You ask them. You talk about your feelings and what you think they are doing and/ or feeling and you check to see if what they are doing means what you think it means.

For example, I made an emergency call one evening to my T which did not go well. By the time I got off the phone I went into complete meltdown, totally sure that he was completely exasperated with me, angry and had hit compassion fatigue. That I was too needy and he just couldn't take it anymore. Not knowing if it was a projection or the truth, I wrote him an email and said that I knew him pretty well at this point in our relationship and thought I was picking up on something. And if I was maybe we needed to take a break so he could get away from me for a while so we'd be able to continue working together. But I was also aware that my feelings could make me perceive things that weren't true. So I wanted to check with him, but really needed an honest answer, especially if something was wrong because I needed to be able to trust my perceptions.

He wrote back and told me that I had picked up on something (oh good I'm not crazy!) but that he was not exasperated or frustrated, he was just in a hurry to get going. And he was really glad I had asked and I should always check in with him if I thought he was upset. A set of facts can have a million interpretations, the only way to be sure about ours is to ask the other person. Our therapist needs nothing from the relationship and therefore has no reason to lie. If we are consistently seeing things that are not matching up with reality ( my therapist hates me, he's going to abandon me, he's going to hit me, he thinks I'm pathetic and needy - all things I have thought) then you go digging into your past to see where the belief/expectation was coming from. I was always treated like my needs were way too much, so calling my therapist felt like he had to be bothered by it, so I interpreted his rushing as being about me, and his having had it with my needs, when in reality it was just about his schedule (from the sounds in the background, he was in a restaurant, and probably needed to keep it short to get back to whomever he was dining with).

AG

I try other therapists to see if the same thing arises with them or not. IF it doesn't, then I don't think it is just me.

Another excellent approach. If it's you, it goes with you.

quote:

How can one differentiate between what is real and what seems real?

Wow, that is a good question. AG's answer was a good one, but unfortunately I have not been good at reining myself in when it comes to jumping to conclusions prematurely and sprinting away with them as if my interpretations were written in the Bible. It has been a long process trying to train myself to even recognize when I am doing it, and learning to withhold judgments despite my insecurities and tendency toward fight/flight all the time. What I have learned is that I cannot trust my judgment! Which is disconcerting, to say the least.