Oh ((((((((LL))))))))

I so sorry that you feel so rubbish about today. Do you know my T used to be a bit like that at the start...in the end I realised that I had to break the silence and say something (anything!) to get the ice broken almost...the we could bring it round to other things. Not ideal, but it sort of worked until I could be brave enoughh to tell her that it didn't work that way. By then she knew me better and I didn't mind starting the sessions ...but I do remember those oh so very long silences we used to have

Hug and many thoughts, you are very much not on your own dear LL

starfish

keep on ranting lamplighter, get it out!!! i agree wholeheartedly with every word you say. it is so blasted frustrating...i can't seem to get someone to care about me enough to help me, i echo your frustrations. i am sure there are some good t's out there, but i need one that is equipped to see me through, too. and to TAKE CHARGE OF THE SESSION instead of letting me drive. i agree that after five sessions, surely there are some areas they see that they want to tap into.

what 'orientation' is your t? i think some are more oriented to listening and some to being involved, and many here know much more than i do, your rant just struck a chord with me, as i know where you are coming from.

the same desparation to get the parents to care!! that uncaring trigger, the un-wanting to know ME. dang, it hurts. but, i am learning that i am in therapy to get help for ME, NOT to earn their flipping love (that they won't or can't give).

LL, hugs to you, girl!! jill

LL sorry you had a bad session ((((LL))))) but i have to say my T does exactly what your T done today. At first I hated it and used to question her all the time like....why cant you just ask me something and she would say its my time and i need to talk about what i want to talk about. Four years on, she still comes in, sits down and waits for me to say something, I still hate it but i've got used to it (sort off lol) But i can understand why she does it, my therapy is about what i want to say. It does get easier LL

Oh i just want to add that my T never tells me that she cares about me or that she will never leave me. When i asked her why cant you just say you will not leave me ( she knows how much i worry about that) she said she didnt want to make promises that she may not be able to keep but she did say she intends to be here for the long haul. Im slowly beginning to believe she does care and will be there for me

Hev

LL,

How frustrating for sure! I do agree that it is your time and you should structure it, but I also know the frustration of not being able to really put what you need to talk about into words and the need for some guidance around the session content. The intellectualizing would be a ticket out for me for sure because that is one of my strongest defense mechanisms. It could be that you are still so new with this T that it will just take a while to get to the point where you can start to feel comfortable enough to structure the content yourself.

I'm sorry, I am not really saying anything helpful here. Please keep us posted on how things go with this T. I hope that you can find a way to sort this all out.

quote:

all I want is to just let out all the bad stuff that’s been festering away inside for decades, and to know that that’s ok, to be given assurances and yes permission, for that to happen.

((((((((Lamplighter))))))))
My response to this might sound a little strange, but...I wish I was a T so I could provide this for you!! I wish I could set up a safe, contained environment where you could just open up and let 'er rip. I would love to hear your stories and try to see things through your eyes and help you find out what it means to you and for you. In fact I would think it is exactly that kind of desire that would lead someone to become a therapist in the first place. So yes I think I do get what you are on about.

And I don't think it's asking too much. Far from it. What would be tough is asking someone to either run the show for you, or to just follow wherever you go. What you describe doesn't sound like either of those things, but rather, like asking someone to walk beside you and engage with you for part of your journey.

IMO that would be a privilege. I am more sorry than I can say that this T doesn't seem to be making that connection.

Hugs,
SG

Lamplighter,
I can certainly understand your frustration. My T would NOT take the lead at the beginning of a session (even if I asked him to ) but once I started talking, he would definitely ask questions and listen very carefully to the answers, until he could gain an understanding of what was going on. And sometimes he would keep asking me questions that would lead to my understanding and seeing the pattern myself and sometimes he would offer his insights (always subject to me confirming or denying their accuracy.) There were some sessions where he would be questioning me SO much that he would have to reassure me that I was doing ok. I am very open to the fact that the patient has to do some of work and even that we need to take the lead, but the Ts job is to hear us, even the stuff we don't realize we're saying, and to help us see our unconscious and understand why we're doing what we're doing. So I do think that they should take an active part at times. I'm so sorry this has been such a long and frustrating search for you. How maddening to WANT to do the work and not be able to find someone to help you. ((((LL))))))

AG

Lamplighter...

Ahrrrrrrrrrg. I am so angry on your behalf!! That feelings really stinks i hate it too! So sorry for you but glad you posted! How are things now? Are you still angry, or more sad..?

It su*** BIG TIME- when you feel left with the T-silence. I DO remember sessions openings starting with...nothing. Not a word. Just 100% embarrassing and waste of time. Gosh- and the terrible feeling afterward- feeling that my T was the dumbest most NOT-caring, cold T in the world. Hm. yep, those sessions where i came, talked (bullshit) and went, with NO feeling of realease or comfort in my bagage was a big part of my therapy the first months in therapy. I hated it. I cept claim this again and again from my T: "can you just TALK? i DONT WANNA TALK TO A SILENT ROOF! Can you please ask me some questions?? What do you think? Why are you so silent?"
Gosh.. It was hard. Today i still recognize the same session-pathern sometimes, yet i am not terrified by the silent moments any longer. Dont hate them either. Sometimes its just feels good actually.. The pressure is gone and i learned to do the hard work- leading the sessions- taking the first step (say the first words)and just take the lead. I know my T comes gently after me, to pick up all the puzzle pieces I have scattered around me. But still i think i during every session keep longing for my T`s word and i keep tryin`to drag some words and understanding out his mouth..

Yeah.. LL- hang in there. And let your T know about your frustration and anger. Take a deep breath before next appt. and relieve the anger towards your T (and the mothod) if you feel up for it..

oh Lamplighter... sounds so frustrating and painful.
no one knows what to do in therapy (i certainly didn't), in the beginning i was talking because i felt that's what was expected of me, but usually i felt it didn't help, because i was forcing myself to do it, to come up with stuff to talk about. as i got more comfortable (it took a couple of years i think) there were silences, sometimes a whole session where i didn't say anything. but for me that was the point where i started being more myself and either i was angry at her or didn't talk because i didn't trust her or it was too hard and i gave up... i'm just telling you that i found it really hard as well and it was a real journey, up and down. the sessions where i really talked (and she heard me) made up for the other really awful sessions.

yes, sometimes they really disappoint us and they miss important signals they should have picked up on. if you can talk about these things it's great, i found it's the only way forward. in a way i think it's good you're getting an emotional response from your T.

take your time. it's hard to get it right from the start, that's why there's session after session after session. i know it's hard, just look out for that good session which makes up for the rest.

take care,
puppet

Dear LL -

Oh, do I know how terrible that can feel - I'm sorry you're going through it!

Last week I was ready to quit on my T, I was furious for similar reasons. I came in after a break with all these happenings to tell about, but got caught in traffic and was 10 minutes late. She listened to all the 'stuff' from the 3 week break, said almost nothing about any of it, and then when I eventually petered out, she suggested we finish, because I was out of things to say!! So it was a 40 minute session and I could have been talking to a wall, I felt, I was wild.

I came away pretty sure I wanted to quit, and thought about quitting and how hard it would be to find another T here, and then once I'd kind of made that decision I started thinking about the things that I still wanted out of therapy. I was still majorly peeved, but I figured I would go to the next session, try putting everything out there (last chance for this T) and see what happened.

I don't want to go all moral-of-the-story-happy-ending on you, but it did work for me. We had a really strong session, right up to the last minute and I came away feeling like I CAN work with her, and we do have stuff to do together.

The thing that interests me in this is that in the crap session I was *actively avoiding* saying certain things, and waiting for her to chase me on those or others - sort of laying breadcrumbs. And she just wouldn't. So I was interested in how similar it sounded that you were pleased about having avoided certain stuff in your crap session.

It's almost like we want to dance, but we also don't want to dance, so we want them to MAKE us dance with them, and they won't. But I dunno, LL - my experience with my T now and last T is that if I actually get up and start dancing I can get at least some of what I want. They will dance with me if I clearly stand up and put the stuff out there, SAY the stuff instead of avoiding it. It's a big risk. It's not safe. But it is a way forward. Somehow just doing that changes the whole interaction from flat and dead to alive and authentic. And I think the risk may be necessary - because until we actively decide to take that risk, maybe we're not actually ready to deal with what comes next.

Cos (saying this very gently) you DO know what to do what to talk about what to say, my dear... otherwise you wouldn't be avoiding it.

Great big hug,
Jones

Ohhh thank you everyone SO much for your replies you have no idea what a difference that makes to the utter confusion in my head right now.

It is so reassuring to realize that this seems to be happening for a lot of people in therapy. (Though I still have to wonder what is so difficult for a T to ask a simple question right at the start, like, oh, um, how are you? Or even heaven forbid, how are you feeling, or, what’s going on for you right now?)

I really thought I was the only idiot who managed to find Ts who didn’t know how to do their job (I still suspect I’ve managed to find a fair share of those) and that there is something so warped and abnormal about me that I just don’t get what therapy is all about. Actually, I DON’T know what therapy is all about. I was getting to the point with this new T where I started to believe that he was deliberately not asking me anything just because I said I wanted him to.

Can anyone explain WHY this is so, WHY Ts seem to make it de rigueur to sit there in silence? What’s the therapeutic reason for that? I’m assuming there IS one????

Starfish are you saying that even when you said to your T that it didn’t work well for you that way, that she nevertheless carried on like it? (I’ve already twice said point blank to T that I really do need him to ask questions, but he won’t do it - hence thinking it’s almost deliberate in order to NOT give me what I ask for.)

Jill I SO get it when you say you need someone to take charge of the sessions instead of letting you drive. I really think there is a case for Ts to be flexible on this, and to recognize when the real help a client needs in the first place, is at least some direction and guidance about what it’s all about. Far too easy to flounder around in a vacuum with their refusal to get actively involved. WHY don’t they? This new T is psychodynamic psychoanalytic and though I don’t have any prior experience of this sort of approach, I have read that they are supposed to be big on free association and interpretation. Well in that case why the hell doesn’t he say ‘just say the first thing that comes into your head’? or something equally as helpful???? How am I supposed to know what to do. I hope you find yourself a decent T really soon Jill (and by the way, for that T that queried how come you’ve seen ‘so many’ Ts in a year tell her that you know someone who’s seen 17! And three is hardly an unreasonable number either.)

Lol Hev I reckon I’d be saying to your T - listen what I want to talk about is getting you to explain how you plan on helping me! I’m glad you can know that your T does care about you, even if it's on a subtle level, that must make a big difference to being able to be open and honest. Have to say right now I couldn’t care less whether my T cared or even liked me, so long as I knew he was INTERESTED! (I expect the needing to know he cares won't be long in coming though, sigh.)

STRM it’s that intellectualization that bothers me - I suspect new T got hooked into it (it’s also my major defence) because he didn’t quite know how to respond to my challenging him on his not asking questions. That was really disappointing as he’d shown before that he could resist getting hooked into my endless intellectualizing, yet here he was doing that very thing. What do you mean when you say ‘it’s your time and you should structure it’? How do you know how to structure your own therapy? Do you have some sort of preconceived idea of how it’s to go, or do you just go along with whatever comes up?

