hi Amazon, and nice to know your over this side of the water too lol, xx i think some people care and others don't. depends doesn't it. human nature is hard to predict. id like to think that anyone in any of the "caring" professions care. but not all of them will, or will be too worn out now to care as much as they did. i think it would be difficult though to remain professional and a p for instance must be very aware of how their words and actions are portrayed by the patient and their colleges. but then how can responses like that be fully predicted anyway? i myself as a patient have felt a mixture of feelings ranging from confusion and frustration, that they care, that they don't, i suppose it depends on the many things that happen with therapy and all it encompasses that we connect for whatever reason sometimes then disconnected at other times. we feel cared for one day, uncared for the next. or we over analyze what has been talked about or make assumptions that aren't there except in our own heads! wow this is a minefield of a topic Amazon!

I think from being on both ends of the spectrum.

I don't have a psychology degree, but I was a psychology major in college, before my illness took over and I had to take a break. But I did do counseling with children and I can honestly say that there were certain children that I connected to more. Not on a transference issue. The children I worked with came from foster homes, something I didn't even experience. There were just ones that seemed to touch me a little bit more. I didn't favor them, or give them special treatment. I just cared a great deal for them. I cared a great deal for all the children I counseled. But I think we have to remember, that therapists are human. And had it been on a long term basis for me, if there were children I didn't feel I connected to or didn't feel like I cared for enough, I would have referred them elsewhere. To a counselor who could help them a lot more and connect with them on a more intimate basis. So I think that we have to remember that if our therapists didn't care, we wouldn't be with them, we would be referred elsewhere. Unless they were unprofessional therapists.

Now being on the receiving end. I have had therapists who didn't connect with me and they have told me so and I've agreed and I've moved on to another. I've had more psychiatrists that seem very heartless. I still have old therapists, that for whatever reason I had to leave, that still email me to check up on me, because they truly care. My family doctor who has know me since I was in the womb. I really don't even question if he cares. My therapist now, I don't question it either. If you question if a provider cares, and they've never given you a reason to, then you should ask them. It's probably transference issues your pushing on your therapist, you should work through in therapy.

When I am in rational adult mode then I would like to believe that most therapists have a generally caring attitude towards their clients. How else could they be drawn to the profession and not totally burn out? This doesn't mean all therapists are equal or demonstrate their caring attitudes openly. I suspect some T's/P's construct unnecessarily tall walls to protect themselves, just like clients do. But most of them have hearts.

But it must be when I am in immature child mode that I look for ways to doubt my T is truly genuine. Despite the fact she has never done anything cruel, despite the fact she has communicated her empathy and caring through words and action on multiple occasions, despite the times she has gone the extra mile for me... it is not enough to satisfy me. I say to myself, So what if she says she cares? One can "care" about his pet fish or the widow on the street corner or the mailman. All that means is that you are fond enough to wish them well and would hate to see them suffer. But it falls short of that four-letter L word that one rarely hears from a therapist, which might signify something deeper or more personalized than the word "care" does.

So I would like to imagine that my T secretly loves me (even if she won't use that word) but then I open my mail and see my insurance statement with her name next to the billed charges, and it kind of ruins the illusion. I realize I am only purchasing a service - because it is impossible to buy real love. So although I think she is a compassionate person in general, I also think she remains personally detached enough that her expressions of caring are just part of a role-play she's being paid to do for awhile.

Marginal, yes, it is transference issue. No doubt about it. It's good to see your "input". It's like I'm collecting data to bring out this topic.:/

MH, for the first 6 months of therapy I was convinced I was purchasing a service from a profesional. But then things turned around and I couldn't think of it as a service anymore. That got me so confused. So what is it? I love him and I'm paying him for allowing me to love him? I felt lost and I felt that I have to get my head around the money issue quickly because I felt it was separating me from him and making me feel really bad. So my logic now is that this is all I can give him in return, and really the amount I'm paying for this hour is nothing when I compare it to the difference that it makes in my life. I also realize that someone becomes therapist because that is what they love doing, but unfortunately they could not afford to do it for free, they must make a living of something. No, at this stage it doesn't really bother me.

At this stage I'm just trying to figure out if he cares about me. He kind of seems to care, but then am I really sure about it?
In my "career" as a client I tried twice to start (or try rather) "talk therapy". Once it was a woman, and I don't know if it was me not being ready, but I couldn't and didn't want to talk to her. I think I've seen her twice and it was completely pointless. Then there was another woman, I don't even know if she was a psychotherapist or psychologist and I also felt like I was forcing myself into something. I couldn't and didn't want to talk honestly. I just didn't feel it. But I'm not sure if it was them or me not wanting to talk and trust. With my T now, I felt that this is the person I can and want to trust. I felt equal to him as I met him, I saw him as being real and genuine from the begining. And so I went on to brag about my childhood and pity myself for the first 6 months of therapy...

Hi Amazon -

Sounds like you are making a really important connection with your t....

