That is interesting. When it says T 'occupies one of these roles', did the article give a list of roles that are different possibilites to occupy?

That sounds really interesting.

Can you post a link to the article?



SB

My T will often help me to figure out 'who she was' or what was coming up, what was represented in some of my responses… though not all. If I'm triggered by something, for example, we will look at it from that perspective. She even triggered me badly today, and after thought I could place the situation. It doesn't discredit the current stuff, but definitely helps to uncover where exactly I am stuck.

Hi,

I was just coming back here to post the link. Sorry it took me so long. It's a really terrific article. And, yes, AH, the article does talk about what role the therapist will tend to fall in as well as the client. It's very eye opening.

((((AG))))

Yes, I did read it. I liked some paragraphs more than others. At some point in my life I decided that I wasn't entitled to have any boundaries. I didn't know why but I accepted it as my fate. I do struggle with boundaries a lot, both mine and others. They can trigger some really intense pain for me. I do think I'm getting to the point where I'm almost able to contain my intrustions enough so that I can see they are coming from the past and not the present - though triggered by some aspect of my relationship with my therapist. I definitely need to do some major work in this area.

Some boundaries I am okay with. When I get those emotional intrusions, however, I find that it's much harder for me to understand because generally I am in so much pain.

This is the paragraph I liked the most and emailed it to my therapist.

quote:

Boundaries of therapy vary from one theoretical orientation to another. Rigid adherence to a boundary when flexibility or compassion is appropriate is itself a form of boundary violation. As Ochberg, one of the founders of modern trauma treatment, pointed out long ago (1988), a therapist working with trauma survivors cannot be neutral, behaviorally or morally, as moral neutrality is the functional equivalent of silently standing against the survivor in the Bystander position. There will be times when a therapist who has a norm of not touching clients may find it the morally non-neutral thing to do to hold on to a client’s hand as she is living through a flashback or sobbing in grief. There will be times when a therapist who always and only works within the 50-minute session framework will book regular double sessions with the client whose developmental trauma has shut down Broca’s area, making speech slow and painful. Each one of these “boundary crossings,” as they are referred to, must not be done impulsively, although they may occur spontaneously. The therapist must take the time, however briefly, to consider how this is indeed right, and not rescuing, and then have a discussion of the boundary crossing and its meanings to both parties at the soonest therapeutically appropriate moment.

I have had such a hard time with his no-touch policy. He does sit close to me now - but this was after 2 years? of pain and negotiation. He will also touch my shin when I am in a lot of pain. I did notice he seemed to be even closer yesterday. We didn't discuss that part of the article because we had so many other things to discuss but I wondered what he thought of it. I probably won't ask. Just let him chew on it and decide for himself how he feels about it.

That's a good article - thanks so much for posting it!

I haven't read it all yet, but I was struck at the bit about counter transference and the therapist silencing the survivor. I've so experienced that! The T I'm seeing at the moment is NOT like this - I have been able to talk (although admittedly have done reporting and missing out feeling). Previous T - it was a nightmare, she would close every opening I made. So by the end of the session I was left with half said things I'd had to move on from. If I tried to discuss it with her, she would apologise for not listening properly - and then do the same thing over. sigh.

Liese, just wanted to thank you for the post and the link - I haven't read all of it but I found it very useful and quite timely actually. I think some of these types of enactments can end up happening in lots of situations and in my experience I don't think it is always limited to trauma survivors. I could even see some echoes of victim, rescuer, perpetrator type behaviours when I was thinking about how people deal with each other in the workplace for example.

It was helpful for me to reflect on times where I have adopted different roles and have not necessarily recognised it at the time.

I think one of the most useful parts of the article is where it says it's important to recognise that clients will sometimes feel ashamed of the idea that enactments can happen between client and T and that somehow it is their fault for being so 'broken' or 'damaged' that they are 'pulling' their T into it. So, while exploring it is potentially a very freeing thing to do, it is also a sensitive topic that needs careful handling. I think Ts sometimes forget that what may be normal to them is totally new to clients. The other thing I think it really rammed home to me is how important it is for Ts to really keep examining their own experience, learn to recognise their own cues and to use supervision openly and honestly to colleagues can help them manage their own countertransference so can be used therapeutically and not become damaging to the client.

