up, emotionally or physically. There’s really only two rules: you can’t hurt you and you can’t hurt me. And that goes physically or verbally. You’re allowed to be mad, though.”

So, I think I learned a lot from that situation. One, never put anything in writing that you don't want anyone else to see, because it does go into your electronic file, lol. And, part of T's responsibility is to model appropriate behavior. That's how we learn, by example.

Needless to say, I have NEVER done anything like that again. It was very embarassing, although he handled it much better than I did. At the beginning, just after I apologized, he said, “I don’t have anything more to say about it. I just didn’t appreciate it, did you want to talk about it?”

So, to him, I guess it was over just after I apologized. But, I'm glad I discussed it further with him. I did agree with what he said. I just still feel shame for what I did and I wish I could take it back. But, his explanation about everything really helped me.

For what it's worth...

LJB

hi LJB,

nice to meet you!
hope you and TAS wont mind if i give another perspective on what you wrote about your T. i can totally understand your T modelling the behaviour and the two rules about not hurting either of you are perfect! i'm not sure what your Ts therapeutic school or modality is, but i think a psychodynamic or psychoanalytical T would perhaps interpret that less literally and would not take an 'F U' so personally. i suppose it depends how it is said and how they feel about it. but they are trained to work with transference and sometimes that means angry feelings directed at them, so they would concentrate more on why are you angry or who is it from the past you're really angry at. of course, every T would have their own limits for when that behaviour would become personal or abusive.

i'm not really an expert here and i dont know if i explained it very well. this has been my experience with my T, although i havent said F-U (yet! ), but i've told her she's full of shit or useless, which under normal circumstances are pretty nasty things to say to someone, especially someone who's helping you.

i dont know if this was any help, please ignore it if it wasnt. just wanted to offer another perspective and to say that i dont think what you did was so bad, just pain expressed in a less mature way. and i think you were very mature and brave to show up to your appointment and to own it and apologize.

puppet

quote:

when I see him I am pissed because I know in 50 minutes I won't see him for another week and then when I don't see him I am pissed because I can't touch base.

TAS... instead of being pissed at him for those 50 minutes why don't you try letting go and enjoying the time you have with him and make the most of it and invite and accept the warmth and closeness he offers. I'll bet that will help hold you in a good way until your next session.

I know that when I have a close, warm session with T, the feelings last for days and keep me calm, soothed and happy.

TN

I think I might try that TN next time I get along to see my T. Just live in the moment and take any caring that is going? What a brave idea...

sb

Puppet,
Thanks for your reply. I do understand what you are saying. I think it was just a bit difficult for him since I was away and really, what was he to do? What response could really help me? I'm not sure anything that he had said would have made me feel better, to tell you the truth. But, he always tells me I have to get in touch with my feelings because I don't ever get mad. I internalize it. Well, after his response in the text, believe me, my anger backfired, BIG TIME. During sessions, he often encourages me to tell him to f*** off...but, after that text...I'm forever trigger shy. I don't know, maybe he has forgotten about it? I recently had to get my records copied for legal reasons and have seen all of the notes he writes after each session. And...low and behold...my FU remark was indeed there, in black and white. Needless to say, I don't text or e-mail in between sessions much, if ever.

For what it's worth...

LJB