I was wondering about the question 'does he care'. If he did care, what would it mean to you? How do you think it would change things for you in the therapy?

curious Jones

I know that my therapist cares about me because he shows me in different ways every session. He has told me many times that he cares about me and he has also used that four letter L word mentioned above. He will tell me that he doesnt love me like I love him with the erotic feelings but that his love is the agape love that you should feel towards people in your lives like Jesus talks about. I dont really care right now in which way he loves me just as long as he does.

I do pay my P but at the same time I owe him $1325.00 for visits he let me have even when I didnt have the money. Which to me shows that he cares. I would assume he cares even if he didnt let me slide on the money issues because if he didnt he could transfer me to someone else or just stop seeing me. He might miss out on the money I would be paying him but he could always find another patient to take my place instead. The other reason I believe he cares about me is because I dont think he would get so frustrated or mad at me when I am screwing up or slipping back into old patterns if he didnt truly care. If he didnt care it would not matter to him, but I can see (and hear when he yells at me) how frustrated and upset it really makes him to see my going backwards.

But the main thing is that he can tell me over and over again that he cares or loves me and that wouldnt necessarily make me believe it, but I see it through his actions and the fact that I am still his patient and he still puts up with me through all my crap and trouble that I cause him cause its not that hard for them to just stop seeing a patient they dont care about.

quote:

Originally posted by pippi:
But the main thing is that he can tell me over and over again that he cares or loves me and that wouldnt necessarily make me believe it, but I see it through his actions and the fact that I am still his patient and he still puts up with me through all my crap and trouble that I cause him cause its not that hard for them to just stop seeing a patient they dont care about.

Pippi, I hope you are right. I mean, why DO they put up with our crap when they don't have to, unless deep down they really do love us? But I don't think I have really tested my T enough to satisfy myself that she will stick with me no matter what. I think that's exactly what I need to do, though, to find out one way or the other. But even though she says she will not abandon me, I fear that she will still find a way to get rid of me if I become too much. She's smart; she knows all she would have to do is push my particularly vulnerable buttons to scare or anger me enough and I would end up terminating myself. Oh, paranoid me! I have a phone session tomorrow. Maybe I will get brave enough to test her some more, and if she passes then I will be both relieved and ashamed for doubting her.

i think its important for us to understand that we are in therapy with someone who is "doing their job" where they have to remain professional for their own sakes as well as ours. our relationship with them should remain this way within this boundary, therapists shouldn't be our "friend". we cannot see them in the same way as we see our actual friends or should communicate in the same way. our therapists are trained and skilled in being able to challenge our behavior and get to the root of our issues. therapists cannot cross the friendship line if therapy is going to work. its up to them to challenge us, explore our issues and read our signals of transference so that they can then plan our care better so that they empower us to develop the skills necessary to solve our own problems. if we dont learn the skills as they are like "tools" how can we truly solve our problems? to me this is why we go to therapy, we have a problem that we just cannot solve ourselves. we dont have the tools to repair it. they cant turn the clock back for us and change what happened but therapists can help us deal with the emotions, reactions and our thinking about the problem so that we can deal with it in a different way.
we pay them to help us and we have to see that for what it is, we are paying for their expertise to do their job. one they chose to train to do. one they chose because they cared enough about helping people to do. my own costs are incorporated into the health system here in the UK of the NHS (national health service) which is great as we dont pay our health care directly. we still pay national insurance all our working lives but its like a small tax payment every month. but we can also choose to go private if we want to.

MH-I have probably done every test imaginable on my therapist and he is still here. He did stop seeing me once but that was for my own good cause I was taking things too far and not willing to work on it. I was hanging out in his neighborhood constantly just so I could see him but when in session I refused to talk about why I was doing it. He did take me back as a patient two years later when I asked him too and he did not have to do that. He knew how much trouble I am as a patient and how I push every boundary so if he didnt care he would have never let me come back. I still test him and try to push him away to see how far I go. Lately I have been doing it by calling, texting him and emailing him almost every day. He gets so tired of it but he is still here. He will tell me I am getting close to screwing things up and tell me to work on it. Which is another way I know he cares because he warns me of these things and is really honest with me. But no matter what he is still here and he took me back as his patient after I had screwed up big time! I basically stalked the guy

I do agree that they are doing their job and that we are paying them to do that job, but that doesnt meant that is the only reason they care. They cant be our friends because that would be bad for us and if they didnt care then they wouldnt stick to the boundaries. It would be so much easier to give into breaking the boundaries than to stick to them and make patients mad and frustrated about it. But it cant be the only reason they care. Saying that would be like saying that a pastor only cares about people because he gets paid to do his job yet they prove over and over again that this is not the reason why they do their job. You have to truly care about people to get into this profession and if you didnt care about a certain person they would not be your patient anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by Jones:
I was wondering about the question 'does he care'. If he did care, what would it mean to you? How do you think it would change things for you in the therapy?

Jones, your questions is the killer, as usual.
Just the kind of question he would ask.

Yes, this is one of the many questions that I think, think really hard and I simply don't know the answer. What it will be like if this or that. And I honestly don't know. It's like I would be given something precious, something I really wanted and then I wouldn't have a clue what to do with this. Is this the answer that I don't know?

