Ran across this article. Discusses the importance of doctor/client relationship. Kind of reaffirms what we've explored here on the cafe about the importance of attunement.
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/...tient-bond/?hpt=Sbin
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Thank you R2G. It explains why I was feeling so much better with my OldT even though he didn't feel that he was experienced enough in my issues. It was the quality and strength of our relationship and how I felt about him that helped me to heal and to feel better. I tried to tell him this. To explain to him that his caring and his natural warmth and the intimacy we shared was more powerful than expertise in a particular form of therapy. I so much wanted him to understand this because I felt myself getting better and healing. And I always told him that one of the most important things he gave me was hope. I believed in him and in us. It's just so sad that he could not.
TN
TN
TN, Go back and read what you wrote. It was YOU who had the hope. IMVHO, you need to own that. That hope is going to take you far in life. You could teach OldT a thing or two about hope. Again IMVHO, he didn't have hope and that's what the problem was. I don't know what your plans are in terms of your schooling but you would make a far better T than OldT. Not knowing him the way you do, my guess is that he just has charimsa but he's not the real deal. He's probably a narcissist, which is why you fell for him. He would probably never take a look at himself to see what his part in this whole mess was. At least that's what I am hearing. It seems as though has has in the past and continues to place the blame solely on you.
TN, I want to share with you my own personal experience. For the first three years of my therapy, my T was basically "flawless". He "almost" always seemed to say the right things. I really liked him. I felt so lucky to have landed in his office. I was attached but I didn't realize it. Anyway, I was functioning better than ever. I was working 4 days a week for my H, who can't manage his life, taking care of the 4 kids, doing the food shopping, cooking gourmet meals every night, running the kids around after school, and probably even taking the blame for my H's professional and personal failures, as well as any short-comings in my kids. It was my bad mothering, not their personality. It had nothing to do with my H's nonexistent parenting either. Nope, just all me. What a woman. T was just letting me continue on in my same old dysfunctional patterns by not challening me. I had this relationship all built up in my head. And, yes, he does care about me, but the relationship has to be genuine. I have to take his feelings about me into account, the caring part but also the fact that it's never going anywhere outside the office and that it's probably much more special to me than to him. Still struggle with all of that but as I do, my relationship with T becomes much more genuine.
But when T started to pull at the rug a little at the end of last summer (when I found this website) my world came crashing down and suddenly I became nonfunctional. He lets me stay in my state of denial for only so long and then he pulls at the rug again. The insecurity in my relationship with him helps me to see my life more clearly as well as my negative emotions and all the pain I was trying to suppress. I was clinging to him, hoping he would take away all my negative emotions and my pain. I think part of my growth over the 7 months has been acknowledging and coming to terms with all this pain. (Still working on it!!!)
I know that you felt as though you were functioning really well with Old T and that when things ended you weren't at least initially functioning well. And sometimes still, you have your good days and bad days. But really, all the pain and the setbacks are part and parcel of who you are. Who any of us is. As much as I want to, I can't wipe out my past and pretend it was flawless, perfect or easy. Because it wasn't. I still don't know how, when I reenter society, how I will feel around people who have had it easy. Or maybe that's all in my mind, that there are people out there, at my age, who still believe life is easy. Maybe I'm talking about people who have navigated the social ropes easier than I have, who might not "get" what I've done to myself to get love, the hurt I've experienced.
Anyway, I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. Just wanted to let you know that I went through this amazing superwoman phase with my own T for three years. But it wasn't really getting at my core issues. I think I had a superficial attachment to him that existed only in my own mind. And now we are working on the real, genuine attachment. I don't know if this helps ease your pain but .... I hope it does a little.
Thinking of you,
Liese
TN, I want to share with you my own personal experience. For the first three years of my therapy, my T was basically "flawless". He "almost" always seemed to say the right things. I really liked him. I felt so lucky to have landed in his office. I was attached but I didn't realize it. Anyway, I was functioning better than ever. I was working 4 days a week for my H, who can't manage his life, taking care of the 4 kids, doing the food shopping, cooking gourmet meals every night, running the kids around after school, and probably even taking the blame for my H's professional and personal failures, as well as any short-comings in my kids. It was my bad mothering, not their personality. It had nothing to do with my H's nonexistent parenting either. Nope, just all me. What a woman. T was just letting me continue on in my same old dysfunctional patterns by not challening me. I had this relationship all built up in my head. And, yes, he does care about me, but the relationship has to be genuine. I have to take his feelings about me into account, the caring part but also the fact that it's never going anywhere outside the office and that it's probably much more special to me than to him. Still struggle with all of that but as I do, my relationship with T becomes much more genuine.
But when T started to pull at the rug a little at the end of last summer (when I found this website) my world came crashing down and suddenly I became nonfunctional. He lets me stay in my state of denial for only so long and then he pulls at the rug again. The insecurity in my relationship with him helps me to see my life more clearly as well as my negative emotions and all the pain I was trying to suppress. I was clinging to him, hoping he would take away all my negative emotions and my pain. I think part of my growth over the 7 months has been acknowledging and coming to terms with all this pain. (Still working on it!!!)
I know that you felt as though you were functioning really well with Old T and that when things ended you weren't at least initially functioning well. And sometimes still, you have your good days and bad days. But really, all the pain and the setbacks are part and parcel of who you are. Who any of us is. As much as I want to, I can't wipe out my past and pretend it was flawless, perfect or easy. Because it wasn't. I still don't know how, when I reenter society, how I will feel around people who have had it easy. Or maybe that's all in my mind, that there are people out there, at my age, who still believe life is easy. Maybe I'm talking about people who have navigated the social ropes easier than I have, who might not "get" what I've done to myself to get love, the hurt I've experienced.
Anyway, I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. Just wanted to let you know that I went through this amazing superwoman phase with my own T for three years. But it wasn't really getting at my core issues. I think I had a superficial attachment to him that existed only in my own mind. And now we are working on the real, genuine attachment. I don't know if this helps ease your pain but .... I hope it does a little.
Thinking of you,
Liese