That’s was one of my big beefs that I end up spending all the time in between sessions going over and over what I think would be helpful to talk about, wondering what I could say or do to make therapy useful and of course not having a clue because it’s all in a vacuum. I would have thought that structuring sessions is really what the T’s job is all about. I absolutely HATE this meandering around the place with no clear idea (or even half way vague idea) of where it’s all going or even why. I wasted so much time with previous Ts going round and round and round and getting nowhere when a simple question, like, let’s look at x or y or z, what about a or b or c that you mentioned last session, ANYTHING to give me a sense the T is actually paying attention to the stuff that comes out of my mouth!

SG I would LOVE for you to be my T! You don’t fancy setting up in practice anytime soon do you lol? You do seem to get exactly what I’m on about, just wish all the Ts over here got it too.

AG just want to repeat - welcome back, it’s so nice to have you back and offering your wonderful insights and explanations of therapy. I have to admit that until this last session of mine, new T DID listen to what I was saying and I got the impression he was really hearing it - making comments that told me was paying attention. Funny that you too asked your T to lead at the beginning of sessions yet despite that he wouldn’t. What do you think is the REASON for that? I can’t think that Ts do it arbitrarily, there must be a sound therapeutic reason for it. I hope.

I can get the ‘listening to the stuff we’re saying that we ourselves don’t even realize we’re saying’ that’s what threw me in last session, that it was pretty clear I was saying all sorts of things underneath the request for him to ask questions - but instead of pursuing that he went off into attempted explanations of how it was all down to me to come in with something to talk about, in fact he even went so far as to say NOT to come in with something I’d already thought about, but to just say something in the moment itself. Well, that’s what I did do - talk about that he wouldn’t ask me any questions at the beginning! And I expect I’ll KEEP coming up with that until it’s sorted one way or the other. It’s a BIG deal to me, I should think he ought to have worked that out by now.

Frog hello again! You write your experience in such a way I’m there with you. Did your T ever answer your questions about why he wouldn’t talk? What you’re describing with the first sessions being a waste of time, that’s what’s getting me - I’ve spent so long looking for a T I thought could help me, and have wasted so much therapy time with other Ts going round and round getting nowhere that I really really do not have the incentive or desire to spend god knows how many more months repeating it all unless I’ve got a sense that this T knows what he’s doing, that it’s useful or helpful in some way. I’m glad though that you got through that ‘wasted’ period (which you’re now going to tell me wasn’t wasted at all lol) and are now really comfortable with the non-input of your T.

Puppet - my hair stood on end when I read it took you a couple of years of talking for the sake of talking and getting nowhere before you felt comfortable enough with the silences . But I actually do get what you are saying - and I know I’m expecting way too much way too early in the piece. Important words in your reply ;

quote:

that was the point where i started being more myself

you know, those words have suddenly hit home. Hm I need to go away and think about that - yeah things are clicking away in my head as something is falling into place. Thankyou.

Lol Jones you are of course right - there was a distinct point during the session when I suddenly felt a lot brighter thinking oh good we’re now just going to talk about stuff instead of having to face what was going on in me (phew), at the same time though felt equally frustrated and disappointed because I knew then that I’d end up getting nothing out of the session. I seem to be caught between desperately wanting to get things out and being equally overwhelmed by my own defences. I’m aware that a big part of this brouhaha that I’m creating here (all the venting) is down to my being SO scared about revealing anything at all that it feels like I’m literally begging for some sign of safey and reassurance that will allay the paranoid scenarios my mind is so good at coming up with.

Hey I’m SO glad that you gave your T another chance and that it’s had a positive result (but you gotta wonder what happens with people who don’t know to do what you did, how many of them drift away from therapy because the T doesn’t actively help them to reach that point of disclosure - the ‘willing to dance’, which image I LOVE - as always you come up with such powerful images.)



Thanks again everyone - I’m not quite so foaming at the mouth today, though still feel really bad about it all - but one thing is certain I’m not just walking out of this latest therapy! It’s really helped knowing that others too run into this issue - and I reckon if you guys can deal with it then so can I!!! Anyone got any helpful hints on HOW to deal with it though? Like, any idea of how T's silence is actually a positive thing? And how you can use it? Does anyone have their own set ‘routine’ of saying the first words? Want to share examples from your own therapy? Gosh anyone got any toilet paper as well

LL

p.s. Maybe I’ll start a new thread on ‘starting sessions’ maybe hearing how others manage it could be really useful. Yeah and ending sessions too, that’s another problem area...

UV thanks so much for your reply - it really was helpful - yeah I can see (sort of!) how the silence is therapeutically positive - and you've brought up the obvious issue of trust - it's way too early for me right now to really trust this guy (I suspect a lot of what I'm talking about in this thread is all part of my trying to see that he can - or can't - be trusted) - I suppose I'm also really angry because he hasn't given me any idea of what i'm supposed to be doing (for instance, i know from reading about it, that free association is a mainstay of psychoanalytic therapy, but he hasn't mentioned it at all, and for me to just blindly go ahead and do it without knowing first that that's the way he works could really backfire on me - done that before, where I've assumed a T works in a particular way and I've jumped in doing what I think is right and whammo...)

Anyway I'm repeating myself. What you've written really explains it and yes please if you could write more - I'd really appreciate it - especially as your T is also pyschodynamic, there must be parallels there I can learn from your experience.

By the way, glad to see you still posting - nice to know you are sticking around.

LL

p.s. you're dead right about the 'what frustrates you the most'... what also dismayed me was that it was pretty obvious even to me that i was making a big deal out of this asking questions things, yet he seemed to respond almost in a defensive way - that scares me, thinking that he can't handle anger or criticism or strong emotions on my part. I really don't know how I'm going to handle next session - see that's where I would want HIM to bring something up - to see if he got how important this is to me, to let me know he's actually listening and aware of what's going on in me. I HATE that i have to spend all my time until that session pondering over what to say how to say it whether i should say it at all Oh hell, I have so much confusion and other stuff going on in me I could sit here and rabbit on forever. Better sign off now...

Lamplighter- thanks again for your post. (and to all of you people here, i learn so much from reading all your responses!

I find them very (dont take this the wrong way)interesting for two main reasons: in a way it`s huge reminder to me reading about all your frustration, anger and questions- becouse i had almost forgot how overwhelming the first sessions was, and how many questions that arose in me back then. *ahh* Dont miss that part.. All my doubts, all my therapy-strugglings that you have pointed out so clearly. I also relate to the way (revealing an intellectual mindset, i thing) you ask your questions, - you are looking for guidens- (lol- are there anything more human in this weird mysterious world?) asking "how do i 'do' therapy? How do I get to the point where the healing can began?, and most of all; "is my T the right one? Is he good enough? Can I trust him?" and so on.. (sorry for only repeating your words-)

LL: You have hereby entered the emotional circus,- stuck on the carousel of attachment ambivalence. (as i also recognize from your earlyer posts) It can make you feel sick and dizzy, i know. Been there- done that


It`s rather ironic that I (the most ambivalent, struggeling patient of them all, i imagine!) keep tryin` to give you any guiding and advices... I think I just gonna try out this way.. (OK, this is really self-expose and a bit pathetic, but this is how the dialog went..ps: It`s a caricature)

(me, entering the therapy-room, nervous and head full of fog and planned-out words, ideas, memories to be said, blabla, you get my point)

T: Come in.
Me: Thanks..
(akward silence... flickering glances)

Me: ehm...
(T gently smiles a bit, waiting for me to speak..)
Me: Okey..so.. Dont you have any shrink-like questions or something?
T: Hmm.. `shrink-like' questions.. what would they be like?
Me: Like..ehm.. i dont know..I just.. you have to ask me some questions- i dont have anything to say-
T: You dont feel like having anything to say..?
Me: No- (*frustratied*) I Do have a lot of things on my mind- meny things i wanna say but i dont even know where to begin-
T: Hmm..
Me: My previous Therapist also did that- did`not ask any questions- I cant do that- just talking to the roof- I wanna TALK WITH somebody- that speaks to me as well..you know..dialog! That`s whats helps!!
T: Ok.. talking to the roof wasn`t helful, so now you wanna talk to a face..*gentle little smile*
Me: Yes..
T: ..and you want me to ask more questions..Thats good that you said- I`will have to try that then, i have to use my fantasy and creativity and you have to use your memories..
Me: He.. Okey.. ehm..what kind of memories do you want to hear about?


(the dialog goes on, back and forth. Here comes another example: (gosh-bear over with me)

(blabla)
Me: ..You dont say anything..
T: ..Hm, what do you think about that?
Me: eh- i dont know- why dont you tell me what you think? Its scary with the silence..
T: hm, yes- Its scary, what is scary about it?
Me: I dont know.. i cant guess what you are thinking.. and..stuff
T: Its scary because you cant guess my thougths..what do you imagine me thinking?
Me: ah.. ehm. something negative.. about me..that i am boring or.. that you are irritaded at me for some reason-
T: what reason would that be?
Me: For telling you to ask more questions and for- being so.. demanding!
T: hm..
Me: now you are doing it again!
T: It seems to me like you think its wrong to ask for anything here- that it will make me irritated-
Me: ..yes..are you?
T: No..I am glad you told me you like more questions (dialog continues-)

okey. Iam gonna post this thing now, and perhaps delete it later, hope this riss of an typical dialog- the way they used to be like- gives you some idea of how the "talking/silence/problem can lead to a useful and helping understanding..(well, that does`not come across in this example i guess- but you know iàm still in therapy- with the same non-verbal T-whom i love, so i guess you understands that these dialogs DID "bore fruits") I am able to smile of this right now- as i write this- but LL- i dont mean to make fun of this- for a long time these dialogs kept going forever in my head after sessions and i didnt enjoy them at all.(Truly speaking- i hatet them and my T for doing this AGAINST ME- i felt..!) Even today i can all of a sudden panick a bit if i feel left 'alone' in the silence, but it really does change as the attachment is 'set' and you begin to feel "warm and safe" in the therapy-room the silence becomes more like a good thing....Whatever..i dont find the right words..

So long LL

quote:

Funny that you too asked your T to lead at the beginning of sessions yet despite that he wouldn’t. What do you think is the REASON for that? I can’t think that Ts do it arbitrarily, there must be a sound therapeutic reason for it. I hope.

Hi LL,
It was very rare that I would ask that. Honestly, I've been in therapy for SO long that I usually know what I want to talk about when I'm driving down. Don't get me wrong, sometimes that's just because I know I'm gonzo confused and I just need to go bleah all over my Ts office so he can help me figure it out.

Our usual start is him either asking how I'm doing, or if he heard from me between sessions he'll say something like "so it sounds like you're having a hard time." That particular session I walked in, told him I didn't know what to talk about that day, why didn't he pick the subject. He just sat and smiled at me. I gave in pretty quickly as I know he is more tolerant of silence than I am. (He actually told me about a client of his that he spent a year in silence with. They would say hi, how are you and nothing for the rest of the session!).

Now he does interact in the sense that if I say I'm not sure what I want to talk about and mention a few things, he'll go after one of them by saying "why don't you say more about XYZ." We can end up in very painful places that way.