About the 4 letter L word...
I remember, once good few months ago (before the transference stuff), I was talking about something, about wanting to be loved, about feeling like this and like that because of whatever.
And he asked me out of a sudden: "What if somebody loved you first?" I was kind of surprised by this question, but I replied: "No, I have to stop being sad first", and the other reply to this question that was somewhere at the back of my had was: "Of course I wanted somebody to love me first, but it turned out not to be the case. I was waiting and waiting and nobody did. I wouldn't be here if it would happen".
Why did he ask me this question? Did he mean the therapy?

He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not...

quote:

Originally posted by pippi:
They cant be our friends because that would be bad for us and if they didnt care then they wouldnt stick to the boundaries. It would be so much easier to give into breaking the boundaries than to stick to them and make patients mad and frustrated about it.

I wish I could survey 1000 therapists and find out how true this is, if it really would be easier for them to just give in to us. If you are right, Pippi, that would only encourage me to try harder.

Hi Amazon! Don't know if the answer is the answer you don't know - I guess if it was to start with it isn't any more! sorry about the silly mood... but really, maybe there's something in just knowing that you really, really want him to care. & how would you know if he did care? that's my other 'killer' question...

I have only had a total of 17 therapists working with me over the last 10 years. Most of them were male. Every single one of them have told me that they keep the boundaries for our safety but that it would be much easier to be able to break those boundaries. It would be easier to be friends with the patients they want to be friends with cause they have some patients they have a lot in common with and would love to spend time outside of the therapy room with. And another reason I know this is true because my psychologist from my high school saw me for my 12th grade year. His boundaries didnt have to be as strict so he would answer when I called him at home and help me. He also let me start emailing him weekly after I graduated because it was too hard for me to stop seeing him cause I was so in love. I graduated in 2001 and he is still letting me write him weekly and he responds to me weekly. He also started a couple years ago coming to see me at my P's office once every six months. He is actually coming to the next appointment. He is doing this because I told him I really missed him and wanted to see him and after thinking about it for awhile he agreed to come see me. He still sticks to boundaries we agreed on when I graduated of no phone calls, no coming to his office or the school to see him, he wont be my therapist again, and we only write once a week through email. But he does not get paid for anything he does for me. His weekly emails are the best therapy I have ever gotten and I love his visits, they mean so much to me, but he doesnt get paid for any of it, yet he still does it because he was my therapist and he cares about me. When I was his patient he stuck to every boundary he had to and stuck the rule of waiting two years before seeing me outside of therapy. My P tells me all the time he cares that much about me and it would be easier to just let me do what I want to do and be his friend or act like a father figure to me or hang out with him at his house or go with him when he goes on bike rides and just spend time with him because that wouldnt bother him at all, but he has to follow the boundaries that are set and there are reasons they are there and therapy wouldnt work right if we didnt do it. I keep thinking about the fact that after two years of not being in therapy with him he could be my friend, but I just dont know how i could possibly make it two years with out seeing or talking to him, I am just way to in love with him or I would end therapy just so I could wait those two years and then be his friend.

Just to reply the therapeutic question number 2:

How would I know if he did care?

Yeah, how? I think I should know it by now. He never gave me a reason to think or feel that he doesn't care. All I've ever got from him was care, and attention and understanding (and I would like to add love too). But then that doesn't give me the right to assume for him that he does care. Sometimes I just don't believe him. I keep questioning it. Maybe he is just putting on an act. Even if he said, yes I do care I still would question it. What does it mean? I would think it is not really true, because whatever. There is a way to find out. Test, ask, talk about it?
I think that's why I am really afraid to talk about it, because I know he would not tell me a lie. He would have to tell the truth. I'm afraid of what he could tell. The answer could be "I'm sorry but..." What if the answer would be the kind of answer I would like to hear? Then at first I wouldn't know what to do, maybe I would be even scared, but later on I would want to scream "This is not enough!"

This is childish and crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by Jones:
I was wondering about the question 'does he care'. If he did care, what would it mean to you? How do you think it would change things for you in the therapy?

For me,I need the therapist to care before I can trust him/her. If they are just "doing their job" and following a textbook of how to run therapy and "fix" clients, I don't want to tell them anything - if it is completely impersonal from their end, how can I disclose personal information to them? With that inequality, I can't. If they are not personally invested in my therapy in some way, then I will not open up to them or share any of the humiliation and shame that is ‘me’ with them.

quote:

Originally posted by Amazon:
Just to reply the therapeutic question number 2:

How would I know if he did care?

This is my problem. Everything my therapists (past and present) have done has shown they, in some ways anyway, care....some in more ways than others (in terms of giving me their time, reassuring me, taking the time to listen to what I am saying and not assuming they know/understand everything)...but I always question it...am I misreading it? Are they really so good at carrying out the "textbook" directions, that they have just convinced me they care when really they don't? And in light of all their other clients etc., how is it that they even could care about me when I can't compete with anyone else? So that is why I get stuck in therapy. Whenever I start to think the therapist does care (and that therefore I can open up to them), then I second guess my conclusion and go right back to square one of not trusting. Doesn't help make therapy easy! For either the therapist or me!