Pengs, I think it is common for people to consciously and unconsciously defend themselves from situations that feel that they might be threatening or damaging. Although it doesn't happen with me when reading about things so much, I do know what it is like to exist in a state of hypervigilence where I have either dissociated or done other stuff to protect myself from the perceived threat (like running away, or getting angry to scare the threat away)

My T said once that it can be hard to recognise when we are in it that we visit the past but we don't live there. I wanted to laugh when she said it because when you're being swallowed up by it, it's more than hard to remind yourself that you are not where you once were and that you have agency and resources that you did not have then. Separating the past from the present is dead hard and it doesn't always affect people in the same way, which feels isolating too. Does that help any?

AG, thank you. I go through peaks and troughs, confidence-wise with this stuff so I'll take the external validation where I can get it!

Your last post resonates because I ran smack into some real ambivalence over the touch thing myself in a therapy session before Christmas. To summarise, I wound up bumping into a bunch of negative 'transference' (the inverted commas are there because I share your BN's reservations with the term but I've yet to find a better one!) towards my T; fear mainly. Lots and lots of fear. And then straight after, this extremely powerful wish to be taken care of and held but at the same time I sort of knew viscerally that if my T had touched me at that point, even though I was feeling it very strongly, it would have been really distressing. I literally have an image of me exploding into a million fragments. We've been picking what happened apart in subsequent sessions (joy) but it's brought the issue of touch into the foreground for me. I suspect it will grow legs as a topic too, which I am not particularly looking forward to dealing with because sometimes I would far rather exist in a state of denial regarding the push/pull nature of of my stuffed up attachment!

((((AG))))

quote:

it holds out the hope of changing things.

Honestly, that has been the story of my life. It's a quite optimistic view of things, don't you think? Somehow I never gave up hope even when I was banging my head against the wall.

I appreciate what you wrote very much. Accepting other people's boundaries is a huge issue for me. I certainly don't mean to be a boundary crasher. I just didn't get it. Not only did I try to change the other but mostly myself. Twisted and turned myself inside out to try to get my needs met.

I think touch has some incredibly healing properties as far as calming the nervous system and communicating safety and empathy to the limbic brain. I believe it in very strongly. It's hard for me to see my T's no-touch policy as love. If I could see it that way, I'd have an easier time of accepting it I think. I agree with the author's view that sometimes it's just the right thing to do morally. I thought it was interesting that she made an analogy between no-touch in some circumstances and being a bystander. Honestly, I really have felt that way. It felt neglectful, indifferent, cold.

If it wasn't an important need for me, I'm sure I wouldn't pay it much attention. For instance, my T doesn't let me in his house but I don't care about that so much. Sure, I'd love to see his house but it doesn't evoke the same intense feelings that no-touch does.

My T is quite quirky - as you probably know. He never even introduced himself to me. I didn't know what to call him and still can't call him anything at all. He never shakes hands. Never has - not even before or after our first session. He will sometimes stop in the hall so that I can pass him. He used to practically try to merge with the wall so that we didn't actually touch. It brought/brings up a lot of negative transference.

It's just as hard for me to understand why he didn't introduce himself. Why would a therapist NOT want people to know what to call him or care if they didn't call him anything at all? He says my name quite often. My guess is it's all about keeping distance - which is highly provocative to me and my issues. We probably weren't the most perfect emotional match but he and I continue to work together and we both have changed. His distance suited me very well for a long while because of my avoidant side. Had he moved in at all, I would have run in the other direction. It was the way he came across that I felt comfortable with. Ugggghhhhhh.