BTW, my rule of thumb, if I'm struggling for what to talk about? I think about what I'm MOST scared to talk about and start with that. Usually the thing I'm the most scared of is exactly what I need to talk about.

OK reasons why a T would do this kind of torture to you.

1. For me, my Ts stubborn refusal to offer me leads brought me face to face with the fact that I was totally concentrated on monitoring the other person and trying to give them what they wanted that it was almost impossible for me to identify what my needs were, let alone try to get them met. I had a complete hysterical meltdown the first time he asked me to think about what I wanted. I eventually realized that he was deliberately not giving me clues to what he wanted so I would have a clear field in which to see what I wanted. But damn was that uncomfortable.

2. There are two characteristics of trauma that I think come into play here. One is that our needs were ignored, and the other is that trauma by it's very nature comes at us too fast and overwhelms us. By waiting for us to speak, a T signals on a very deep non-verbal level that we matter enough for them to wait for us to speak. And that this time around, we're in control of how fast we process this experience.

3. As UV said, what we choose to talk about, and how we talk about, even what we avoid provide a lot of information about our unconscious and our relationship schema. A really good T is focused on understanding you not deciding how to "fix" you. In order to do that, they need to stay open to you and what you say. As uncomfortable as it is, it's better than them flooding the room with what they think and not giving you room to have your own experiences.

My Ts basic method of operating is to simply "be" with his clients with no agenda. He's not heading anywhere because he wants to be open to where the client needs to go. In the end, looking back, I realized that this was central to my healing because I had so much to learn about myself and my needs and getting them met and if he had led I would have simply followed without even being able to consider that I might have wanted something else.

AG

Hi LL,

Not having your T lead at all is very frustrating, and I tend to kind of hate it myself, although I'm starting to see the benefits of those silences. I can only speak for myself and from my own experiences in therapy, however.

In my opinion and my experience with my T, her silence communicates exactly what AG was saying about her T - that she doesn't have an agenda and is willing to go where I want to go. Of course, I know this intellectually, but I still think I am constantly searching for what she wants from me, if I'm saying the 'right' things, if I'm using my time in therapy in the 'right' way. That last one is a bit of a double-edged sword, because wanting to use my time wisely is a lot of times what prompts me to air out uncomfortable/painful thoughts or feelings. However, the line is blurred between having that aid my therapy and hinder it when I force myself to say things that I may not be ready to say just for the sake of what I think my T would think is the right way to use my time. That seemed a little long-winded…I hope it made sense.

Also, I so desperately seek to find what someone else wants from me, what I need to do to keep them pleased with me, that I would blindly follow wherever she led me if she were to do so. I know she can tell, too, and she even told me a few sessions ago that she almost always wants to be a step behind. However unbearable the silence can be, it's simply the only way that my therapy can actually be mine and not hers or anyone else's.

I'm glad that you're going to stick it out, LL, even with how frustrating the whole thing is. And I can't help but wonder if your T may be employing 'covert' free association. Perhaps the purest form of free association comes when you don't realize that that's what you're supposed to be doing.

Oh LL I do share this feeling with you. I could've wrote some of those words myself.

My T asks me to talk and I ask her, no sometimes I beg her, to please help me because I can't, I don't know what to talk about and I can't get to the therapy stuff cause all the regular (somewhat less important) life stuff gets in the way. She doesn't help in the way I feel she should and I don't even know what I'm wanting her to say as no one has done it yet.

Especially lately I've been feeling like I just go in and give an update of my past week and that's it.

What's even more confusing is with my first T it was totally "up to me" and I had no idea what to do so we just sat. With 2nd T, I had lists and goals on a spreadsheet with a schedule of things we would talk about that hour(yeah I was pretty intense). With Current T, I miss my lists but I'm trying to let things flow more naturally but I'm finding I don't know what direction I'm wanting to flow and need her Expertise!

But sorry to hijack and start in on my issues. I just wanted to say I can relate even if I have no helpful comments.

Your words just rang within me. Especially the "Don’t they know that sitting there looking at me in stupid silence is guaranteed to flip me right out?" bit. Yeah, I get literally quite angry and want to yell at her for this. I figure she sitting there looking at me who am completely hopeless and knowing not what to say. And I'm looking at her and her body language just seems to silently say "I'm just as lost as you are". Well what the heck? I can be lost alone, I don't need a partner. To me her silence suggests she doesn't know what to do. And I think, gosh this is what they train you to do.

Some things that help me deal with the silence is knowing that I'm in charge of talking. Although I hate it and I hate that I HAVE to be the responsible one. I know the therapy is a teaching tool and it wouldn't be a good lesson if I had to completely rely on her cause I won't have her forever so might as well start relying on myself right now?

So I know that if I truly can't talk, then she won't push me to say uncomfortable stuff. But if I choose to talk, she's there. Sounds contradictory though huh? Since therapy is supposed to be about the talking.

To get me started I usually say "I wanna talk about X". And then maybe she'll say "why do you want to talk about x" or "What about X do you want to talk about".

Sometimes when I'm really closed down and I don't want to waste my time (and money) on small talk, I talk about my dreams.


Yeah and ending sessions is bad for me too. Especially since I'm all warmed up by that time and usually ready to start chatting away. Like a reset button is pushed when I see her and I forget all about how much I grew to trust her the session before, she's got to earn it all over again. By the end, then I'm ready, and then it's always too too late.

(((LL))) UGH! You are in a hard place and I am so sorry you are hurting! I sure wish I could rant as well as you! I do hear your pain and confusion and painfully remember many of the early months, okay years, of therapy. Hopefully, you will be a more informed and quicker study than me. Thankfully, I learned to speak while sitting with an extremely patient therapist. I too hated the lack of structure! But, through it, I learned much of what has already been mentioned in prior posts. To them I give a wholehearted ditto!

One important thing I leaned that I have not yet heard is that I needed time to build a sense of safety and stability with the T while we slowly danced toward one another from opposite sides of the floor. I don't just mean that I needed to develop trust, which is a necessary component to a strong therapeutic alliance, but that I needed to learn a few things about myself and how the T responded to me during those disconnects. Interestingly, I think the T needed to learn those same things of me as well. To say therapy brought to the surface feelings I had never experienced is an understatement. I could not name those feelings (even if I could admit to them) nor did I know how to handle them. I sure didn't see this at the time, of course, but I needed to go through the struggle to learn about them. If there was a way to intellectualize them, I would have found it, sold the recipe and made a fortune. Instead, I had to learn, (and still am learing) if I felt anxious, where in my body did I feel it. Could I identify anger somewhere in my body BEFORE an eruption? I am not very good at slowing down enough to listen to my body tell me what it is feeling. I hate feeling that vulnerable and struggle to accept that my feelings are my allies, telling me (sometimes at high decibles) important information. Too often I ignored them, just like my parent's. I don't want to carry their baton anymore. I have PTSD, so getting in touch with my feelings and learning how to manage them has not been quick nor easy; but for me, it is foundational to facing the buried emotions that are attached to the trauma I have yet to experience.

I am in a fairly new relationship with a T and have not yet shared about it. I can tell you the learning of these lessons continues as I encounter a different personality than my ex-T. For me, one goal of therapy is to grow in self-awareness. I am learing (the hard way ) that therapy is all about me and not about what the therapist thinks of me. Without going into detail about it and risk hijacking your thread, I can tell you that the appoiontment I have this coming week will either confirm or shatter my belief that I am in fact standing on my own two feet, that I have something to say and that it is not stupid, crazy or wrong.

LL, you get to decide what you want to talk about; it's your therapy. It's even okay to talk about how hard it is for you to talk about your feelings without a prompt from your T. Even though you are frustrated at having to take the lead, I am glad to hear you are not going to walk away from this one....at least for now! I look forward to hearing all about it!

(Please forgive the flip-flop with my tenses...it's just that I have learned so much these past few years but see that I am still learning.)

deeplyrooted

Lol thanks Frog that was a lovely post and I really enjoyed reading your dialogues - you’ve got it right on there that INFURIATING way that some Ts have of not only not asking questions but not even ANSWERING them!!!!!!!! Cracked me up your dialogue really made me smile (not in a bad way, I just thought you captured what goes on really well - I love it, I’d love to hear more about what goes on inside other people’s therapy - be a fly on the wall taking notes all the time!)

Can’t believe you were so calm and unruffled - by about the third sentence I’d have been jumping up and down in fury - ‘come on you stupid man why can’t you just talk straight eh eh eh?????’ Lol well in reality I would get annoyed - it’s the sheer frustration of it all.

Actually, on rereading what you’ve written, it’s clear that your T does ask you questions, and actually answers straight ones directed at him. What do you think he meant when he said he’d have to use his fantasy and creativity - I’d immediately get annoyed at that and think (and probably say lol) ‘whadya mean, what about good old fashioned curiousity?????’ But I think I can see what it’s all about - your dialogues actually show really clearly what’s going on - *groan* it’s so much like really hard work though!

And I do appreciate your explaining how it was when you first started with him - I guess as you say, it changes, becomes helpful and useful once there’s some trust established, even attachment. I do know that right now I’m swinging between thinking hm this is all me and my fears and unmet needs and frustration, and, can I really trust this guy, isn’t it really that he doesn’t give a toss who I am or how I feel...

Oh Frog if you can bear it, please don’t delete your post - as you say you learn a lot from reading other posts, I SURE learn heaps from reading yours (and I enjoy reading them too ).


LL

AG thanks again for such an informative post - it really helps to have it spelled it out like you are able to do.

Of course my first moan is how come my T doesn’t do what yours does - open the session with a question!!!!! That’s basically all I’m wanting, is a few words like - how are you doing? Instead I get this infuriating silence, he just sits and looks at me expectantly and I really really HATE it - even if there is something I know I’d like to talk about, that staring silence just flips me out totally and I feel like oh sod you if you can’t even be bothered to make a connection I sure as hell am not going to assume you mean well and anyway if I went on, despite how I’m feeling, to talk about whatever it is I had in my mind, it somehow no longer seems relevant, the shitty feelings his staring silence creates pushes everything else out of my mind.

Did you always know to go into therapy and talk about whatever you needed to? Did your T always open the session himself? That’s what bothers me the most, that initial blankness.

quote:

BTW, my rule of thumb, if I'm struggling for what to talk about? I think about what I'm MOST scared to talk about and start with that. Usually the thing I'm the most scared of is exactly what I need to talk about.

AG that’s about the best ‘advice’ to do with therapy I’ve heard (I know you don’t mean it as advice, but it’s really worth knowing as a kind of structural thing, a guide to follow when wondering ‘what to talk about in therapy’.) Not so easy to do though!

I think I understand how the silences work(ed) for you - maybe eventually I’ll see the non-involvement of a T as actually more healing than feeling like someone is there to help me. Right now though….

I think I get how it’s a good thing when someone has been ‘invaded’ by others, having no space, no privacy and that a T sitting back and not getting involved could be the right thing. For me though my whole life has been one long experience of negation and invalidation and being made to experience myself as invisible, not mattering, worthless, not worth even noticing let alone being asked questions or talked to - and having a T sit there just staring silently, not interested, not bothered to acknowledge even that I’m there in fear and need - well that just keys straight into the experience of not mattering, of having no value or worth, not worth expending a little effort on, having to turn myself inside out to attract someone’s attention, having to make a huge effort every time just to get someone to acknowledge I’m actually there. Wow writing that out I can feel SO MUCH RAGE as well as despair and that awful blackness hovering underneath it all.