Hi everyone! I think it depends on the person really. I mean I guess to some degree they have to care, right? I had 2 different people I talked to when I was younger. One I loved going to the other I didn't. He would always fall asleep on me while I spoke to him.

The woman, she was the greatest. The nicest person. I feel she helped me but I havn't been to see anyone since that. Ive been thinking maybe I need to.

quote:

Yes, this is one of the many questions that I think, think really hard and I simply don't know the answer.

Less thinking, more feeling... my T said.

Amazon, I've been mulling over this, thinking thinking, and I think your T's response is probably ideal!

I guess the conclusion I was coming to is that if there is no way to definitively know by someone's else's words or behaviour that they care, the answer lies inside us. Maybe feeling the feelings as they are, fully and wholeheartedly, and sharing that, is the only way forward.

Sucks if the feelings are hard, though.

Hi All and welcome to the forums GrannySmith32!

I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents to the discussion. First off I don't think it's crazy or immature that people are struggling with this. For people with attachment injuries, it's often true that the first time we depended on someone caring for us, when it was a life and death matter, it was a failure. Our needs were not met, there was no attunement and not really anyone there to depend on. And at times we had to do terrible things and deny our very selves in order to stay close enough to get whatever little care we could get.

With that experience, doesn't it make sense that trusting that someone cares for you might be difficult? It took me two solid years with a T who very very rarely messed up to be able to begin to trust him. Not because of him but because on such a deep, unconscious level I had learned that you don't trust anyone's care. What semblance of care I had was often just a prelude to being used to meet someone else's needs. It's like having 20 people in a row come into your home and steal from you, then being told not to worry about the 21st visitor! Of course it's hard to trust!

All that said, I believe the majority of therapists are caring decent people doing their best to help their clients heal. That although we pay for their professional expertise and insight, we cannot buy their caring. That grows out of a very real, though bounded, intimate relationship.

It has taken me a very long time, but I can honestly say that I know that my T really cares for me (I would probably even use the word loves) and my well being. It may be only an hour a week but for that hour he is totally concentrated on me and my well being and what happens between us is real and sincere. I have gone to places with him and shown him things about me and how I feel that no one else has ever seen and he has responded with an incredible empathy, understanding and compassion. There's only so much you can fake and I don't believe you can on that level. It's been difficult to let go of my fear that the instant I trust his care it would blow up in my face, but I really do know that I can trust it.

When trusting is this scary, it's care and compassion that's scary, we know how to deal with rejection and abuse. We were discussing this once and my T brought up Aldonza's song from Man of La Mancha. She's a prositute who had been beaten and abused starting with her father and she tells Don Quixote that he was the cruelest of all because he called her a lady. The lyrics are below:

Of all the cruel bastards
Who've badgered and battered me,
You are the cruelest of all!
Can't you see what your gentle Insanities do to me?
Rob me of anger and give me despair!
Blows and abuse I can take and give back again,
Tenderness I cannot bear!

I remember him telling me about it and breaking down and sobbing when I realized just how scary it was to acknowledge care. It gave me something to lose; and I had learned a bitter lesson too well that lose it I would. What has been so healing has been experiencing that I really could trust it, that I wasn't going to lose the good this time. The ambivalence of the theraputic relationship can make it difficult to believe, especially because so many of the markers and signals we depend on in "real life" can't be present because of the boundaries, but I believe within the confines of those boundaries what you see and feel and receive are real.

AG

AG

Thanks Attachment girl for the welcome!

Hi, I'm new to this forum but I thought I would chime in.

I genuinely think my t cares. However, it is different than a friend that cares; she goes home and does not worry about me (hopefully) the way a friend might. If she did not care, she would not be a good t. I've been seeing her for 18 months now and I've never had negative 'vibes' from her.

To put a different spin on it.. I'm a hospice nurse. Do I care about my patients and their families? When I'm at work, absolutely!! But when I am done working for the day (in my case, night), I "leave it at the door." Otherwise, I would take their baggage home with me, and burn out in no time. And I wouldn't be an effective nurse.

I hope this helps. I love this forum!

I have not posted much lately, but have been around and thinking of everyone one here. I wanted to throw my hat into the ring on this topic! AG, as always, your response is thoughtful, eloquent and thorough!

My T and I have had numerous talks about this over time. I definitely feel how much she cares for me: she shows me she cares in so many ways both in and out of sessions. However, I have wondered if she actually loves me, and have craved hearing that. She has very directly told me how much she cares about me, but has never come out and used the "L" word. When we talked about how important it was for me to know whether she loved me (or not), she did not answer directly. Instead, what she asked is if I FEEL loved by her. I Do. She suggested that instead of doubting my feelings that I simply trust them. This was really calming to me, and helped me to feel more secure in how she was feeling about me.

I try to go back to that idea if I need reassurance that she cares, and allow myself to feel that caring. Just my thoughts. . . .