I know this is only tangentially related, but I went back to the preceding articles, because I like to read things in order to get a whole picture and came across the following:

quote:

While many individuals with CT present to treatment functioning at low levels of capacity, others, due to a variety of resilience factors, may have had success in academic and vocational settings, often utilizing those as coping strategies. Over-work, over-exercise, and other forms of over-involvement in otherwise healthy activities as a means of dissociative coping may lead such persons to appear high-functioning when they first enter treatment with lower-level Axis I complaints, only to appear to decompensate rapidly soon after therapy begins. Such clients also often have difficulties with and press upon the boundaries of psychotherapy, experiencing them as rejecting and cold, and will frequently take lengthy periods to develop a sense of trust in a therapist, leading to disruptions in the therapeutic alliance.

You have NO idea how long I have thought I must be making things up for attention, because this is exactly what happened to me (i.e. the rapid decompensation). Not that I didn't understand how just trying to relate to someone interpersonally could trigger all sorts of stuff. But, it felt so abnormal to go from so high functioning to literally disabled by psychological distress. The section on betrayal trauma and the impact on dissociation was also helpful in normalizing my experiences.

Anyway, because I found this article through this link (it's the first in the the series you posted about), I wanted to say thanks! (((Liese)))

(((SAPPHIRE BLUE)))

I can't even imagine how that must have made you feel. It would make me feel so invalidated if I felt silenced. That would have been retraumatizing.

(((SP)))

I've often found articles triggering. Now I choose the ones that validate my experience of the world. I'm sorry you found it triggering.

(((MALLARD)))

I'm glad you found the article helpful too. It is one of those that just resonated strongly for me. Yes, I agree with you about enactments and the non-therapy world. Been involved in a couple. Probably a lot of trauma survivors out there in the world unfortunately. Enactments in therapy are more common with trauma survivors because of the amount of unprocessed, nonverbal experiences. I totally see that.

I also agree with you about T's forgetting what is normal to them may not be normal for new clients. I also think it's important for T's to keep examining their own experience. I think my T has been guilty at times on both fronts and it hurt our relationship. Luckily, he is always willing to listen.

((((YAKU))))

I really like the paragraph you posted. Sometimes I wonder where I fit in and that describes me to some extent as well although it took me a while longer to fall apart. I'm so glad that quote helped you to feel better.

((((AG))))

quote:

We believe the answer isn't that we need to change, the answer is that we have to get the other person to behave differently.

Yes, I think you are right here. It was never a consious thing for me. It was how I interpreted T's actions - and always negatively - so that I needed him to change to believe he cares about me. Does that make sense? As in, if he doesn't touch me, that must mean he doesn't care about me or is grossed out by me or whatever and so, therefore, I need him to touch me so that I don't feel those gross feelings about myself. When I allow myself to feel those gross feelings about myself, I see what it is that I've been trying to get from other people: a deep sense of my worthiness. That's too much to ask anyone and it's better if that comes from inside anyway.

In my FOO, I had to dance around everyone else's needs and mine were not recognized. In therapy, I twisted and turned or at least tried to for a very long time hoping that T would love me so that I would believe I was lovable. When I am met with a "no" it does bring up intense shame although I do find that is lessening with time.

quote:

It's really a confusing, tricky process to work through the process of allowing ourselves to be ourselves, to express our true feelings and our felt needs but also learn the other person is separate with their own feelings and needs.

You can say that again. It's brutal. What I find confusing is how do you know when someone is a good match for you or not? I can understand that a particular person, say my T, may not be able to meet certain needs but how do I determine if I am settling by staying or not? How do I determine which needs are essential in a relationship and which ones aren't? Because as much as they are entitled to have boundaries, I am entitled to get my needs met - maybe not by that particular person but by someone else. Does that make sense?

(((AG)))

Thank you so much for taking the time to come back here. I DO find it very confusing. I need to learn the basics, probably the stuff I should have learned in early childhood: emotional regulation and learning what my needs are and how to communicate them. Sometimes I find that my T and I clash when I need emotional regulation and the security of an attachment figure and he's responding from a more intellectual point of view. As far as he and I have come together, he still does not automatically think within the attachment framework.