It’s so clear this silence in sessions is a big triggering issue for me - along with feeling unheard and not understood - which comes along with Ts not asking the right questions, not pursuing things I’ve said but going off on irrelevant tangents, generally not giving me the sense that I’m being properly listened to...

AG I think I’m the complete opposite to you in your first explanation - I’m VERY clear on what I want and need and going into therapy is all about me trying to get for me, it’s the one place I feel a lot less pressure to people please, to have to look out for others’ feelings and wants all the time. *Sigh* which automatically means T will deliberately obstruct my getting anything, T’s law at work there. ‘You want something from me, well I’m going to deliberately withhold it, just so you have to go through all the crap of dealing with wanting something you can’t get’. Thanks very much T. (For what it’s worth I can see exactly how that would work, how it’s a guaranteed way to get to feelings that I’d normally keep well and truly controlled and hidden - but it sure isn’t something I feel all warm and fuzzy about!)

On thinking about what you’ve said, I reckon the ideal therapy situation for me would be for a T to start out being a bit more openly involved (by asking questions, pursuing things that come up, explaining more clearly what therapy is all about etc) until I get to feel safer in the relationship, THEN he can step back and do the holding bit. At the moment even though the obvious thing for me to do is keep bringing up how this whole silence/not asking questions thing affects me, at the same time I’m terrified it’s bad and wrong, that the anger and frustration will alienate him and make him decide I’m not good enough for him to work with me. It’s all very well assuming that everything a client brings to therapy is ‘grist for the mill’ - but I’ve had (and others here too!) the awful experience of being fired for daring to express criticisms or resentment or anything negative about the T - they actually don’t even seem very ok with anger about things not related to therapy.

Actually all this is about me having been plunged almost immediately into strong negative transference (which I already have anyway even before I first meet a new T!) and I’m all upset and confused and strung out about it because I don’t yet know whether this T can handle anger and negative feelings towards him. And I really do not want to risk it this early in the piece - my game plan was to kind of go along with being a ‘good client’ for a while until he got to trust ME so that there’d be some sort of connection established that would make it less alienating for him to have to experience my negative feelings. And no that’s not looking out for him, that’s me trying to maximize my chances of actually getting help instead of being rejected or controlled or not heard.

*Sigh* sorry for the length of all these replies. It’s pretty obvious all sorts of things are tumbling out of my mind as a result of starting with this new T, it really does help to get it all out here. Hope it’s not boring the hell out of everyone.

LL

Kashley hi and thanks for replying - your post made a lot of sense to me. I get what you say about using therapy time in the ‘right’ way being a double edged sword - it’s the whole issue of having only limited time with a T with HUGE swathes of non-contact time in between - that really ups the pressure on making the most of the time. I also reckon things don’t flow as freely as they otherwise could if there were plenty of time to um and ah and go round the houses but given the limited time yeah either that pressure can get us to say things that we’d otherwise avoid, but equally coming up with things in anticipation of them being what T ‘expects’ can be quite damaging.

You know I think I’d infinitely prefer it if a T did have an agenda, of sorts. I’d expect it to be based on what he knows and understands about me, things that maybe I am unaware of, and that based on that understanding he can point me in the ‘right’ direction to go.

I hate it that whether I use the time usefully or end up wasting it - it’s all irrelevant to T - there’s no pressure on HIM to achieve anything in sessions, he can sit back and let whatever happens happen and just go along with it. That bothers me a lot - I think that’s why I look for a bit of structure from T, so that I can get to feel that we’re BOTH working to achieve something.

Ha ha funny, my T actually used the word agenda in last session, that it would be counterproductive if he had his own agenda and brought it to sessions - he did attempt to explain what he meant but all the time I’m thinking - No I don’t actually want you to have YOUR own agenda, I want you to have an agenda that is going to help ME. So it’s pretty clear I haven’t a clue what he means nor what you guys mean when you say you understand about the reasons for Ts being uninvolved in your therapy. I guess I haven’t been in real therapy yet, despite all the millions of Ts I’ve seen over the years - this is all very new to me.

quote:

However unbearable the silence can be, it's simply the only way that my therapy can actually be mine and not hers or anyone else's.

Kashley could I be a pain and ask you to explain this a bit more? I really can’t seem to get my head around it - how is it that by a T not being there, not getting involved, sitting in silence while you struggle with what to talk about - how does that make it YOUR therapy? I guess I have this image of therapy as being somewhere you go to have someone actively involved in your pain and struggles - that ‘my’ therapy actually directly involves a T. Sorry I’m not explaining that very well, just wondered if you were able to explain what you said more to me?

Thanks

LL

Forlorn you’re not hijacking at all - I even wish you’d explained more about how it is for you - it’s hearing how other people find therapy that is teaching me so much (and getting to hear that I’m not the only one who really struggles with this - ‘it’s your space you do what you want with it’ approach.)

Lol I love the idea of lists and schedules - I’ve always been like that (an inveterate list maker!) and thought I had a pretty clear idea of the issues I needed to bring to therapy and what I needed to get them sorted. But even though it always seemed down to me to direct and orchestrate the therapy time, Ts never seemed to go along with my schedule anyway. Did you find it helped? I can understand wanting things to flow more naturally (especially as it’s quite hard to bring in things that don’t seem to have the same impact as when you first think of them) but yeah SOME guidance from the T would be really helpful.

quote:

To me her silence suggests she doesn't know what to do.

Forlorn have you thought that maybe that is exactly what’s going on sometimes? And not just your misconception? I’ve not yet come across the sense of silence covering a T being at a loss as to what to do, but have had the complete opposite, with previous Ts, where there were NO silences at all, and it took me a long time to realize that the sheer amount of verbiage coming from Ts was actually because they didn’t know what to say what to do that they didn’t understand what I was talking about and instead of ASKING QUESTIONS they just filled all the space between my words with their own. (I suspect other Ts use silence for exactly the same reason.) I actually confronted one T about it - saying ‘there are no silences, no pauses’ and he seemed to get what I was talking about - he said it was an aha moment for him in terms of what we were doing in therapy. Sadly that insight didn’t extend to his changing the way he was in therapy and I ended up still not being asked questions and still having to listen to a load of words from him that didn’t seem to be related to what I was talking about. He genuinely didn’t know what to do with me (inexperienced I think).

I also had a T who spent more of my session time talking than I did - not because she didn’t know what she was talking about or what to do, but because she was too busy TELLING me things (in a CBT kind of way) that she thought was helpful - and all the time I wasn’t being heard or understood. Lol funnily enough she would suddenly stop talking and sit and stare at me in silence for a minute or two and that was REALLY uncomfortable, because it wasn’t as if I’d been doing the talking up to then. I fronted her on it and asked why she suddenly stopped and stared at me - she said she was thinking. Really bad feeling - to be the focus of someone’s silent gaze but knowing they weren’t really seeing me but were off in their head musing about things.

Forlorn I wonder if you could have the courage to actually get angry at her when she sits silently? Or to confront her about it? It sounds like there’s a real undercurrent of uncertainty going on there and that can’t make you feel very secure in the therapy. Ha ha I’m suggesting something to you that I myself need to do - well if I manage to do it I’ll let you know, part of me knows very well that the real issue here is how it’s making me feel, rather than what he is doing/not doing.

Lol I don’t even want to think about endings of sessions yet - but I get so much the feeling of just getting ready to get on with things and bang session time is up. It’s one reason I HATE seeing a clock - makes me super aware of just how little time I really have and ups the pressure enormously.

I’m glad though you do have a sense of trust in your T - even if she has to earn it all over again each session! I think I’m exactly that way too, whatever good I get out of a session kind of fades away and I’m back at ‘come on you, prove to me all over again that this is real and not some trick you’re playing on me’...

LL

Deeplyrooted thanks too for replying.

quote:

I needed to learn a few things about myself and how the T responded to me during those disconnects. Interestingly, I think the T needed to learn those same things of me as well

This has got me thinking! It sort of keys in to what I was saying above (can’t remember which post now I seem to have written so many!) about feeling like having to play the ‘good client’ so as to give T a chance to accept me and feel comfortable with me and therefore more willing to go with my negative feelings and thoughts. I really really do not want to get into big fights and confrontations with him this early in the piece, I wish I could just go along with whatever he says and does in the meantime, until I’ve got a better sense of what he as a therapist is like (and he has a better idea of my issues and problems.)

quote:

If there was a way to intellectualize them, I would have found it, sold the recipe and made a fortune.

Lol lol lol. Love it. I’d have been first in line to buy! That is so interesting what you say about not recognizing feelings or being able to name them. Same here. I’ve got all the intellectual labels but when it comes to matching a label to what I’m feeling, I get really lost. About the best I can come up with is ‘I feel bad’ or ‘I don’t feel comfortable’ (apart from anger, I can usually label anger - but even then I don’t often recognize when I’m angry, it comes out in lots of weird ways.) It’s only afterwards I can start recognizing some of the different feelings, hardly ever in the moment though.

DR what you’ve suggested in last para is the point I think I’ve come to with all this posting I’ve been doing, and reading everyone’s fantastic replies. That what I need to talk about is how hard it is for me to talk without a prompt from T. Everything seems to be revolving around that right now - and it’s pretty clear it’s just the tip of a major issue. God I hate how I get so obsessed over one aspect, one small thing that ends up consuming all my thoughts and time.

DR there’s no ‘hijacking’ of threads here - I’d love to have heard more about your upcoming appointment - it sounds pretty important what you’re saying there - would you come back after your appointment and share how it went? By the way, I’m really pleased to hear you’ve found yourself a new T - after the awful things you were going through with being shunted away by your former T. Hope your upcoming appointment goes well for you.

LL

Lol and here’s a post replying just to myself.

What’s becoming clear to me is that I’m wanting all sorts of things from therapy, from a T, that actually are considered ‘bad’ ‘wrong’ ‘incorrect’. Things that I know inside my head but can’t actually own because I already know they are not acceptable. For instance, if I said, well I want someone (a T) to take responsibility for helping me, I want someone to help ‘fix’ me, I want someone to tell me what to do, someone to give my feelings and thoughts an external structure, to take me by the hand and draw me along into places they already know and understand, I want someone to get inside my head and agree with the way I view things through MY eyes, letting me feel justified and correct in my feelings ie experiencing my experiences so I get to know they truly understand me and are on my side, ... well I can just imagine the sucking of teeth and disapproving shaking of heads that saying things like that to a T would bring on. And worst of all if I admit that actually yes I want someone to make me feel better, to give me all the care and love and wanting and understanding and listening I never had, to praise me and tell me how good and wonderful I am etc etc I already know that the response is going to be - but you can’t get that now and moreover it’s not in your best interests if anyone does try and give it to you now - what’s ‘good’ for you is to be made to suffer over and over and over again being denied all those things.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!! What’s even worse is that I actually understand exactly how that IS the way out - how getting is not going to heal me, how dealing with wanting/needing and NOT getting IS the path to feeling better ultimately.