I didn't stop processing this question. I'm stuck with it.
I know it is important for me to FEEL that he cares. I understand that if he felt that he couldn't care or empathize with me he would refer me to someone else long time ago, before things went too far. For the first 5 months every session he saw me crying. I think there was not a single session that I would not cry most of the time. I went into the crying and pittying mode from the very start, and he even didn't know me then, but he let me cry and pity myself all the time. I was even wondering how can he stand that mysery.
I know if my T was a woman I would feel and believe that she cares, I would feel and trust my feeling, I wouldn't be afraid so much of being hurt or rejected or whatever. It would be different. What I understand and assume is different from what I feel and trust. Maybe because I never experienced true, genuine care from a man and now it is very difficult for me to recognize it. Is it care? Is it manipulation? Is it pretending? I asked him if it would be different with a woman, and he said that probably it would be. Because it's the fear of rejection.
Some of you know and feel their Ts care about them, maybe even love, but definitly do give love.
I'm not at this stage yet. Sometimes I recall moments when I felt connected, when I felt so close and he was so good to me, but then I shake them off, no it's not true, he was just acting. I'm afraid to really bring out this topic and confront him, because he would have to tell the truth, and what it it would be something that hurts. What it he would just leave it and not answer because he wouldn't want to hurt me? Maybe because I have to know for myself, that's not something he can tell me? I want to believe that he cares. I want to trust my feelings. I want to believe in all those moments when I felt being taken care of, or maybe loved, being offered something precious...

Hi Amazon,

I'm rushing right now but I was just really struck by this post. I'm not trying to make light and bright of your pain, but I want to say it's wonderful that therapy is leading you into such a deep engagement with this question of how to feel a man's care and love for you. I can imagine that when your body and mind have learned (through experience) to feel that, it will be an amazing thing in your life.

Hi Psyched out!
Love the name! Welcome to the forums, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Hi WhereamI,
It's wonderful to see you around again, I've missed you. Thank you for your, as always, kind words.

Hi Amazon,
I want you to know that although I can say with confidence now that my T cares for me, I felt exactly like you do for a very long time. It was a very long road to being able to trust him. (I also want you to know that I can count on one hand the number of sessions I HAVEN'T cried during. When I was in the midst of grieving, I would actually just sit and sob for five and ten minutes at a time. Yet he stayed with me.) I would urge you to speak of how your feeling. Your (our!) inability to be able to trust that you're cared for is important information about what you do in relationships. Examining those feelings, and understanding why you have them is important to your healing so that you don't have to doubt any longer. I have been very open with my T aobut my doubts and fears about the relationship and he has been very understanding and accepting and not been defensive because he understands where those feelings are coming from. He doesn't take it personally.

I also really relate to what you said about it being different because he's a man. I worked with my first T, a woman, for over 18 years, and there were issues I just didn't get to until I worked with a man, because so many of my issues surrounded my relationship with my dad, who abused me. They just didn't surface until I was IN a relationship with a man.

And Jones is right, you're going very deep which is where you need to be. You can't see it right now but you're in the midst of healing. But it's very scary and confusing when you're in the middle of it. It's really good that you're coming here to talk about it. Being aware that you're feeling this way is more than half the battle.

AG

Thanks guys...
But then I am obsessing about another thing: if I'm doing so well on my way to healing, does it mean that I can start packing up?
That's not what I want.

Hey everyone, i'm new to this site, been following this post and i too struggle believe my therapist cares about me and ive been seeing her for 3 years. I 'm so glad i found this site

Hello guys. I’ve just reread this thread as it keys in with something I asked over in another thread and the comments here are really making me think again.

I’m getting the impression that there’s an anticipated progression from a therapist’s caring about a client to ultimately loving a client. Which reminds me of an incident with one of my (many lol) former therapists.

I’d been seeing this therapist for several months (and getting nowhere) when one session completely out of the blue and unrelated to anything I’d been talking about he suddenly says ‘I love you’ (not in any particularly emotional way more as a statement.)

Well I just sat there stunned thinking wtf? What does he mean by that? And felt that he was expecting some sort of specific response to it - like gratitude, or that I was supposed to suddenly realize that I was being loved and that was supposed to mean something significant for me. I even freaked out about what he really meant by saying that. Did he mean he had fallen in love with me (unlikely but I was pretty frightened by what was going on.) In the end I felt so uncomfortable about it and all I could say was ‘I don’t know what I am supposed to say to that’.

Well blow me down if he didn’t start crying - not full on but wiped away a tear or two and that REALLY freaked me out, and I got quite defensive trying to explain to him that it had totally confused me but his response was to sort of minimize it all and say something like, ‘ I thought you might have appreciated hearing that’ (I don’t remember it too clearly, it was a while ago).

In retrospect I was both terrified by it and really really resentful at the same time. I felt that it was totally out of order to say something like that - firstly if he thought that throwing something like that at me when our relationship wasn’t one of openness and trust and caring in the first place was somehow going to magically fix me, or mean something profound to me when it was the very LAST thing I was looking for from him and secondly that he responded so emotionally to my response to it. I really resented the pressure that put me under.

And that makes me realize now that what I DON’T want from a therapist is any expression of their own emotion. I want my therapist to be strong and in control and able to fully BE THERE for ME, to take whatever stuff I’m going through and not dissolve in a puddle of his own feelings however much he might be affected by my feelings. It would make me instantly feel both responsible for affecting him and I’d feel I would have to be there for him - taking on a caring role I’m not prepared to do in therapy.

