Hi Someone,

I used to find it hard to internalize my T's care too. Do you have any outside contact with your T at all? I found it very grounding to read over her texts/emails when I felt the need for connection in between sessions.

I hope it goes well speaking to your T about touch. It is a big topic. My T used to hug me at the end of sessions which I loved but it could also be very painful.

Butterfly

Thanks Butterfly,
Yeah we can text\email, which is helpful. I try to be careful not to abuse it, maybe I should let myself reach out a little more. I've also found that reading over or repeating to myself good parts of our old texts\emails can be helpful.

Did you find the hugs could be painful because they reaffirmed what you can't have with your T, or another reason?

Hi Someone,

For therapy to work at its best, it's very important that your T cares about you but also to know that your T really cares about you. It's important to look into why you think she cares logically but not emotionally. Your left and right brain could be taking in different aspects of the relationship and coming to different conclusions.

It could be you, you might have a hard time believing that you are worthy of T's care. Or, there could be something about your T that you are uncomfortable with. For instance, my T dresses really nicely. I don't think he always did but ever since his wedding band came off, he seems to be paying more attention to his appearance. Anyway, I had it in my head that he couldn't be a caring person because of the way he dressed. He and I talked about. I still have a hard time with it sometimes because I just don't have a template in my head from the past for someone like him. It's always been my training that people who neglected themselves and cared for other people were the caring people. And the people who took care of themselves were selfish. And, so as I let in his caring, I'm hoping a new template will form in my head. But, he's also been more caring lately towards me, which I really needed. He brings up times when he thought about me out of session. He cut out a newspaper article he thought I would like. Little things like that. He's showing me within the bounds of the therapeutic relationship that he does care. And, it's nice and it helps A LOT. It helps me FEEL his caring.


Maybe there too, maybe there's something you need T to do for you that would show you that she cared.

And, so I would encourage you to explore this more because I think it's a really important issue in therapy. And it might help you figure out who you trust and why IRL and who you don't trust and why IRL and how and why that might be causing you some problems.

xoxo

Liese

someone - I often doubt my (obviously very kind) T's sincerity of care for me, just because I feel it's impossible anyone would feel that way toward me. I've learned that the best way for me to deal with it is just a simple, straight-forward text telling him what sort of projections are coming up and that I would like some reassurance when he has a moment. Then, I'll get a simple text back addressing whatever the particular issue is (i.e. he's not leaving, not abandoning, it was a pleasure to see me, he likes hearing from me, everything I've shared is OK and isn't going to make him reject me, he's not mad, etc.). I don't know if that would be "abuse" of contact with your T, but mine has, since very early on, emphasized how much he feels blessed that I reach out to him in that way and keep him apprised of how I'm doing between sessions. He feels it really helps him to know where I'm at and me to feel connected, thus safer, which is a way he wants me to feel.

Hi someone,

I feel the same. I know that logically she cares but emotionally I don't think she does. I think 'She's going home to her family, the people she truly loves. Her own life. She can't be thinking about me. And anyway she probably has 20 different patients plus she is not my mum or my lover'

I like how she smiles. I've practically fallen 'in love' with her already. But if she remains silent or looks too glassy then I assume that she does not care. Or I am just another boring person to her. I have a bit of an ego in the session because I'm addicted to her smiles and niceness.

It's a bit painstaking. I then find the whole relationship unreal and attempt to detach myself from her care. I'll bury her care down until I can't locate it anymore but it always pops up somewhere.

I secretly wish that when I close the door behind me after the session, she thinks of me and thinks how lovely I am and how she would like to get to know me outside the session. Though I know its boundaried for us to work on ourselves, it hurts a little.

I have a tendency to seduce and be very impressionable with myself. I do it a lot in session. In reality I am very scared to be talking to her and uncomfortable the whole time. I am great at putting on a mask. Through the mask I have told her how I feel about her help and how lovely it is and how lovely she is. I put on an act through an alter-ego but underneath the child in me wants her there all the time.

Sometimes I feel like I will never get through my emotional nurturing because the attachment to her is very, very strong.

I guess though the logic that helps is that the therapist enters the profession to do a duty of care to people who are in need which is better than walking across people who don't care about you or who pretend to or use or take advantage. The care to a degree is very genuine and becomes safe enough for us to venture into the world with more confidence in ourselves.