But for that I need a T who KNOWS what he is doing. I can just see this scenario happening (idea borrowed from Frog )

Me: I want someone to totally understand me, to read my mind, to anticipate what I need and want and give it to me.

T: (nodding sagely) well you know that’s just not possible. (Smiles) no-one can read someone else’s mind. (Or alternatively T could use SILENCE here, just to make it even more awkward.)

Me: (feeling put down, negated, invalidated and totally not heard) But that’s what I want, even though rationally I know it’s impossible and unrealistic and that I’m wrong to want it. (the second bit being my attempt to convince T to take me seriously - all said in a defensive and angry tone.)

T: At this point will either go into a lengthy explanation about mind reading and how it’s not possible, or how children believe that people can read their minds - might even give a dissertation on ‘magic thinking’ and how because parents seem to supply children with things they need as if by magic that’s how they get to believe in mind reading, or maybe T will pick up on the ‘I’m wrong’ comment and go on about it’s not being ‘wrong’ as such because it’s what I think BUT...

Me: (really annoyed and frustrated and feeling totally wiped out) YES BUT... (and if I’m really sticking up for myself I might even manage to bring the argument (because that’s what it turns into) back to explaining that yes I know it’s not possible but please could we address the feelings and beliefs and unmet needs and wants that lie BEHIND my words??????)


And here is how it SHOULD go

Me: I want someone to totally understand me, to read my mind, to anticipate what I need and want and give it to me.

T: (nodding) Yes. (Pause) If I could read your mind right now, what is it I would be giving you? (Or some such equivalent).

Me: (heaving huge sigh of relief at having been heard, and instantly freaking out because suddenly we’re dealing with stuff that actually matters to me) ummm uhhh well, hmm, you’d be telling me that it’s perfectly ok for me to want someone to anticipate my needs and wants.

T: (Undoubtedly silence here.)

Me: Is it ok?

T: What do you think?

Ha ha this is quite fun making up ideal scenarios. But the point of doing this dialogue is to show the difference between what I expect of a T and the kind of stuff I’ve been getting up until now. Anyone relate to that?

Well I’ve really outdone myself in this thread in terms of mega posts. Sorry for really going on like this - it feels to me like I’ve suddenly plunged into therapy proper (yay!) and it’s scaring the hell out of me (boo!) all sorts of things surfacing that for some reason this particular T is managing to tap into (or is affecting me in such a way that I’m suddenly being made to look at things that must always have been there but stayed inaccessible up until now.) So it’s really helping me to try and get it all into words and to hear everyone else’s experiences on similar things.

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to reply.

LL

Hi LL,

It's been so interesting reading your posts and everyone's replies. I'm so sorry that you've been feeling so frustrated and angry, but it sounds like the discussion that's developed here has been helpful. As UV said, the fact that you've been able to process so much of what you're feeling here indicates that the therapy is working. It must be overwhelming for you, but I hope it's leading you into really positive growth and change.

The scenarios that you've spun out here about telling him you want him to read your mind and understand you perfectly remind me of some fears I had with my former T about telling him about my transference... I was afraid that if I told him about my wants, he would explain to me why I couldn't have them, when that wasn't the point at all. I knew why I couldn't have them. But I still wanted them, and I wanted to be heard. The thought of telling him was terrifying, since if he had just explained to me why our relationship couldn't be different from what it was, why he couldn't be my best friend or my lover or my father, I would have felt totally humiliated, rejected, completely stupid. I know this is a different issue, but I think the fear is the same. Disclosing our wants puts us in an extremely vulnerable position. And you're right, if he's not a skilled T, and he isn't able to just hear you and validate your feelings, it would be awful. I know you're still early on in your relationship with him and things are still developing between you. I hope that you'll be able to talk about this with him soon, and that he'll respond in a way that makes you feel heard, respected, and valued.

Thinking of you,
agent

You are not a pain at all, LL. It's actually quite eye-opening for me as I write some of this stuff, because I'm recognizing more things about my relationship with my T that I never thought about before.

quote:

You know I think I’d infinitely prefer it if a T did have an agenda, of sorts. I’d expect it to be based on what he knows and understands about me, things that maybe I am unaware of, and that based on that understanding he can point me in the ‘right’ direction to go.

I guess a better way of looking at it is a lot of Ts do have an agenda of some sorts all the time, whether they realize it or not. At first, that agenda may be to direct the conversation in a manner that gets you to reveal details about your day-to-day life to get a feel for what the everyday is like for you, then it could be to have a more in depth conversation about personal relationships, then it could be to delve into the specifics of one relationship, etc. That may work completely fine when nothing comes up in between sessions, but it could backfire if you bring something into a session that doesn't jive with their agenda. For instance, I had some stuff (medical situation in the family) come up in between my last two sessions, and my Ts 'no agenda' philosophy allowed her to just be there to listen, validate, and talk about any feelings that came up because of it. Had she had an agenda, even if she still wanted to be present and listen to my situation, who knows…maybe that ability would have been affected had she been 'planning' on talking about something else. Also, if I were to ever realize the presence of this agenda, I would be scrambling to comply with it and try to say what my T wanted to hear.

quote:

I really can’t seem to get my head around it - how is it that by a T not being there, not getting involved, sitting in silence while you struggle with what to talk about

At first, the silence made it seem like my T wasn't there, but I'm learning that she is there the entire time. Just because no one is talking doesn't mean that there's nothing going on in the room. One session after I went quiet for a bit, my T mentioned an observation she had made about my body language -- something that seems to surface when I get quiet. She doesn't leave the room when I don't talk, she's still observing what's going on in my world. Also, every single time I finally have something to say after a long period of silence, she's always incredibly attentive to it, like she had been expecting me to say that exact thing the whole time. I tend to have so-so eye contact with her in session, but I always just look down at my hands if I'm talking about something difficult or I'm quiet. However, a lot of times I will glance up at her as I start to say something after being quiet, and however intimidating it can be, she's always looking at me -- she never has to break her gaze from anywhere else in the room when I start talking.

I am a very shy, very, very hesitant person when it comes to talking about myself. I often equate sharing personal things about myself with another person like jumping off a cliff, except instead of free falling all the way down (sharing everything about myself in one fell swoop), I keep hitting ledges and have to jump off again. And each time I hit a ledge, I get quiet, I shut down and want to melt into the background. By remaining silent at those times instead of pushing me toward the edge again before I'm ready my T indicates that it's okay for me to be where I am (she often emphasizes this -- that you have to know and accept where you are first before you can know where you're going), and that she's not in a rush, that we can go at my own pace. For me, if someone kept prompting me to keep talking, keep self-disclosing, I would feel that it's exceedingly unacceptable for me to be where I am, who I am, now. Getting quiet at those times is part of who I am, and by remaining silent and not pushing me to go faster than I am ready, my T demonstrates acceptance of who I am right now, even if I'm far from okay with that.

So, circling back to having 'my' therapy -- the silence from my T indicates two things: that she doesn't have an agenda, and that she accepts where and who I am. For my personal therapy, I think these two are fundamentally intertwined, too, because if she didn't accept who or where I was, then she would have the primary agenda of getting me out of that place and getting to some place that is more comfortable for her, because none of us would be the way we are right now if we ourselves weren't comfortable with it in some sense, even if it's only for familiarity's sake.


I hope that kind of answered your question? I found myself thinking so much about this stuff that I would have things fly through my brain as I was typing that would have explained it better, but it was gone by the time I could actually get it down. Maybe this helped clarify things in a roundabout way.

Big hugs,
K

LL

Sorry I'm a bit late coming back to this....this was at the start, about you wanting to have some questions asked by T

quote:

Starfish are you saying that even when you said to your T that it didn’t work well for you that way, that she nevertheless carried on like it? (I’ve already twice said point blank to T that I really do need him to ask questions, but he won’t do it - hence thinking it’s almost deliberate in order to NOT give me what I ask for.)

I think if I remember I was way too scared at the beginning to say anything - had never been in T and never kner anybody who had, so didn't realise that that wasn't what everybody experienced in T, thought it the norm. But I hated it - felt really in the spotlight. Later we talked about it and she realised how uncomfortable I had felt with those silences and how triggering that was for me - how it realted to some of the SA. She would never do that now, but she needed to understand and be told why I found that hard in order to change how the openings went.


Does that make sense? Feels a bit rambly - sorry.

I get what you mean about wanting a T to get inside your head to totally 'get' your experiences as you do. Oh how easy would that make T? - sigh...But I think a T almost should want to get inside your head - keep wanting to understand until they do get it as much as possible...no, you can never really know what someone else is thinking or feeling, but you can know them well enough to imagine maybe. I guess the more a T knows and understands you, the more you will know and understand yourself and be confident in believing that you are 'good and wonderful' (like we know already ) without the angst of all that goes with that at the moment.

Hug to you LL,

starfish

LOL BACK AT YA LL

Thank you. (do you know i always end up feeling glad and in a good mood after reading your responses?.. Seriously dont worry that you write to much, i think everyone here feels honored having the opportunity to read about your thoughts and dilemmas, because it creates such resonanse in us! And your questions are so important- yet i doubt i have any good answers to you- but you seem to `pick up` my good intention at least `I`m also therfore reliefed that you recieve so meny good explanations from the wise- people here at this thread, people whom manage WAY better than me to express themselfs about therapy-stuff, (facts and generally info about the therapeutic methods and goals and so on). So.. great that you liked the dialog- thing i wrote..thats the only way i know how to give you some kind of idea about whats going on in the T-room. You`re more than welcome to be the fly on the wall btw -Just let me read your notes afterwards.. I am sure you`ll pick up all the important things- and perhaps made a little drawing/ cartoon of my sleepy- silent T?

Ok, I got my "google-transelator" here so i`ll try again..answer you questions:

No, first i have to tell you something: I also found it fun- (yes- FUNNY- i`m not in lack of a better word this time!) to write these dialogs. Actually i`m quite trained in it LL- you see- a whole year i did wrote down the dialogs immediately after the session. Yes, i am not joking- i wrote EVERY WORD that had ben said by me and my T. (yes, my T also said some words..) I know it was a kind of obsessing activity to do, and i freaked out about it after a while as i understood that i had turned into a "perfectionist-in-remembering-every-word-girl". I had some kind of a magic belief that every word mattered and was important.(My T gave me a very good - and deep(!) interpretation of this somewhat neurotic dialogue writing- said I had a strong need to keep the Good (Read: =the therapy, the word, my T) preserved, "safe" and shielded from the destruction and death..! *T goes on with a speach about about art, death and love* Gosh..I`m blushing remembering this...) Yeah..and me of course tryin`to regain some controll,(i was so overwhelmed by all therapy-stuff back then as you know by now i guess- lol)

OK, enough derailment..

quote:

What do you think he meant when he said he’d have to use his fantasy and creativity - I’d immediately get annoyed at that and think (and probably say lol) ‘whadya mean, what about good old fashioned curiousity?????’