In fact another former therapist did something similar - she started crying a propos nothing and obviously that freaked me out but all she said was ‘don’t worry about it it’s nothing to do with you I’m just feeling affected by something outside of therapy’. So I’m left sitting there not only scared because she suddenly had an emotional outburst in my therapy, but that it apparently had nothing to do with me (which made me feel totally unimportant and made me experience her as not being there for me) and the worst bit was that she just brushed it aside and we didn’t even talk about it.

So maybe I’m defining here what it is for me to have a therapist care - and it doesn’t fall into the definition of what I’d expect as caring from a friend or parent or husband. Something like, being there for me, without bringing any of his feelings into it. I definitely do NOT WANT to know how or what he is feeling. Hmm.

Gosh I’m sorry I’ve really rambled again, getting these thoughts out and ending up writing a massively long post. Don’t know if what I’ve said is relevant at all to anyone - but it’s certainly helped me clarify better for me this whole caring therapist issue. Thanks!

Lamplighter

Hi Lamplighter,

I don't think you are rambling at all. I really enjoy reading your posts, and totally relate to something you said in another one of your posts, wanting to understand "how" therapy works before you jump in. I am very much the same way. In this post, I think you have very clearly described one of the most important features (maybe even THE most important feature) that sets therapy apart from a "normal" relationship: that the therapist doesn't allow their "stuff" into the room.

AG has described so beautifully how therapy works because we can't know ourselves outside of relationship. And obviously our problematic thinking/feeling comes from our unconscious, otherwise we probably wouldn't be in therapy. In normal relationships with others outside of therapy, we can't see our "blind spots" because their stuff is mixed in with ours. Therapy is our chance to have JUST "our stuff" in the room so we can see it all by itself, without it being "mixed in" with someone else's. Then, hopefully, we can finally see those blind spots and make the changes we want to make.

Keeping their "stuff" out of the room must be very, very difficult for therapists. In my mind, that is the "work" that we're paying them for. We're not paying them to "like" us, but to make the relationship all about our needs. But in order to do that, they have to know what their stuff is, just like we do, right? So it makes sense that the BEST, most effective therapists are the ones who have done their own therapy so they are aware enough of their stuff so they can keep it out of the room and not make the therapy about their needs. If they haven't done their own therapy, then chances are much greater that their unconscious stuff will get in the way of the therapy - in effect, turn it back into a "normal" relationship (or a "reenactment).

Unfortunately not every training program requires that therapists go through their own therapy. And even if they do, how do they know for sure when they are "done"? It is something that is inherently hard to measure.

So even though they get paid to keep their needs out of the room, it makes sense that not every therapist can do it with every patient. Due to the inexactness of therapy, there are bound to be some patient-therapist combinations that just do not work out, because something about the patient triggers something in the therapist that the T has not worked on yet in themselves (assuming that the patient is cooperative and doesn't bolt or do something that threatens the T's safety).

I can totally understand your feelings of fear and resentment in both situations you described. Both of those T's were allowing their needs to infringe on your therapy...and you felt it in your reaction of feeling like you needed to take care of them. And of course you don't want to do that in therapy. Because then it wouldn't BE therapy!

One of the most challenging "needs" to keep out of the room must be the need to "do a good job" or "be a good therapist". That's a really understandable need...but still, it could get in the way, because "good" will look different for each and every patient! It sounds like that might be what happened with the one who said "I love you". It sounded like he really was looking for some gratitude, looking for affirmation that he was doing a good job. Understandable...but still a need of his that muddles your therapy.

This T is an expert at keeping her stuff out of the room. And I am all the more grateful for it! She has disclosed just enough about herself for me to know that she has been through some difficult stuff herself and has definitely done her own therapy. But even when she tells me about herself, it is always to clarify something in my therapy. It is never for her own needs. I never feel the need to take care of her.

The "downside" of this (not really, but sometimes feels like it) is that I'm coming face to face with myself...and I think that's why I'm starting to get irritated. No big surprise there, really...if my problems were pleasant, then they wouldn't be problems, right? Lately I've started wishing she WOULD make it about herself sometimes, to take the pressure off of ME. Not really, of course. This is just a sign that the therapy is progressing as it should.

She made a joke about this very subject yesterday that still has me laughing. When I arrived, I mentioned that it was foggy on the way in. She said it reminds her of her apartment in Seattle where she could hear the boat horns on days like this. Then she said, "I really miss that about Seattle. I'd better stop talking about it, or I'll start crying"...and then she pretended to start crying and said "I'm sorry! I know, it's supposed to be about you! I guess I need a therapist..." The way she said it was just way too funny and we both cracked up for a few minutes. It was great and every time I think about it I get a huge grin on my face.

Thanks for all your great questions and posts, Lamplighter...they are really helping to clarify my own experience as well!

SG

Hi Monte - no, your questions aren’t too personal. I’m just having a problem thinking of how to answer them briefly.

