It would be fun to know what Ts say in their own sessions. Probably the same things I say about work LOL plus their own stuff... I'm sure clients trigger whatever.

T2 is pretty tight-liped about stuff, T1 told me something last week about how she was feeling that was sorta cute.

I think a lot of times... when we don't know ourselves too well we look for affirmation or our goodness to come from others. So it's a little bit exciting in a way I think when someone seems to have positive feelings but won't say what they are. It beats all the negative ones I know I come up with on a daily basis Sometimes I suspect my T of maybe feeling this way or that way based on her own stuff she's told me. That's what I have learned to like about therapy - it's two real people doing what they can to meet one shared outcome.

I like that you confronted your T BG LOL gutsy!!

Non - I think you can talk about the feelings of how you feel about thinking he has something positive there and the not knowing what it is and why that makes you excited in a way or anticipatory. That's probably not helpful I guess because I'm saying bring it up like anything else A good T won't let you manipulate them in to saying what it is (and we ALL try to do this kind of stuff) but will work on the feelings so it's easier.

BG - I agree with Cat. That WAS gutsy. It's neat reading about how comfortable you are with your T. My T will disclose sometimes things about himself and his past, so I do know his early therapy experiences were mostly related to his relationship with his mom, so I wonder if there is some sort of comparison there. I've said similar things to my T about being a crap mom at times too and his seeming need to see me as better than I am. I never mentioned any of his stuff related to it, but from his side, he just saw it as a standards issue (i.e. mine are impossible and being "real" is more important than being "perfect"), with me being in the arena of the "good enough" mom. I really wish we could explore his side of things, but accept that's just not the way things are. I'm fortunate enough that he is pretty open about his own thoughts and feelings in regard to the therapeutic relationship and if he finds it to be beneficial to the work. I'm not sure I could deal with being as vulnerable as I am without seeing the reality of his investment in our work.

Cat - Yeah, even if it weren't my own T's session, it would be interesting to witness an experienced T and how they go about their own therapy. Did T1 say something about YOU was cute? I used to get "cute" comments about things I would say and/or do, but I had to redirect my T to at least say "endearing," because I have some weird way that I misinterpret cute, like it also means annoying at the same time. Kind of how some parents (I had one say this to me) say, "Oh, you're so silly!" when they really mean, "WTF?! That's f---ing idiotic!"

I guess I never looked at it as exciting/anticipatory, but there are those elements there too. The other element is that I'm looking for a way it can be bad, because there is this feeling that it has to be bad or negative. Like, I hate when my feelings make others feel things that are difficult or uncomfortable, although I know he has felt challenged before and always been OK with that. So, I'm hoping it is something that makes HIM feel happy/good and not something that makes him upset/disappointed. He will do his own work on it if it is, but I'm trying not to go to the place where I fear that I break people with my feelings, interactions, etc. I have come up with one thing it could have meant that would make me feel really bad. It's not necessarily likely, but not impossible either, and I just hope it's not that. I wish I could say, "About that counter-transference thing, it's not ______, is it? OK, now I can let it go!" It is OK and maybe even nice if I just think of it as a positive feeling he has, for whatever reason, toward me, once I sit through the usual anxiety of that experience.

Hi Anonymously,

I will offer my first intuitive reactions. I may be totally off-base, but you can just disregard it. First, I can totally see your point about crying during arguments. For me, crying is an automatic reaction to intense pain and I can't help it. I don't think it should change what the argument is about or what originated it.

Secondly, about the counter-transference, my first reaction is that he was impressed with your analysis. I know nothing about you, so I have no idea what you are working on with your T, but that was my first reaction. It sounded insightful to me. It sounded like you really got the dynamic between you and your H regarding that issue.

Personally, I think the counter-transference is a good topic for conversation with your T. I had a similar situation with my T, but in my case, it was actually negative counter-transference! My T was able to discuss it with me. It was very "generic" and didn't involve what personal history he had that led him to that response but if anything, it was important in understanding more about the dynamic of our relationship and what it brought out in me when I reacted to it. I will say, it did take a few session before my T clarified it for me because I think he had to think about it so he could give me an appropriate response and hold his boundaries.