[QUOTE]
I do know that right now I’m swinging between thinking hm this is all me and my fears and unmet needs and frustration, and, can I really trust this guy, isn’t it really that he doesn’t give a toss who I am or how I feel...[QUOTE]

First question: Haha..You got quite a temper ll- I surtently should had more of it. (Once- the only time i was furious at my T- i sat demontratively down at his floor- refused to sit in the chair and told him i would take his stupid cklock and smash it into the wall someday! ) Hmm.. Well..this dialog is a bit taken out of it`s conext, but He ment that in order to help me and ask the right questions (that i told him to do) he had to kind of..use his fantasy, let it "spin" around what i talked about- (as he couldn`t just guess what i sat there and hoped he would ask me) let his thougts and assosiations float in a way- and therefor being creative. Gosh- does this make any sense?
LL- i totally agree with you- curiousity is the ONE MAJOR characteristic a T must have. My T is definitly curous. (I read in a book of his, that he as a T got a strong need to try to get so close as possible to the P, and that makes him so curious and focused, because he want to "see the world the way trough the P`s eyes, hear the music the way it sounds like for the P and so on.. I dont qoted this correctly..but i liked that reading I Thought- YES, he WANTS DEEPLY to know me. Yes ME! )
- yet that interest and curiousity doesnt make him ramble on with questions and words. He is so cureous (and i recognize that in his face very often) that he rather "shut up" so that he wont desturbe or miss any of mine words- in CASE they come (haha!)


Second question (i dont manage the qoting-thing yet, bear over with me)
LL- yep, the swinging is hard and propably it will last for some more time.. When is your next appt? Is the swinging still as overwhelming and frustratied as last week? Has it changed? If yes- how? Are there new questions that feels burdening to you at this moment now? I am tryin to figure out how your T is like, and i havent really got a clear picture of him at this point i think.. -well, thats propably couse you havent either?

ok- back to my answer: But- if your T really seem to not care, (not caring is not defined here as not asking a lot of questions! ) he is not a good T. Yes, that simple! Slowly i hope- you will trust that your T DOES CARE!! hE CANT HELP YOU IF HE DONT CARE!! caring and bonding to you is alfa-omega. So soon my friend, i hope you not only in your head- but with you gut and heart trust and FEELS that your T truly cares and are engaged in your health and feelings.(ok- i assume he IS very interested in you, while writing this!) What kind of impression do you have of your T today? -Beside that he is a passive-non-verbal- type of T- do you Feel that he is still interested in you? Something genuin in his way of talking/hearing to you?

Gosh- i have to go to bed now. I`M sorry this was not my best-respons. LL- I am very interested in how your therapy will develope, i feel very engaged in this now- please let us know how things workes out between you and your T- or just in your (bright) Head! ..lol- its quite nice to get some insight in that hard-working head also! Dont hesitate to ask me questions- LL- i wont delete the poster with the dialog- i rather write some more of them later, (i got MENY more of them- weird and good and irritating ones in my head!).. btw: Your dialog was great reading and also gave me an understanding of two VERY different ways to handle questions and silence (and anger)- your second ideal dialog was the very norma of a good T i think. (Is your new T more like the first-dialog-type?) You got a great fantasy LL- and somehow it seems to me that you already have started real therapy- as you know (i think you kind of know everything, sure you arn`t a T yourself?) the most important "therapy-work" happens BETWEEN the sessions- in that precisely "fantasy-way"- making up inner dialogs that goes on between you and your T. Hve you tried that out- really- "talked" to your T about all these doubts and frustrations you got now- in that "inner dialog/fantasy-way?" try it out.. works for me. Or not.. i dont know.. i keep doing at least

Lol UV I wouldn’t be so quick to say the therapy is working, I think it’s the fantastic and thoughtful and really supportive replies people here have been giving that have helped me get some perspective in this. But in a way you are right too, for some obscure reason this particular therapist is affecting me in a way (that’s good!) that no other T I’ve seen before has remotely managed.

Thanks for outlining what a psychodynamic T might have as an ‘agenda’ I like all of it EXCEPT lol - the bit about pointing out distortions in thinking. That seems to be what nearly every other T I’ve met turns into the mainstay of therapy - endlessly ‘challenging’ and trying to show how what I think and how I feel and what I believe is all wrong. Thanks Mr T but I already know it’s wrong, what I want is someone to let me express it, own it, experience it as perfectly normal rational logical and ok given my set up THEN I can start to work on letting distorted thinking go. To have it pointed out in the moment as if it’s something I’m supposed to be aware of and change, just turns it all into another should ‘I shouldn’t think like this’ and I end up super monitoring and controlling every thought and feeling.

But on balance, maybe the other things on the agenda will outweigh the negative stuff I feel about being challenged on what I think.

Thanks UV for all your insightful info (and support).



Agent

quote:

I was afraid that if I told him about my wants, he would explain to me why I couldn't have them, when that wasn't the point at all. I knew why I couldn't have them. But I still wanted them, and I wanted to be heard.

Agent how did it go - did you manage to tell him about your wants and did he hear you or did he do what I’ve imagined in my fantasy dialogue? It really doesn’t matter what the feelings or wants are about does it, it’s the same principle - being heard, being understood, being allowed to express it all even knowing that it’s not possible to get.

Thanks for the good wishes, I have next appointment on Tuesday, and I REALLY REALLY DO NOT WANT TO GO. The appointment should have been tomorrow but it’s a bank holiday and I am SO relieved I’ve got an extra day - I am unbelievably anxious about it so having another day gives me more time to work out how I’m going to broach all this with him, without totally screwing it all up.

Thanks for replying



Kashley thanks so much for explaining what you meant. Yeah I think I get what you mean about if you knew what a T’s agenda was, you’d end up trying to comply with it. What’s come up for me reading your explanation is a pretty clear sense (albeit fleeting) of my needing T to be authoritarian - ie all knowing all understanding, knowing better than me where I ‘should’ be going. I can sort of see that that’s actually not a very good thing - not just because I’d do what you are describing, ie be a good and pleasing client and try and follow his agenda, but also because I’d give in to the incredibly strong need to be told what to do - having spent a lifetime trying to work out for myself what’s right/wrong good/bad I’d just roll over in bliss if someone I trusted came along and just TOLD me what I needed to know.

QUOTE

quote:

if she didn't accept who or where I was, then she would have the primary agenda of getting me out of that place and getting to some place that is more comfortable for her,

These words have really pulled me up short! Yes yes yes they make all sorts of sense, really ring true on a profound level. Acceptance - that’s my primary need. It’s not really occurred to me to see silence, accepting silence that is, in that way. I guess I (and maybe lots of others too) see going into therapy as something we do in order to change, so I’m expecting some sort of game plan - but all the time I would fight any kind of game plan because really all I want in the first place is acceptance, so I can then accept myself, exactly where I am at any given moment.

Wow Kashley you have some profound understanding there! I reckon your therapy must be moving forward in leaps and bounds. Thanks so much for your words.



Starfish that makes perfect sense what you said. I think I’m affected by the fact that of all the Ts people have talked about, yours actually considered your needs and feelings about silence and adapted to help YOU. (Although again I come back to my complaint about Ts who don’t EXPLAIN at least some of what therapy is about, especially to people who’ve no previous experience of it - how much easier it would be for a T to say something like - if there’s anything at all that worries you, or you are puzzled about, or that makes you feel uncomfortable or anxious, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT IT - that’s what therapy is about!)

I guess there’s a difference between a T who holds pretty rigidly to a certain way of being in therapy regardless of whether it’s the best or most comfortable thing for a client, and a T who is able to adapt their method and approach to best suit a client’s needs. I’ve had lots of Ts who SAY they adapt to a client’s needs, but in reality they stick to one way of relating no matter how much I’ve tried to explain that this or that or the other is making it much harder for me to open up etc etc.

Lol Starfish I’m glad you think I’m good and wonderful - doesn’t matter that I can’t believe it, it’s really nice to hear it from you



FROG!!!!

However did you manage to remember after sessions how the dialogue went? I think that’s a great thing to be able to do (there’s a thread on here somewhere about recording sessions, and your dialogue writing achieves the same thing). I tend to forget just about everything that I and/or T have said, it’s usually only key things that stick in my mind and therefore my memory of the session is at best biased and slanted. Wow I’d love to have the ability to write out word for word (with all the nuances as well) what has been said - that must have been SO useful to you. Hee hee I’d love to read more of them if you ever felt like posting them - that really would be fly on the wall in someone else’s therapy!

I guess after what your T said about it though, you didn’t feel like it was so useful after all? I guess I can see how it *might* be obsessional - lol I’m nothing if not obsessional about things - it just seems a shame that you stopped doing it. Although maybe your memory is good enough to remember the important stuff - unlike this geriatric who can’t even remember her own name sometimes lol

Hey Frog what you say about therapy is no less important or meaningful than what anyone else says. I get SO much out of reading what you write, you might be really surprised at just how much insight and understanding your posts convey

Lol lol I might have a temper but I seriously doubt if I’d ever be able to threaten to smash T’s clock - I love that picture you’ve painted. Ha ha too because right now that’s the next ‘want’ on my list of wants from T I’m going to have to deal with - he has a clock on the wall right opposite where I sit and I HATE being able to see the time, I’ve already mentioned something like, covering it up or turning it around but he hasn’t pursued it so sooner or later I’m going to have to bring it up again - really not looking forward to it because I’m now convinced that whatever I ask for from him he will deliberately say no.

Ah I now understand your T’s comments, that makes perfect sense (about the fantasy and creativity.) He sounds like a wonderful T (cold greetings and farewells aside.)

Frog I’m still too new with this T to have much of an idea of what he’s like - he’s not like the first fantasy dialogue T, but also not quite yet like the second (mainly because I haven’t opened up too much to him.) I’m hoping he will be ok, so far I think he is - I hold onto the picture I have formed of him as basically knowing what he’s doing. Just remains to be seen whether I’ve fantasised that picture or whether it’s really true. Got another session Tuesday, no doubt I will be back with more moaning and complaining. Seems to be the anger that’s coming up first for me in therapy.

Thanks Frog for your wonderful replies.

LL

quote:

Agent how did it go - did you manage to tell him about your wants and did he hear you or did he do what I’ve imagined in my fantasy dialogue? It really doesn’t matter what the feelings or wants are about does it, it’s the same principle - being heard, being understood, being allowed to express it all even knowing that it’s not possible to get.

I told him, and he was wonderful. He listened in a very supportive way, asked questions about what exactly I wanted from him, why, etc. And when I tried to disclaim it and say "I know it's crazy to want that," he immediately said "I don't think it's crazy at all." And at the end of the conversation he said "I can't fulfill your needs, but I can definitely help you explore them." Which to me was perfect - he wasn't misleading me into thinking that we could have a different type of relationship, but it also didn't feel like a rejection, which would have hurt me terribly. It was a validation of my feelings and permission to talk about them as much as I needed to.

The anxiety is so normal. That's how we know that what we want to talk about is important - there's a lot on the line. This is going to be a very important session for you, I'm sure. You've been incredibly brave on here, and I know that you'll be brave with your T as well. Best of luck - I'm hoping very hard that he'll give you that acceptance, which can help you to start accepting yourself.

((LL))

agent

Hi LL,

I just wanted to comment on something you wrote in reply to UV.

quote:

To have it pointed out in the moment as if it’s something I’m supposed to be aware of and change, just turns it all into another should ‘I shouldn’t think like this’ and I end up super monitoring and controlling every thought and feeling.

