Hi Sea! Welcome to the forums. I can understand why you might be wondering what's going on, but different Ts have different styles. I am seeing a male T now but my first T (who I saw on and off for some 17+years) was female. Part of my healing was that as I got better I actually started taking better care of my appearance and dressing better, etc. She would often comment on my appearance, and I definitely had a lot of positive comments from her on my behaviors. It was very much a reparative experience with her. My self-esteem was so dismal that to have someone whom I valued so much giving me positive feedback was really important. And calling rehab and contacting you in the hospital was an important way to show her concern for your well-being. I can definitely see where all of her behaviors could be done for your good and have nothing to do with any agenda that is about her.

And the boundaries can vary from T to T. My first T would hug me when I asked for, my present T has a no hug policy. But with my first T except for when I asked for a hug, we didn't have any contact on hello or goodbye while with my current T, we shake hands at the end of each session.

Bottom line, I don't think anything else is going on, but the fact that you're wondering about it is significant. Which means, yes, you guessed it if you've done some reading around the forums, you should talk to her about it. Explain how her comments are making you feel and that you're wondering about her boundaries.
Clear boundaries are a very important part of therapy and its important that you are comfortable with where hers are and with how she's behaving towards you.

Hope some of that helped, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you!

AG

Sea, welcome and I am sure you will get lots of advice. I'll give you my thoughts but I want to warn you that I'm pretty new here and have only been in therapy for 7 months.

Her comments about your personal appearance seem unusual to me but you don't mention what kind of issues you are talking about in T so perhaps they are appropriate. My T never comments on my appearance or personality and I worry constantly about what he thinks of me.

I think the only way to work through this is to talk to her about it. Ask her what she means when she compliments? Unfortunately, the best way to deal with transference appears to be by talking to the T about your thoughts, feelings, and fears about them and therapy. It is not easy and I have only just started doing it.

Good luck

Hi Katskill! I'm new here, too. It totally sounds like something to talk about, for sure. I mean, I see AG's point about there being a reasonable explanation for it all - but personally, comments about my appearance would weird me out.

Thankyou everyone for your comments. AG your comments sound that they may be on track. I do feel better about myself especially after I leave and I do find myself dressing better and having a better attitude about life in general.

I really don't know how to address this with her as this is part of the issue we are working on right now, my inability to speak up and voice my opinion.

I have therapy today so we will see where that goes and I will let you all know.

Thanks
Sea

Hi Sea,
Glad it resonated with you, but as far as talking to her, do it when you're ready. An important part of therapy is learning to trust yourself about the timing and when you're ready to handle what issue. Hope its a great session!

AG

Hello Sea, welcome to the forum. Everyone has already told you the best thing to do is to talk to your T and that is absolutely right. For whatever reason your T has for doing and saying what she does should be discussed as should the impact it has on you.

If I may say, the feelings her actions provoke may have little if anything to do with you being gay. So I just don’t want you to confuse your experiences with any feelings that are being triggered in therapy. FYI: I am not gay, yet I, as you may have already read, have experienced homo-erotic feelings for my T and they represent much more than what the content of my feelings/fantasies would suggest.

If I may, I’d like to share with you a recent discussion I had with my T on why my homo-erotic transference has recently been triggered again. She rightfully and immediately went into exploring what she may have said or did to unintentionally trigger it. Even though it is not intentional she explained that sometimes sharing too much personal information with a client can be boundary seduction, leaving the client feeling special and desiring more information. In the case of calling and checking on a client that too can arouse feelings of being special as can comments on our appearance and personality. Your T may not be aware of how these things make you feel and you definitely need to bring this to her attention and not feel badly about it. However, these feelings are tied very deeply into what you need to be working on and your T needs to be on board with that and aware of what your triggers are.

Good luck!

JM

Just got back from therapy and it went really well. I am not sure what I did, but I did not let my "feelings" for my therapist follow me in. We connect so well it "kills" me.

I don't think that she knows how I feel, and I don't think anything on her part in intented. She is just a caring person.

I do know that I am feeling more like a full human being working with her. I am very grateful!!!!!

Enjoy the attunement Sea. It is something very wonderful about our therapy relationship and it sounds like you have it with your T. Glad you had a good session.

JM

quote:

she looked up the number to the rehab I was in and phoned to see how I was doing, she phoned me when I was in the hospital.