Will I attach to my current T with a similar intensity as I did to my old T? I really doubt it, because she’s a woman. My attachments to men have always been much more intense (and unhealthy) than my attachments to women (relatively normal and healthy). Which doesn’t seem to make much sense given that my mom was the one who abandoned me almost from birth, at least emotionally. But that is definitely my pattern.

My current T’s approach would also certainly be a factor in keeping my feelings under control (or “contained” as they say)...but as a woman, she doesn’t trigger the same intense insecurity, fear of abuse and abandonment that my attachment to a man does. So the containment is there this time but there’s not nearly as much to contain.

As for my previous experience, sometimes I wonder if it was the first part of what needs to be a two-part process for me. What I was really hoping for was to work through the transference with him, to fix whatever's wrong with me regarding men, and then apply what I learned to my marriage. But now I'm beginning to think that maybe it had to be this way...and that’s where this post would get mega-ultra-long, if I were to try to explain it. Suffice it to say that I’m trying to process the feelings that came up with him, within her containment. (sometimes I worry that she might resent that...no signs of it yet, but I worry about it.)

As for the need to know she cares and has some sort of personal/emotional response to me...I think it was unusually strong at first, probably because of the feeling I’d had from my former T throughout the therapy (that I’d hoped I was projecting), that he really wished he hadn’t suggested meeting with me, that he was afraid of me, annoyed by me, and was just waiting for the chance to get rid of me. This perception actually made me feel more insecure and needier, and my coping mechanism was to be "good" so that he wouldn't leave me. But my perception was confirmed by the nature of the transfer and his coldness at the transfer session. So I was afraid with her, at first...but she has confirmed for me that she really does care, both directly by my asking, and indirectly by the way she behaves. So my "need" seems to have quieted down...probably because it is being met. I most definitely feel that she cares, and it’s just the right amount...not too much and not too little.

Now...if I could just get on with the rackafrackin’ therapy already! I am getting impatient. She is doing everything so beautifully right (I’m sorry I keep bragging on her, but seriously, I’ve done a lot of reading about how T’s are supposed to be with us, and she’s got it down). I want to be able to feel whatever I need to feel but I STILL start shutting down about a day before my session. I did this with the former T too and it is SO annoying. I know I can FEEL, for crying out loud...sometimes I'm nothing but a huge mass of emotion. But only when I'm alone...and even that has been dwindling lately. What is going on here? I even tried reading something out loud to her that I’d written when the emotions were really going, hoping to jump-start myself a little...but it ended up sounding hollow, like I was reading something someone else had written! It was a poem, and I was really proud of it. But when I heard it out loud in front of her, it sounded unbelievably stupid. Come to think of it, that same phenomenon happened when I read stuff to the former T. I wonder what's up with that.

So...I tried to keep this short but I ended up rambling anyway...but thanks for asking, Monte!

SG

One other thing I wish I could know, so I could make sense of the therapy with the previous T, is did he really care about me? There were so many conflicting messages, and I don't really know for absolute certain if the conflict was due to him and his stuff, or to me and my perceptions. Maybe I was so afraid that I might mistake his caring for "something else" that my mistrust drove him away. I know this is probably a silly conclusion to draw, but...he kept saying he's a "dog" person, and that he hates cats...dogs are usually more trusting right away, cats usually are slower to trust...so maybe it was my slowness to trust him, my "cattiness", that annoyed him so much. There were so many questions left unanswered and it makes me really sad sometimes. Like right now.

Hi SG, I'm just popping in to comment on some things you mention in your last posts. As for your ex-T... it really doesn't matter if he is an dog, cat or pony person it was not about HIM but about you and what you needed and he was not able to see that. No one with our backgrounds will trust a T right away. They have to work to earn our trust and they should be aware of that and so.. no... I do not think it was your inability to trust him that caused the disruption of the relationship. I just don't think he had the experience and knowledge to help you in the way he needed to. None of this was your fault and I see that is where you are trying to place it... on your shoulders. I see this because I do it all the time. My T and I just discussed this today and I told him that it's always my fault because then maybe ... somehow... I can figure out what I did wrong so I can "fix" things or avoid the problems next time around. What happened was not your fault and I can see that very clearly although you may have trouble with this. We can always see more clearly when it's not us.

As for the feeling that you are shutting down in therapy...I have also been feeling this way lately. I told my T today that I have sort of pulled into my shell and he asked me if trust has been eroded in some way and I could only say it was feeling a bit shaky lately. So then we launched into a conversation about safety and trust and what they mean and our relationship and what it means and how I feel and all of a sudden I was not shut down any longer but getting very emotional and telling him some important stuff. He then told me some things that I need to think about. He seems to realize and accept now how important he is to me but he does not want me to feel I need to be something other than myself in this relationship to keep the relationship going. He said he wants me to know myself and in doing so I won't lose him because the better I know myself the more I can also know him. Hmmm...need to think on that.

Anyway, I digress... what I wanted to say is that sometimes I think we put too much pressure on ourselves for how we think a session should go and that stops us from being open and spontaneously expressing things. As a good friend pointed out, just because you are not going to some horrible painful places and sobbing does not mean that it was not a good, productive session. Sometimes it's just in talking about the relationship is where we do the work because it always ends up going back to the past and connecting with feelings from there. Since most of the damage we experienced was done through interpersonal relationships it is only through having a good relationship with out Ts that models much different responses to us that we can heal the old wounds.