Yes, I tend to frequently experience that whenever my T points that kind of thing out to me. BUT, it really only wreaks havoc on me when I take (and keep) the comment out of context. In other words, if I think of her pointing out that distorted thinking in the context of her offering me the compassion that I won't offer myself, it makes it easier to hear the words. Whenever my T points out distorted thinking it's not with the goal of getting me to implement a change right then and there. Ultimately, it's an effort to get me to have compassion for myself, but the first step of that is to simply remain aware. In order to make sure that we are aware, they will point it out to us frequently, and though I know it's really frustrating (and will sometimes keep me from saying certain things), they can't read our minds so they don't know for sure if we are aware of those thoughts.

Also, I know that a big fear of mine in therapy is that everything negative I think about myself (which comprises nearly all of my thoughts) will be confirmed. And each time my T acknowledges any of those thoughts, it could be the final moment where she just throws her hands up and tells me that it's all true. Most of the time I think that the reason I have so much trouble sharing those negative thoughts about myself is because I am ashamed, which I know is part of it, but that fear of confirmation is, I suspect, another big reason.

quote:

I guess I (and maybe lots of others too) see going into therapy as something we do in order to change, so I’m expecting some sort of game plan - but all the time I would fight any kind of game plan because really all I want in the first place is acceptance, so I can then accept myself, exactly where I am at any given moment.

This is so true, and I think I originally went into therapy thinking that I would just change something about myself and all would be fine -- everyone would be happy with me, and I'd be content. Ha, I wonder if any of us had any idea what we were getting into when we first started therapy, because I know I sure as heck didn't! This goes back to that fear of mine…I started therapy with the assumption that I wouldn't be accepted, that the therapist would see the same problems in me that I saw and would tell me how to fix it.

It's tough, though. As I know you understand, LL, it's so much easier to understand these things on an intellectual level, but I feel so far from actually believing and accepting them. Quite frustrating, actually. A lot of time it seems like I'd rather be ignorant and have it all hit me in the face one day. Although I imagine that wouldn't be much fun either.

LAMPLIIIIIIIIGHTER (wasn`t that a cool variant? )


hihi- geriatric-lol!
I` laughed when i read about your enoying-development about the clock! haha- you have now idea how meny times i have curset that clock. I got so meny stories and memories with that dumb little clock of his! btw: it`s all a very primitive hate though, Me: "i want more time with you- f** that clock that tells us to stop! How come that stupid thing got so much power??" (*T mobilizes all his patience*) Let me know how your clock-relationsship developes as well ll
Firstly; I read you were so anxious about the next session Tuesday... Waiting and try to NOT wait- tryin`to get some focus and clear thoughts before an important session makes one really anxious (performance anxiety as well) i know.. I had always this bizzare mix of angst and excitement before the session.. It`s a real balance work- allow yourself to NOT have any controll, no agenda not any planned out- scenarios, and the fact that one HAS all this thoughts and questions and "big plans" (controll needs) for the upcomming session. You propably know but- the fact that its very very normal and totally understandeble that your gettting more and more anxious for this session..You got so meny big questions you`need to figure out, and perhaps mostly get a clearer opinion about your T, so meny "pictures" of your T that you propably wonder if will bear or brist? It is one important session you have ahead, but i doubt there is anything you can do or say that will f*** it up. Dont be afraid. You wont. You cant do anything wrong- It might feels like it (yep- i felt every session was a 'bear or brist' a BIG happening in my life- and was totally broken if i had`nt managed to get what i wanted, or said the things i so deeply needed to say!) I`would so much encourage you to stick to the "good picture" of your T- that he KNOWS what he`s doing. Allow yourself to idealize him a bit on your inner "screen" and allow yourself to think of him as a proff. (or whatever good stuff you`d like him to be!) I`m not kidding ll- if you have a "dream picture" of him that makes you feel more safe, more excited and less anxious- than USE THAT PICTURE FWIW! (after a while the picure will be explored and used in another therapeutic way as well- AS THE HELPING TOOL in the attachment-process that this picture - imaginings are to us patients!)


hihi- Remembering the dialogs doesnt require a lot, simply just an obsessive (ll- it WAS an obsession- really-haha!) NEED! Thats a powerful thing you know.. It worked like this: Sessions over (good-bye-) *me runnging home, going through the dialog-scenario* Blank white screen, start: Me..."xxx". T:..."xxx" and so on..hours later, 5-6 full pages on the computer. Every word. (that i did manage to remember) I also made marks were i wrote down the nuances.. smiles,lack of smiles or new looks, (type: "T looks up at this point and then with a warmt tone in his voice says..") or the "regi" any moves or spescial non-verbal communication, and facts like- f.ex. what my T was wearing, how he came into the room etc. Just extremely careful and detailed descriptions! I know- the recordning-(and the site here on foum about it- i was so glad to read that other people also needed to somehow record the session- it was an eye-opener! Thanks for telling me about the thread ll!) why did`nt i just do that?? No, for me it was kind of theraputic in some way, to actually do the activity- WRITE! i did it all in secret- i was totally sure that if my T would find out that I was THAT interested and used hours and hours to write- he would think i was crazy (ok- it was a bit crazyness in it- but hey- i was in love with this man ) and to excited about Therapy and him, so he would just quit me. So.. after a year- doing this shameful activity- i TOLD HIM! and to my surprise he seemed to enjoy hearing about it, in a way i still dont really have figured out of (LL- HERES THE DIALOG )

(15 minuts before session ending)

(blabla)
Me: ..uhm.. there is something i havent told you..(anxious and unsecure tone)
T: Yeah? (very interested)
Me..uhm..(soon blushing here) i`ve been..uhm..i kind of writes a diary- ehm-
T: Yes..?
Me: Well, it`s not a diary..more like.. after a session i have to.. write..write down things- yes.
T: write down things..? (dragging the words out of me)
Me: ..(mumbles)yeah.. i need to remember every word that has been said here. I write down everything i remember after a session.. (speaking very low and serious!) so..yeah..(terrified)
T: ..(a bit shocked, trying to speak very quietly) like- uhm- impressions or..impressions and reflections from the session here?
Me: Uhm..no..NO NO! not like that..everything.
T: Everything- you mean?
ME: I WRITE DOWN EVERY WORD- I TRY TO REMEMBER EVERY WORD AND WRITE IT DOWN SO IT WONT BE JUST GONE!!!! (intens)
(T in silent shock)
Me: AND I DONT WANNA DO IT ANY MORE- IT TAKES SO MUCH TIME AND I KNOW ITS CRAZY BUT I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO DO IT! I KNOW ITS SICK- I CAN SIT IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER FOR HOURS AND..-AND FEEL LOST IF I DONT REMEMBER THE EXACT WORD- AND WHEN IT CAME AND WHAT I OR YOU REPLIED AND-*CONFUSED AND UPSET*
T: (still overwhelmed, but seem to not be able to hide a tiny little good smile)
Me: I have done it all the time! sinse the second or third session.. I dindt dear to tell you.. but now i have..and i dont wanna do it anymore..I dont have the time, and it feels like a obsession.. yeah..
T: Ok..hm..yeah, its sounds tiring.. Hmm.. yes that must have taking a lot of time- it must have become a large document? Very much to read- *gentle smile*
Me: Hehe..yeah.. But its not for anyone to read!! haha, its just for me..NOT for you!! haha *laugh*
T: *laughing a bit* no..hm but
Me:..yeah?
T: So..you want to remember because you have greatly appreciated the conversations here.. you write about the good things..the things you want to remember?
Me: uhm..well, yeah.. everything..the hard sessions as well.. all of it.
T: ok, all of it. hm..- but, you said you feel like you have to do it- what will happen if you stopped? You said it would all be gone?
Me: yes! It feels like that- i know its not rational but..yes, like it will all be gone- the conversations here.. if they werent written down..you know..
T: "It will be gone"..hmm.. *thinking hard* it sound like a a staggering thought..That all of this (therapy) would just disappear unless you wrote it down..
Me: Yeah.. welcome to my world..

T: hm.. (*tryin`to imagine my world*
Me: *getting sad by thinking of all the best converasations i had, that i imagine just blows away*
T: (looks at me, sympatic and warm and straight in my eyes) The good things wont disappear. It wont.
Me: No...?
T: no- (tells me about to assosiations and about a poem that he thinks of- and the conversation continues- and i walk from the session and for the first time i feel totally calm and i dont run home to obsessivly write it down, i belived my T`s word and trust that all the good things will last and stay safe in my memory, written down or not.)

ok-ll- i have to go to bed again- i will come back to this poster and answer the questions i might have forgotten now. Have a good time ll- take care and try not to get to anxious about tomorrow-session. Take a deep breath and inhale all the comfort around you (so easy to say, so hard to do-)
All the best to you ll. Sweet dreams

Agent thanks again for the good wishes (I'm going to need them I'm SO anxious about tomorrow's session.)


UV thanks for the link. I certainly got issues with control, not sure if I match up with some of the other criteria though - interesting comments there posted by the mother of an OCPD child (I immediately thought - autism). The reason i'm so scared that this T won't work out is because I've spent an awful lot of my life in and out of therapy and not so far found anyone who remotely understood my problems (or more to the point, made me feel that they were at least trying to understand), and I'm also utterly terrified that this T will say he can't work with me, will fire me - and that is squarely based on the experience I had with woman T a couple of months back who fired me in the third session in what I think was an unwarranted and damaging way. I am still reeling from that - it shattered all my (obviously illusory) faith that a T was there for the client - it never occurred to me at all that a T couldn't/wouldn't work with me so the ground shifted big time under me and I've had to add rejection/abandonment by T to my list of potential dangers to anticipate. And now that I think this T might just be the right T for me, of course all that fear and insecurity and trying to pre-empt rejection is all working overtime. I do not like this one little bit!



Kashley thanks for your words, they make a lot of sense to me.

quote:

Ultimately, it's an effort to get me to have compassion for myself, but the first step of that is to simply remain aware. In order to make sure that we are aware, they will point it out to us frequently, and though I know it's really frustrating (and will sometimes keep me from saying certain things)

I'd not really thought of it like that, the compassion aspect - hm could be a struggle for me to see it that way too, as my experience of people pointing out distorted thinking or erroneous assumptions on my part has always been of the criticizing can't you see how YOU are to blame for everything type - so I sort of expect that especially from a T. But I think I get the awareness bit - yes, if it's presented within a compassionate context I can see how it could be really helpful. Hm wish I didn't have such fears and defensive expectations - it's such a pain going in full of good intentions and just KNOWING that I'm going to end up acting through those fears. The first whiff of what I take to be criticism and I'll be cowering in a corner spitting and snarling and lashing out defensively. *holds head in despair*

Don't know if anyone else is like this, but I hate it that I can know in advance that I'm going to act/think/feel in certain ways DESPITE knowing it and just being plain helpless to do otherwise. Old patterns and ways of thinking that I can actually observe in action even as they happen, yet still they trundle along despite all my awareness and understanding of them. And having a T point them out to me as if I'm not aware of them happening only compounds the whole set up. I dunno just rambling here, sorry...


FROG AGAIN!!! Yes love the variant It's hard to be creative here (not enough smilies and colours, hm actually maybe there are colours, I've never checked?)