I hope.

Thanks guys, a lot of great insights.

Liese, you're right. I do have a hard time believing that someone like my T could like me. That I'm good enough for that. Yet sometimes it's hard not to feel like the boundaries are because I'm not worthy or whatever. My T has done a couple things like mentioning times thinking of me out of session that help. Maybe I should show more appreciation when my T does this, maybe it'd happen more often then. I wonder if there are more things within the bounds that we could do.

quote:

Maybe there too, maybe there's something you need T to do for you that would show you that she cared.

That's sort of what I've been thinking about the touch. I don't want it to make things worse though, or make me keep wanting more and more from my T. But I think it could be very helpful, guess we'll have to talk about it.

yakusoku, that is a good idea. Maybe I should contact my T a little more freely. I don't really know if that would be abuse of contact either.

Nada, I follow what you're saying. It is very painful at times.

(((SOMEONE))))

It's been about a week and a half since my T has done or said something "special" to me or for me. And I love it when he does. At first, it felt a little mechanical, like he was just doing it to make me feel good. But the more he does it, the more I accept it and the more I LIKE it. It's nice that someone is thinking about me.

My T is a male and just a couple of years older than me and has already announced a no hand-holding no hugging policy. Though sometimes I think it might be nice if I could lay my head in his lap and just cry. I don't need to be hugged.

Good luck with the hug discussion. Let us know how it goes and how you feel about it.

This is an interesting thread, especially after what I experienced in my session today. It was a really difficult session to begin with and I was sort of hiding under the blanket, yet my T coaxed me out (he's hard to resist!) But the conversation went back to a few sessions ago when we have that difficult talk about empathy and how I accused him of having no empathy for me and I felt so angry at him for that.

So today I told him that the most important thing I took away from that session and what stuck in my mind was the look on his face. I was crying and angry and he wheeled in closer to me and leaned forward and was just looking at me silently for a minute. Things sort of quieted down and I just remember at that moment being able to take in, in that right brain way, the look on his face. I thought it was either sadness or frustration with me because I could not "get" what he was trying to do with me.

And so today I told him that I keep seeing his face in my mind and he asked me what I thought I saw that day and I said either sadness or frustration. He told me to pick the most likely one and I said, sadness. He asked why I thought he was sad and I said because I was unable to accept or to feel or take in what he was trying to give me. He said that was right. He was sad and that was why. Then he asked me what this means to me. So I (very timidly) said... that you care about me. He said yes, that he cares about me and he enjoys me very much. So I told him that it is hard for me to believe it when he says that.

And so... he told me "good, I don't want you to believe it". Huh? I was confused. He said "I don't want you to believe what I SAY, I could be lying to you with my words. I want you to pay attention to what I do and how that makes you feel. If I make you feel cared for and about then you know that I do care for you. In other words watch what I do and how that makes you feel as opposed to just hearing me say things.

That really gave me a lot to think about. I have a hard time believing that anyone could care about me or that I could really mean something to someone like him. And I work so hard to block how he makes me feel because of this wall of defense that I have. Yet, when I can stop and really think about it... he has consistently shown me real care, real kindness, true respect and real happiness at seeing me. If I can dare to look and to "see" his face, then I can easily recognize the truth. It's all there if I am brave enough and open enough to look.

I love my T. He is a true gift that I don't know how I was lucky enough to be blessed with. And he cares about me. That is just so amazing.

TN

Wow TN, I LOVE hearing about your sessions with your T.

Thanks, SD. Glad to be able to share.

TN

Thanks for the support Liese.

That sounds like a great session TN.

We did end up talking about touch and there is a boundary there. The talk went fairly ok. It helped me feel a bit better about it. Although we'll see if it lasts when I'm needing it. My T told me that that's not really what she's like in RL (not touchy I think). That it mainly has to do with herself. I'm not sure that I agree with or completely understand her reasoning for not touching any clients. My T said that with me she knows it'd be fine. I just read the article on touch linked to in the other forum, and so I told her about a lot of the positives that can come from it. My T did seem at least semi-interested in what I had to say about it (my T is pretty new at this). I don't know if it'll really change anything. I'm hoping that maybe we might at least come to some type of compromise, like maybe a handshake or something could be ok. Or at the very least my T will know what I'm feeling. We'll have to talk more about it.