I think that you have been doing very well with your new T and that you should be easy on yourself. Therapy is not linear and can be very bumpy and you can only go as fast as you can go. Everyone has those dry spells where they feel like they are not doing it right but it will happen for you when the time is right. And you will know when that happens. Just hang in there.

TN

Monte, your story really moved me. I too carry within me an image, a dream, a past crush. It faded away already over the years, but it happened that I dreamt about him after my feelings were gone and other persons moved forward to the spotlight in my life.
I briefly told about it to my T, without getting into details yet.

I don't really know if this pain makes us richer...
I think it may make the existing wound deeper, I really don't know if it does any good. I know it was part of my learning but it was painful learning. And I still didn't get the lesson apparently, since I still need a teacher, a guide.
And I don't understand who my therapist is since he said: I am not your teacher. I am not the guide you dreamt of when you were younger.
Who is he then?

BlackBird, thanks for your reassurances. I'm so grateful I have somewhere to go to talk this stuff out, and that I don't get kicked off for repeating myself!

Monte, thank you for telling me about your counselor. I'm so sorry for your painful experience. "Life is just like that"??? WTF??? As you are lying in a hospital bed, no less...I just don't get it. As for pain making us "rich" in depth and compassion...yes, I think you are right. Being heard and understood is HUGE when it comes to healing, and the only ones who truly hear and understand are those who have "been there & done that" (with or without buying the t-shirt ). So thank you for hearing and understanding...and for reminding me that there really is nothing to do but go on.

SG

Hi TN,

I just wanted to say, I'm glad you had what sounds like a really good, interesting session with your T about having been shut down, so that you opened up a bit. I especially liked what he said:

quote:

He seems to realize and accept now how important he is to me but he does not want me to feel I need to be something other than myself in this relationship to keep the relationship going. He said he wants me to know myself and in doing so I won't lose him because the better I know myself the more I can also know him.

That sounds incredibly reassuring!

And I had to kind of laugh at this:

quote:

As a good friend pointed out, just because you are not going to some horrible painful places and sobbing does not mean that it was not a good, productive session.

Um...I guess I kind of had the assumption that a session wasn't "good" unless there was raging anger or wracking sobs...it's like I'm watching the clock, tapping my foot, waiting for the weather to show up. Good luck with that, right? Thanks for reminding me to chill out.

And good luck with your T...I'd love to hear where your thoughts and therapy go after what he said to you about not needing to be something in particular in order to keep the relationship going. I think maybe that was a really important thing for him to point out.

SG

Hi Strummergirl!

Thanks for sharing your feelings (again ). We're all here to listen as much as you need to vent, so don't apologize for expressing the things you need to express. This place (which translates as all of you terrific people) has been a wonderful sounding board for me, and although I haven't posted a whole lot (yet) I have found some great support and encouragement when I've really needed it. That's what this place is really all about, isn't it?

I just wanted to say that I honestly don't think that your therapist is going to get irritated by your need to talk about this ex-T issue repeatedly until it's resolved. It's her job to listen and help you work through your issues. I know it's uncomfortable to bring things up again when you feel like your T will wonder why you're revisiting old stuff, but if it's really bothering you, it's something that still needs to be dealt with. That's why you're in therapy, right?!?!? Hang in there, and keep chipping away at it until it's gone!

MTF

Hi SG...yeah those things that he told me about being me and knowing myself were really powerful statements and I keep thinking about them. Trouble is... I don't know who I am. I've always been so busy trying to be what my mother wanted me to be, or what my boss expects me to be, or what my husbands thinks I should be that I have never taken the time to know who I am and what I want. I guess this is something I'm always working on in therapy. Maybe not in a focused way but it's there in the background. We talk about me and my T listens and makes observations. He does not tell me how to be... he just lets me BE. But he really believes in me, whoever I am. I know that and it means a lot to me. I guess we learn who we are by seeing ourselves, when we can be our real selves, reflected back from our Ts.

I think what was also really significant about these last two sessions was that we talked a lot about our relationship, about trust and about the disruptions but he did not back away from my feelings and he accepts his place in my life as someone vitally important to me. He could not always do this. I think it was a bit unsettling for him to acknowledge this and when he would move back I could tell and it would freak me out and then I would shut down in defense mode and we would get stuck again. I think we are now aware of this and we are both working to avoid this happening.

I'm really looking forward to our next session.

As for what you need to talk about with your new T... I think that she undestands how hard it is to deal with a termination that had no closure. I think she expects you to talk about it often until the trauma of it subsides and it becomes just another memory... one that no longer has the power to hurt you. The other things is that you don't really know her very long and it takes time to build the relationship and be able to dig deep into the emotional and painful stuff. It will come with time. If you think you are talking too much about the ex-T then ask her about it. That's the best way to find out. Oh and my good friend who gave me that advice is very wise and so I listen to her.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

TN