Hi Yaku... I think it's okay to clue him in on what is helpful to you. With my current T I have told him things like...when I email you I am primarily looking for two things... reassurance and encouragement and perhaps validation at times. I don't tell him exactly what to say, I leave that to his discretion. He has been doing a wonderful job lately and when I see him in session I offer him feedback. He always asks about the email and if it helped and we talk about it. He said the feedback is really important to him.

Can I ask how often you text your T? Is it everyday? multiple times per day? I ask because if it's multiple times per day then I think there is a deeper problem in that your T is not helping to contain your emotions and your shame reactions. My T has a generous contact policy although no texting... he hates typing on his iphone... but he did tell me that if I called or emailed twice a day we would have to have a talk about that. I email him once a week or every other week. I do see him most weeks twice per week which helps a lot.

I think you are looking for reassurance, comfort and encouragement too... so tell him that.

Why are you so scared of him seeing hurt/angry you? Has he talked about that with you? Is he consistently supportive and boundaried? Do you feel safe with him? I think you said you are with him for six months and so maybe you are pushing too fast into deep territory that you are not ready to expose yet because you are still in stage 1 of developing trust and safety.

Good luck,
TN

I absolutely think you should give him feedback on how to best interact with you. So much of therapy is the relationship with the therapist. We use the relationship with them to practice setting boundaries with the people in our lives outside of therapy. So get to practicing! Tell him what's on your mind and how you would like things to be different. Good luck.

TN - On really bad days, yes, it can happen multiple times per day and the way he responds escalates it, usually. I think it took until yesterday that he really got my whole shame spiral thing I was trying to describe. The map really helped him on that. He actually does say very encouraging things, but they can almost be like mini-sermons on being safe, made clean, etc. in my brokenness, which makes me not feel connected to IF I am emotional. On good days, I either don't text at all or just once to let him know I'm doing well, because I know it means a lot to him to see that progress and I feel blessed to share it. If he texts me back, I might thank him or something.

It's not that I am scared of him seeing hurt/angry me consciously. It's that it doesn't come out at all when others are around, except maybe H. For example, he asked me to describe a memory of being angry during my childhood and I couldn't really do it, nothing specific at least. It was always disappointment in myself (buying into whatever bad thing I was told about myself) or pride for taking the higher, sacrificial road. He says I am heavily dissociated around anger (unsafe to express it in my home for many reasons) and can only manage to direct it inwardly. I desperately want to be able to go in there and get pissed off or cry, and have him "see" me, but I can barely connect with that stuff on my own, and really only about pain that is very current, not often about my past. My transference BS is the only evidence I have that I actually even care about what happened, because I spent so long telling myself to not let it be meaningful. And yes, this topic has come up with him many times and very early on.

T is consistently supportive (though very redirecting to the spiritual side of things, when sometimes I would like to hear the support from him). I think his boundaries are consistent as well, but because my family was (he says) enmeshed, I have a hard time interpreting them. I have almost no boundaries of my own and with other people I draw the line so far away from where it probably actually is, because I'm scared of bothering, imposing, burdening, etc. He isn't very transparent about his boundaries. He'll elaborate sometimes, but he knows I always try to live up to expectations (find my identity in pleasing or not imposing on others), so he's not going to give me rules or guidelines to go by. I feel very safe with him, for the most part.

He has suggested multiple times to slow down the processing, but my brain kind of just does its own thing. He is willing to let me sit there and be silent and talk about nothing subjects (like my Japanese or writing studies), but then I will end up writing several pages of journals per week processing the "real" stuff on my own. He has said he knows I believe that I am not making any progress, but that he feels I am moving very well and that my own process (especially my writing) combined with inviting Jesus into what I am uncovering there is probably the very best thing for me. It can get like I'm paying a professional reader though.

I really need to talk to him about being more transparent with the psychological stuff, because the way I process, it is important for me to have a conceptual grasp on all the linkages as well as consistency/support, comfort with transference. If I had known I was going to be there for more than a couple of weeks (on request of H/T at the time), I would have probably researched the different types of therapists and chosen one based on how I work. However, I'm already really attached to my T and feel so comfortable with him (to the level it has taken me YEARS with other people). I think I am more honest/vulnerable with him than anyone except H. T is so steady and even when I get frustrated (like with him answering EVERYTHING spiritually when certain parts of me don't react well to it), it makes me feel really safe that he is being who he is, because I am slowly coming to trust it is not an act or a manipulation, like with my whole family.

LG - Good point. He is always very encouraging when I set boundaries with him. I sent him a message asking what he thought about me providing him some guidance there or if we should work on me adapting to receiving challenging input.

deepfried - Yeah, I've practically begged T to neglect me, judge me (agree with me how wrong and bad I am) before, because it feels normal and comfortable, like I know what to do with that. He declined...

Just heard back (whoops, thought he would see the message tomorrow and get back to me then). He said, "Absolutely, I would like to know anything that would help to make the process contained/more containable for you. We can decide whether it is appropriate to use on a situation by situation basis."

Sounds good to me! Like his interest in my input and him saying "We" would decide instead of saying that he would decide.

That's wonderful! Let us know how it goes!

He has been incorporating them, but my transference stuff makes it less successful than when other people respond to me in the way I asked. I am still constantly freaking out about how he hates me even though, logically, I know he doesn't.