I don't know if this applies to you at all, but I am going to throw out my perspective because it is something I learned recently in my therapy. I totally can understand your desire to know what your T might be thinking about you. I have learned, for me, with regard to the positive things I hope my T is thinking of me, that these are things I never heard from my parents, but I do really believe about myself at a core level (however,they have been obstructed by negative defense mechanisms from trauma). But, because I never heard them as a kid, I couldn't believe someone else would say them about me now. That is when I realized the damage my parents had done. I felt the extent of my intense need to hear these things from my T, even though they had always been true. The truth had never changed about me, I did possess all these good qualities from birth, but I was never told these truths by my parents, hence the need to be told them by someone who helped fill that parental role (my T) today. My need was so intense today because it came from my childhood, because it had not been met in childhood, not because it wasn't true. I hope that make sense. Sorry if it doesn't even fit with what you said, but it is what I thought of when I read your post.

DBS

DBS - Thanks for sharing your experience. Wow, I would freak out about my T having negative counter-transference, but it's so great that he took his time and formulated the best way to have that conversation, rather than just leaving it there. I probably won't talk to my T about it further, because he so rarely draws a firm boundary that I really like to respect it when he does.

I get what you're saying about affirmation and there is a certain need for that from T, for sure. But, I don't feel like I was lacking for praise when I was younger. It just always was accompanied by or felt as pressure or combined with criticism. So any praise felt like it came with a "but" how I was still failing or a "and" you better keep up this level. Not that I wasn't simultaneously given other messages about how inadequate I was, but I was labeled as smart, gifted, musically talented, athletic, etc. I sound like I'm bragging, but I'm not, because other than knowing objectively through my achievements that I was doing well at things, I never really felt those things were true. I've always felt like I am somehow tricking people and they just don't see how unworthy I am of any of those compliments. Like at church when people compliment how I keep taking on new instruments and how I must be musically gifted because I'm doing it by ear...I don't feel like it's true. I feel like, "How the hell aren't they noticing all the ways I am failing? How don't they hear that I really suck?" Then, I have a sort of anxiety about trying to live up to the facade of success. I used to have fantasies about failing so big that nobody would ever expect anything of me again. So, yes, I am on one level desperate for my T to have positive feelings toward me, to approve of me. On another level, I am incapable of accepting it as a possibility--it feels threatening.

I know my T does find me to be insightful, because he says so regularly and acts like a kid in a candy store over my journals. We have an ongoing joke about him calling what I say "deep," while being unwilling or unable to explain why it is deep. It just makes me uncomfortable, again like, "How is this guy not seeing how much I suck?" Then, he jokes (self-depricatingly) about him being shallow and stupid and I feel awful, because I realize that's another interpretation of what I'm saying, but not at all what I meant!

This felt more like I was being compared to either a negative stereotype or a specific person (sheesh, I'm hoping it's not his wife or one of his sons or anyone like that) and their personality/behavior. I guess my biggest fear is he would assume me to be the type of person who would take advantage of that "weakness" (my H not wanting to upset me) to manipulate or win the argument and it's impressive that I'm not the horrible, manipulative person he thought I was (though if he thought that, would he really believe me when I say that's not how I want to behave?). Sigh, and then I feel like I've done something to make myself "look" good and it makes me anxious. I really did not see how much anxiety I have here around looking better than I am. A lot of that was messages of inadequacy laced into praise as a kid. But, the rest of it is that I was often confused as a kid, painfully confused, and was too scared to need help, so I managed to make myself look competent. But, it was always a lie. There were projects and reports I had no help with at all, got A+s on, but when I brought it in that morning, I was sure I would fail, because I felt like I had BSed my way through, really had no idea what the f--- was going on or what I was supposed to do. I have at least two of these huge project memories. All the other kids coming in with their parents having done half the work or at least explained the assignment and given them ideas. Me walking in alone, carrying it to school, having done the best I could with an encyclopedia and a dictionary and feeling like I had no clue if I had done what I was supposed to do. When I get praised, it brings up this same anxiety. "Don't they know I'm clueless and stupid and have no idea what I'm doing?" Then the realization that they don't know that. I was too scared to ask for help at home and no one anywhere else would ever know I needed it, because I found a way to look competent and accomplished in the midst of terrible confusion. And kind of wanting to cry, "But I'm not smart. I don't even understand what I did or remember how I did it. I don't even know if it's right."