Thanks for the support.

Man, I'm having a rough time again with this lately. If I have to tell my T the things that she does that help me feel or not feel her caring, how can she then genuinely do them without me just thinking she feels obligated?

Do you ever have those sessions where your T is trying to talk about working on other things but you're struggling to feel a bond with them? So it makes it feel like that bond isn't there or they don't want that bond. Almost like you're trying to build the foundation of the house and instead of giving you cement your T is throwing you 2x4s for the walls. Or am I wrong in wanting a good bond with my T before working more on other things?

Sorry you’re having a bad time with this issue still (though take it from one who has problems with trusting a T – the ‘still’ is academic, it’s a long haul getting to the point of believing in a T’s care and authenticity.) I gather from your previous post that touch is a no go in your therapy?

When you said that your T is ‘pretty new at this’ do you mean therapy itself, or the idea of touch? Just wondered, as it could make a difference to how she responds to your concerns if she’s not very experienced.

About openly telling a T what it is you want her to do that would help you, yeah I get how it could invalidate the giving because effectively you’re telling her to do these things and so it might not seem genuine or spontaneous on her part. On the other hand, it can help a T if you are able to be more upfront about the kinds of things you need from her – and the fact that she might do them in response doesn’t automatically imply that she doesn’t mean them. It’s all about YOUR needs and wants and though it would be wonderful if a T could mind read these and just give without having to be told, giving T a nudge in the right direction is all part of the whole process (learning to ask for what you need, something that I hope to be able to learn how to do in therapy so as to carry that over into real world.)

And as for wanting to establish a bond with T before going on to work on other things, well I think that’s absolutely imperative. I’m pretty sure most others here would agree too. How can you possibly be expected to work on painful stuff when you don’t yet feel safe or trusting with your T? It sounds like you might need to talk to your T about all of this before anything else – she may not be aware that you are struggling with these fears and doubts and just be assuming that you are willing and able to plunge into the ‘work’.

Not sure if this is any help, just wanted to post and say that I sympathize with what you’re going through and hope that you are able to talk about this with your T.

LL

Thanks LL, what you write does help and makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, my T is fairly new at therapy itself. I'm curious what your thoughts are on how this might make a difference to how she responds to concerns.

I've talked with my T about most of this stuff, though not yet about how it makes me feel when she tries to work more on the other stuff. That is something I just realized this week. My T has asked what she can do to help me believe her caring. I've thought of a few things, but nothing that seems real profound or certain. Maybe there is nothing like that, I'd definitely welcome any ideas though.

Thanks again LL

Hi again Someone, thanks for the thanks

Hm well an inexperienced T may not yet have the professional instinct to work on establishing a good relationship (the ‘therapeutic alliance’) and might be a bit too gung ho about working directly on client issues without ensuring that the trust is there first. I suppose it depends to a great degree on what her modality is, whether she’s had any direct training on establishing a client/T bond. I think I anticipated a bit of red flag with what you said about her reaction to when you asked about touch in therapy – it sounded almost as if she wasn’t being terribly clear, giving you explanations about herself, but then saying that it would probably be alright with you. So she may not yet have worked out for herself how to be steady and consistent and hold strong boundaries especially when dealing with stuff that directly reflects the relationship itself. This is not to say that just because she’s inexperienced she’s not going to be good or competent though. This is just me speculating so take it with a large grain of salt.

Again I can only talk for myself but in the same situation the kinds of things I need from a T that would help me trust them and believe they care is having accepted and also being encouraged, to talk about how I feel about THEM. About how things they say and do (and DON’T say and do) makes me feel. This is where I’m at with my current T and I’ve spent rather a lot of sessions running through lists of things I want from him (like, sorting out an issue with his stupid clock which NEVER tells the correct time; like, telling him how I hate the endings of sessions because he just switches off and goes all cold and silent and how unwelcome it makes me feel; like, telling him how positive it makes me feel that he’s so non-defensive when I throw my criticisms at him; like, repeating ad infinitum that I just don’t feel HEARD in sessions...) All these sorts of things revolve around the relationship itself – and being able to tell him regularly how the way he is with me in the session makes me feel (usually negative lol but sometimes positive) is all going bit by bit to building up a growing sense in me that he might just be trustworthy.