I wouldn't feel comfortable with my T looking up my phone number no matter where I am. That's personal information...

Scott

Sea,
Glad to hear that your appointment went so well. It is a really precious gift to connect, and feel cared for and understood.

AG

quote:

I wouldn't feel comfortable with my T looking up my phone number no matter where I am. That's personal information...

I think that T’s determine how far they will go based on their personal knowledge of each client and understanding each ones comfort zone. What one client may feel is intrusive, may be just what another client needs to feel important and “loved.”

I have been thinking about my session yesterday, and I am not really sure how well it went. I was a different person when I went in there in that I didn't want to feel for my T. This transference thing has me all weirded out. I pushed out my feelings of her and went into therapy in a artificial way. I did cover alot of stuff, but it felt phony in me.

She said I made progress and I felt that I made progress, but I wonder if it was indeed the real me who made the progress or the person I portrayed in there

Sea

Sea,

I hear what you are saying and I wanted to let you know I know how difficult it seems when your feelings about T change over the next day or two after a session. Early on I had a session where T tried to point out how certain behaviours keep other people from getting to close to me and I was really frustrated because it didn't sound like me. The next session I told him that those behaviours weren't how I acted in real life instead it was me in therapy, when I was putting up an act. It helped me realize I wouldn't get useful feedback if I wasn't more honest in my dealings with T.

The best thing about T is that you will get another chance to express yourself the next time and the next time and the next time ...

quote:

Originally posted by Katskill:
I have been thinking about my session yesterday, and I am not really sure how well it went. I was a different person when I went in there in that I didn't want to feel for my T. This transference thing has me all weirded out. I pushed out my feelings of her and went into therapy in a artificial way. I did cover alot of stuff, but it felt phony in me.

She said I made progress and I felt that I made progress, but I wonder if it was indeed the real me who made the progress or the person I portrayed in there

Katskill

Katskill, this post really resonated with me. I don't always know if I'm _me_ in therapy or if I'm some weird public-face facet of me. I've gotten better with it - but sometimes I feel like, even when I do talk about stuff (transference stuff, too), if that's me, too, or just another face. I just decide I'm going to say something and "don't care" what Tfella thinks about it. I'm just not sure I know of some other way to be.

Thanks for all the support.

I hear what you are saying incognito and next week we get another chance at it. With that said I think I will try and take your advice Wynne and just say what I need to say.

I really do need to address this transference issue. I know that I need to tell her and face whatever consequences there are, but that is part of my problem REJECTION and having an opinion. I don't know what I will do if she rejects me because of my transference issues. I think at this point it will devastate me. I am really scared about it. My logical side says that for me to benefit from therapy I have to be totally honest, but my emotional side is scared to lose her. We do connect, and she is what keeps me going back.

I guess if I tell her how I feel I will definitely get to the truth.

I miss her today, and wish I had the chance to go back and see her this week. Monday seems so far away.

quote:

The best thing about T is that you will get another chance to express yourself the next time and the next time and the next time ...

That is the absolute truth Incognito! Sometimes that is all that gets me through the week and feeling like I have so much unfinished business is knowing I can try again next time.

And Sea, I know I still make myself struggle with my feelings before I work up the nerve to talk to my T about them. It's like I beat myself up for a while then I do what I know I need to do and I usually feel better for it.

After 2 1/2 years I still get afraid that I am going to lose her whether it is because I am too needy or because she doesn't like my feelings for her. But she has demonstrated and even told me that she will never leave me. Still my emotional brain cannot completely trust that.(Go figure)It's getting better and one day I hope I can say it with the confidence that she does.

I miss my T too. We have a "24 hour thread" around here where we've all disclosed our personal rants about missing T more intensley the first day or two after a session.

It seems to be a part of it.

Names.

Sea - did you change your forum name a couple of times on Tuesday? I got all mountains of confuzzled. I'm having a hard time figuring out what's going on this morning in general - I went to a blog, and a post that I _think_ was there got taken down, I come here and you've got a different name, but then you don't...

Just a series of coincidences, I'm sure. ...but... you _did_ change your name, right?

Sorry for the confusion everyone...I do apologize. I did change my name. Being the paranoid person that I can be I was using the previous name on another forum and did not want to get recognized through some of the information. Sounds silly, but that is just me.

Sorry; I prolly shoulda just PM'd ya. Thanks for the clarification, though!