It's terrifying, being seen as smart when you feel so lost. Afraid to do wrong all the time, so you won't even flip a light switch without getting specific instructions exactly which ones (there are stories about that in my family). Afraid to get help with things you don't understand, so you give up even trying them once they get too hard to fake (musical instruments, sports). And for good reason, because help wouldn't have been there. It is now, but it wasn't then. I have surrendered so many things so nobody ever sees how stupid, worthless, confused, lost, incompetent, incapable I am. Because needing help that isn't there is the worst feeling in the world, so I refused to ever need it. We have been talking about this in therapy a lot. It feels like being left "holding" something I don't know what to do with. Like somebody gives you a package and says I need you to hold this, I'll be right back and disappears. Do you just stand there with it? Try to figure out what's in it and where it belongs? Try to deliver it to a stronger, more capable person? Hide it? Throw it in the garbage? What do you do? That's what needing feels like. Terrible lostness.

Anyway, I got off-topic there, but I think I am trying to say I have the opposite problem. On some level, I objectively get I have a lot of good qualities and talents. On another level, everything good about me seems like some sort of illusion that others have bought into, that I am obliged to continue maintaining indefinitely, and I get exhausted and miserable...just wish they would see the lost and confused me instead of the competent, accomplished one.

quote:

Did T1 say something about YOU was cute?

No a counter transference thing about herself toward me that I found cute. I wasn't really comfortable writing out what it was so I think that is why I was confusing, sorry! My T does tell me I am cute too - I think she means it though. I understand looking for the bad and the good at the same time (in anything, if it's being cute or impressive or _____).

I wanted to add

quote:

just wish they would see the lost and confused me instead of the competent, accomplished one.

I resonate with this a lot. I'd rather have empathy and care for the part of me that hurts than regard for the part of me that appears to be capable. Being seen positively means... eventually I'll fail so why not think I'll fail ahead of time? I've learned in therapy I'm both.. capable and incapable at times and I'm still good anyway, whenever.

Sorry I missed this post! But in response to your original post, something struck me as I was reading it. It almost seems like when/if we get a glimpse of a Ts counter transference in front of us, it's almost like bait hanging in front of our faces. Because that gets down to the core issue that many have with therapy, and that's the inherent imbalance in it. The mostly one-way flow of information. But then there's this small, almost infinitesimal stream of information back toward us that might give us a more in depth look into our T's lives, and it's almost impossible to resist.

Anyway, I've gotta run for right now!

Thanks, kashley. Yeah, it kind of is bait. Haha.
I do get a lot of information about T, but it is always neutral kind of stuff, like how he is excited about the vegetable garden he just built/planted in his backyard and seeing the sprouts come through after only a couple of days. Or sometimes it will be things he has experienced and dealt with that are relevant to my own experiences. But, other than affirming his caring, positive acceptance, I never get a glimpse of how he might "really" see ME. Too tempting.

So, by way of an update, I actually did bring it up, because he did one of those, "Maybe it's...no," things about something he was picking up on, but then did a sort of hesitation thing about whether I should take more time figuring out where something was coming from on my own. Eventually, he told me what he was thinking, because we have a kind of mutual no bait teasing thing about not obviously keeping a secret from the other person. Not that we couldn't both say no when there is a boundary like the other day, but just a good natured, "Ahh, that's torture that you're chuckling about something and don't want to tell me what" (usually me doing that one when someone else inside says something funny, but I would never say myself).

ANYWAY, so I related this particular "torture" of him saying he had some analysis and then hesitating about sharing it to the thing from Monday. He didn't remember what exactly I was talking about. So, then I told him it was about the "impressive" comment...and he couldn't remember still, though he noted that he thinks/calls me impressive or other similar things often enough. Then I said the counter-transference thing, and he remembered, but couldn't recall exactly what the preceding conversation had been and what sort of counter-transference he had. At that point, it turned into a sort of comedy routine between the two of us, because I was fine either reminding him or not reminding him and he was fine either way too, so we just passed on it. From someone else, I might think it was avoidance, but he is guileless to a fault sometimes and has ADD, gets distracted and forgets things kind of easily...but these can work to my advantage at times and other times I find it endearing.

Anyway, so I did get to tell him that I was respecting the boundary, but it was so tempting to have that kind of left hanging out there. During my talking about him setting the boundary and my respecting it, he picked up on how it seemed to comfort me, his doing so from time to time, and so we did talk about that a little bit as well. So, I got to share how I FELT (both the frustrating and comforting aspects of his boundary) without feeling like I was pressuring him to change it. It was a really good interaction, totally not a big deal (in the context of a session with a major conversation on something HUGE for me), just a few minutes of being honest and playful with my T. It was nice.

Draggers!