Really though there isn’t anything she can do in the moment to make you believe in her caring, it’s just something that you’ll get to experience over time. But it is possible to look inside yourself and create a sense of what sorts of things you could imagine her doing/saying that would help you feel closer to her (that’s sort of what I do and though no way in hell would I admit to a lot of them, not at this point, some of them I have been able to articulate to T without causing myself too much shame). And I’m not sure that any one significant thing would do the trick, it’s more like a growing list of small things, if that makes sense?

You said you had some ideas already, do you want to share them here? Maybe thinking about putting them into words will connect to other things that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise? The most obvious thing that springs to mind is that you do talk to her about how it makes you feel when she focuses on other issues and how you need to work much more on feeling safe and trusting with her first. And if she asks you again ‘how’, then throw some ideas at her and see where it takes you. Any discussion of the relationship itself is going to foster some sort of connection – well that’s the idea anyway.

When is your next session? Hope you do manage to broach this with her, though it’s not an easy thing to bring up.

(((( Someone ))))

LL

I found it very hard to hold onto T between sessions, because each time I allowed myself to take in her caring I would "kill" that part. This is how I survived growing up, I was so used to not being cared about that the wanting/need to be cared about was to painful to have, to feel, so of with its head it went. But now I'm adult and experienceing T's caring, the old habit of destroying any good feeling continues. Its only time that has eased this, and actually allowing yourself to feel as if T doesnt care is healthy because as children we couldnt have dared to "know" this about someone, we had to fantise we were cared about on an unconsious level, but the luxury of being cared about enought to feel safe enought to question it is actually a step forward.

Thanks LL, sry I couldn't reply sooner. You've given me a lot of good things to think about.

You're probably right with your comments about being inexperienced, the talk about touch in therapy didn't go so hot.

There might be bigger things she could do to help me feel more caring, but yeah I definitely think like you say it grows over time out of many things.

I wish I felt more comfortable sharing my full list of ideas on here. A few would require a boundary crossing for my T to do. The ones she'd be willing to consider mainly relate to encouraging the connection, saying more good stuff to me about our relationship, being more understanding, and being more ok with me relying on her for now. Now that I look back over my list it seems like these fall in line with what you're saying about telling your T about how the way he is with you in the session makes you feel. When you mention things and your T does them are you able to feel he does them because he cares and not out of obligation?

Thanks for all your wisdom on this. My next appt is tomorrow, I'm sure we'll have a good talk.



Thanks Freuds fly on the wall, that's very deep. I'll have to think more about how that applies to me.

Hi Someone. It sounds like your pretty much prepared to get in there tomorrow and talk about some of these things. I hope the session goes well for you.

Don't blame you for not feeling ok about sharing some of the things on your list - even with T. Maybe hitting her with a whole lot of things would be counterproductive (lol in my experience Ts don't seem able to deal with a deluge of stuff, they're more effective when you give them bite sized chunks of things to respond to). So if you stick to what you're comfortable asking her for in tomorrow's session, that would be a great start.

Oh the painful question of whether a T responds to us genuinely or just because we've asked for it! Well, hmm, so far with my current T, he seems ok with what I tell him I want from him, but he hasn't actually changed or modified his approach that much. It's like his modifications are a pretty watered down version of what I've actually asked for. But he HAS changed things nevetheless - like, chatting to me on the way out of session, and at the beginning of session he very obviously makes an effort not to adopt his usual staring off into the distance stance - and actually, I feel that he does mean it, he's not doing it out of obligation or just because I've asked, but because he genuinely wants me to feel ok there. It's a tricky thing though. If he were too over the top about doing what I asked for, I think I wouldn't be able to take it in. It would seem too unnatural or forced or fake... The bottom line I suppose is that a T can only be who they are and if some of the things we want go against the grain too much, with the best will in the world they're not going to be able to do it.

Hm not sure if that's any help. But I'm pleased to hear that you're going to be having this discussion tomorrow, let us know how it goes?

Good luck with it .

LL