For instance, we recently had some issues and his worry was that I would become dependent upon his validation. (AGAIN, that dependency fear rears its ugly head. LOL! He looked quite sheepish when he realized what he was saying.) On the other hand, I was seeing it from the point of view of me seeking the security from my attachment figure as well as help with regulating my emotions. In any event, we continue to hammer things out and come to some kind of middle ground - as painful as that is for me.

It's not necessarily a bad thing that we see things from such different perspectives. It has really helped me decipher my needs and be able to verbalize them. There is definitely some important work going on there.

There are some things I am grateful that my T has never done. He has never been one to reinforce that he isn't the only source of comfort and, to be honest, I'm glad he hasn't done that. I do the reading. I know what I need to do. I know I need to build support networks and a life outside of therapy. I'm glad it doesn't bother you as much as it would me to hear it from your T. It might be because you have a much better relationship with your husband than I do and have had much more success with friendships and your career than I have had so I am really starting from a much more elementary position.

I don't know if you were ever able to get any emotional support from anyone in your family but I didn't have that at all. So, even though I understand where your T is coming from with that, for me to hear that would be too much of an enactment that I wouldn't be able to process well on an emotional level yet. I would hear that as, "go away. I don't want to deal with you" even though I KNOW that is not true intent. I guess in some ways, I am like a 4 year old. I would never tell my 4 year old that I'm not her only source of comfort. I don't tell any of my children that, actually, regardless of their ages. I try to be available when they are stressed but also try to take care of myself and my energy level at a particular time. If I can't be available when they are stressed, they do find other sources of comfort - which is so great to see.

Much worse than that, however, for me is the T's who tell their clients they will never be as important to him as his family - even though in reality that might be true. I don't think your T is one of those T's who says that but I always cringe when I read here that a T has told a forum member that. My T has also never been one to reinforce that and I am so grateful. He makes me feel important to him and that's really what matters. I don't really need to know where I am on the ladder. I was pretty far down on the ladder in my own family and most likely on the bottom rung so I don't think I would be able to feel as secure with him as I do if he reinforced those kinds of messages.

I do love Dr. Jeffrey Smith and thank you for the reminder. I will check out that quiz. My T has some wonderful qualities as a therapist but he's not perfect. My concern is that the difference in our emotional styles hurts me more than it needs to. The good news is that I now have an adjunct trauma therapist and she is amazing. She and I speak the same language. It took me a long time to realize that my T couldn't give me certain things and I had to hit that wall probably about a million times before that message got through but I think it has finally. It took me a long time to feel enough security in my relationship with my T for me to be able to look outside of the relationship for something I need that he can't give me. In the past, I would have cut off the one relationship and ran to the other. Now I have both and how awesome is that?

In my case, it probably has to do with my overreliance on one person who can't fulfill all my needs. In the past, I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to get my needs met anywhere else and that this person is the only one who can tolerate me - at least for the time being. LOL! Until I get too desperate and needy. It's as if I feel like if I turn my head in another direction, the other will be so relieved that they will quickly run in the other direction to get away from me. So I hold on for dear life until they just can't take it anymore, resulting in the same pattern happening over and over and over again.

Phewwww. Well, I think that was enough of the inner workings of my psyche. Thank you for your thought provoking post. It has helped me to think some things through and clarify them for myself.

I've thought about this some more and really at the heart of it for me is that I struggle with feeling taken advantage of. Again, issues of powerlessness. I had a dream in the last week that I think illustrates my fear.

My kids pediatrician (in my dream) was in a relationship with another pediatrician in the practice. They had four kids together but he refused to marry her, telling her that she had everything she needed. She complied and seemed to be okay with it but really deep down inside, she wanted him to marry her and she was settling for something that was less than what she wanted.

There is a part of me that is suspicious that my T is just kind of stringing me along in a sense and that I am weak, despicable and loathsome for staying with him. If I let go of all those judgments, however, I find his boundaries much easier to cope with. If I see myself that way, how can he not see me that way? Could he possibly look at me and see someone worth getting close to?