Oh clocks - you've just said something that's made me think - I hate seeing the clock because it stops me from just relaxing and getting on with things, feels like I'm always aware of not starting talking about something because there's just not time whereas if I didn't see the damn clock I could leave it up to T to organize the time boundaries. But what you've said - yes - that's so for me too - I HATE the time boundary itself. It's NEVER enough time. Ha ha I got a conflict - on the one hand I want to leave it up to T to say when it's time to finish, on the other hand as soon he says 'time's up' I REALLY resent it. There's a thread on here about clock watching in T, I might have to resurrect it, depending on how my 'want' for him to cover the clock goes.

Aw Frog thanks so much for the really encouraging and positive way you've explained this - you know I AM sitting here thinking (fearing) that I will f*** it up, will do something so majorly wrong that he'll boot me out there and then - and hearing your words is restoring some sense of a reality perspective. It's probably highly unlikely he's going to want to get rid of me just because of one session - oh hell, well there's last session as well, I got the sense that he thought I was acting like a really 'bad' client, being too demanding and not taking in what he was telling me... Oh boy so much stuff coming up I HATE these fears normally I can rationalize them as irrational and over the top, but they are really crawling around my brain right now. Panic panic panic...

Ohhh thanks for posting that dialogue - it's kind of funny in one way, (easy to smile after the event i suppose) and it's like really being there, it's great. Was he really taken aback at your telling him about writing out the sessions afterwards in such detail? It sounds like he understood exactly what you needed when you were doing that and somehow, just like that, gave it to you in the session itself. Do you still write stuff out now (maybe not dialogues, but do you journal, do you write out your own impressions and thoughts, or is it enough that you just hold it in your head?)

I try and write out as much as I can remember - what i think, feel, things that come up, because otherwise it just all disappears from my memory and I end up being left with one or two very biased impressions that aren't actually representative of the session at all (negative focus ha ha).

Thank you so much Frog, for your wonderful words and support. Hugs to you (and hope you had sweeet dreams too, right now I can't remember any of mine because sleeping pills make me too groggy in the mornings).



Thanks again to everyone too, this thread has really helped me big time, I so appreciate all your replies.

LL

Dear Lamplighter

I only have 5 minuts right now, so i`ll have to answer your poster later tonight (can hardly wait) yet- just wanted to let you know that you`re in my thoughts now as i suppose you`re very anxious about the session tomorrow. You may not see this poster before the session but i deeply wish you good luck and that you find some peace within yourself before and during the session. Hugs to you- Ok, times up for me- have to run-

ps:
I wish i had some really nice words (you know- a poem or a verse or something) to give you, some support but i`m too stressed and in lack of better words right now. Just let this poster be a reminder to you that we care for you-and that i`ll be thinking of you tomorrow as well.

Ok, I am BACK

the s** clock.. Your conflict with the clock is something i (painfully) relate to. Ho, it must be even harder as you seem to actually be able to SEE the clock? I dont think i would managed to even open my mouth if i SAW the clock and it`s ticking... I guess i would just sit and get hypnotized by the ticking or something.. I always have the clock (its really just a tiny little stupid red thing my T`s clock!) behind my back, so i would only "notice" it was there when my T looked at it (he always try`s to do it in a discrete way..Gosh- i think i hate that look even more than the clock itself.) You know- you might just ask your T to gently turn the clock away or something? It IS his job to keep the time, and if you tell him how stressed you become having to face the clock and how it stops you from starting a new topic- (or even just finish the sentence, -like this frog- in fear of being interrupted) I honestly dont think it goes more then three sessions between- without me makin` a remark about it.. like: "are there enough time left for me to finish this?" and so on.. But ll- also the clock- hang up- (=anxiety for seperation, in my case!) becomes better. Just talk about it. Talk, talk, talk. (haha- i know- there is not TIME ENOUGH TO TALK! lol!) I havent smashed it in the wall yet I`m kind of having a love-hate relationship with it these days.. yeah..even the time boundries did change from being THE ENEMY to something i somehow (slowly) learned to utilize(?). So much safety in those frame "walls" we seem to wanna break down from time to time..



LL- how come that be? (that you`re afraid your T thinks of you as a "bad, demanding client") It seems like a very burdening self-picture you got there. Must be painful.. But ll- i dont believe he thinks of you like that. I cant imagine you being a "bad" client.. Rather the opposite. You truly seem to be reflective, interested, engaged, curious, intelligent, inquisitive, honest and willing, in other words: a therapist dream client! You being anxious and suspicious- is only normal and does NOT undermines this facts!

[QUOTE]

Was he really taken aback at your telling him about writing out the sessions afterwards in such detail?
[QUOTE]


Hm.. "aback?" i actually dont know what that means ll- you mean shocked? ok, if yes, the answer is..yeah i think he was. At least he was surprised that i suddently told him about this secret activity (i think he saw me in a different perspective that day, because i had used a lot of energy to create this picture of me as relaxed and not-to-interested in therapy in general.. haha- wasted energy btw! ) and he seemed to be really interested in the details of the writing..I did actually wondered if HE became a bit anxious thinkin`about that i actually had ALL his words kept on my computer (maybe scared somone would find the notes and read them? i dont know.. ) You right ll- he DID understood my reasons for doin it. He knew from before that i tend to be very nostalgic and have a strong need to maintain what I consider to be good and important to me. Sometimes i dont understand how he manage to "get" me.. this is the part of the relation/ therapy i think of as a piece of magic

[QUOTE] Do you still write stuff out now (maybe not dialogues, but do you journal, do you write out your own impressions and thoughts, or is it enough that you just hold it in your head?)[QUOTE]

The day i told my T, i also asked him (later on in the dialog-) no-i forced him to decide that i was no longer allowed to write that kind of dialog-repports. You see- i really needed to stop doing it for several reasons, and i thought "giving" my T the authority to decide this and also to ask me the next session if I had written or not - would be the useful motivation i needed in order to stop. So, He accepted the "system" I created and took on that role. And sinse that session I have managed the goal I was a very proud patient that next session, as i answered him that i had NOT did the obessional-activety.. BUT: I do sometimes writes diary and impressions from the session..but it`s nothing like what i used to do. (perhaps my activiety on this forum is my new `rebonder`?) So i feel free from this burden now. I DO trust that all the good stuff somehow "lives inside" me (my head) and wont be "gone". I`M more relaxed in sessins as well!



If you want to learn to remember dreams, i think even the sleeping pills cant stop you- just keep a papir under your pillow (or whatever) and focus on remember the dream before you fall asleep- it really works that easy sometimes! And when you wake up you just write it all down..(haha lol me and the writing again!) I guess you know this stuff, but meny people tend to become more interested in their dream-life when entering therapy, because it`s such a great source of material to use in psychotherapy I often tell dreams, but mostly for fun..or if i am in lack of topics or thoughts.. Very often those sessions turnes out to become very useful and creative.

Its a bit funny- (or ironic) that you wished me a sweet dream as well.. You see I had a nightmare this night and used the whole session today telling my T about it..(he kind of forced me to tell it.*arrg* ) I been totally "off" today and scared by this dream and i HATE to have dreams where i turn my T into this..monster!! So todays session was.. hard..and i feel so bad/sad/mad after being "putted in that position" where i have to "confess" that i have these horrible dreams about him..How come i be so scared of my T in the dreams? It doesnt match the real-awake-life! I AM NOT SCARED OF HIM!! (i told my T that today, but he seem to try to figure out why i AM a bit scared of him..am i?? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? he does NOT remind me of anything scary.. its so confusing gosh- sorry LL for rambling about this on your thread, i lost focus here now)

OK. So as i wrote befroe here ll- I wish you all the best for the session tomorrow. Whatever happens- or DONT happens, good or bad, let us know if you want to. Or dont if you dont want to. Your in my thoughts.
Have a good night, be gentle to yourself.

((((((( Frog ))))))

You are just amazing - lol you make me laugh (because some of the things you say are so funny) and you really make me think, and best of all you make me feel listened to - wanna be my T too (I’ve got a few other forum members lined up for the job as well

I took a lot of what you said into session with me today (support in the back of my head - as well as what others on here have said) and it did help me cope. It was a ... strange ... session - and I’m not sure about what’s happening in my head because of it - need to process it a bit I think before trying to explain any of it. Just to say I’m swinging between being HOPPING MAD, and thinking well maybe this could be good for me. Lol.

Lots of things in your post I want to reply to, will come back later when I’m a bit less mixed up in my thoughts.

But thought you’d be interested to know that I asked (again) for the clock to be turned away or taken down during my session and got a big NO!!!! I am not a happy bunny

Hey that’s interesting about your dream, and I’m sorry you ended up having a hard session - again will come back to this in later post

Right now I’m going to have a rest and try and calm my head down, I can’t believe how messed up this new T is making me feel.

Thanks so much for your support and interest Frog - and for sharing so much about yourself - that means a LOT.

Be back later

LL xxxx

Nothing like a good night’s (drug induced) sleep to give you a break from reality. This could turn into another LONG post so want to say thank you in advance to everyone for being so tolerant.

UV thanks so much for replying - right now I could do with all the understanding I can get! I really have plunged into some kind of hellhole of intense feelings that’s got me totally confused about what this is all about

Yeah provocative is just about the right word for what’s going on with this new psycho T. I spent most of yesterday’s session in a state of powerless rage - it’s amazing how this guy seems to push all the buttons and elicits intensely conflicting stuff in me.

I went in with a little list of things I needed to talk to him about - first of which was his comment that I’m not supposed to bring stuff in with me from between sessions. (This all to do with the silence at start of sessions) Well apparently that was a ‘misunderstanding’ just as bloody well!

Second was my fear that getting angry in sessions was unacceptable (several prior messages from him about that) - I never got a straight answer to the question whether expressing anger was ok (what a surprise!) but got told in no uncertain terms that acting on feelings was definitely a no-no, so a LONG ‘discussion’ about where he drew the line between expressing and ‘acting out’ - essentially NO expression of feelings is acceptable - I really argued about that one, what about tears then are they ‘acting out’ as well? He muttered something about oh well there are exceptions. This is not calculated to make me feel safe and secure and welcome!

And third was my fear that whatever I want or ask for he will in a knee jerk way automatically and deliberately deny it. Well what do you know, asking for the clock to be turned away got a denial - with a not very good explanation of why. Got told that he wouldn’t under any circumstances adjust the clock (or anything else for that matter) for me and if it bothered me that much I ought to move somewhere in the room where I couldn’t see it. Like, lie on the couch for instance! Got to be joking mate. (Essentially it doesn’t matter where in the room I am - lol except if I sat in ‘his’ chair - if I want to look at him I can’t avoid seeing the clock as well). And the only place in the room where I wouldn’t see this particular clock is if I sat in some distant corner where I couldn’t face him and he seemed to think that not seeing his face was a good thing (meaning he doesn’t see it as important that he see MY face). Wow do I feel rejected, worthless, unimportant and not mattering.

And I certainly got the message that that room is NOT ‘my’ space but under his control entirely. And that it’s not MY therapy but his, determined by all these rules and regulations he’s set up - he has really RIGID ‘boundaries’. In fact I got the sense of being controlled really clearly - hence the powerless rage and also SO many similarities to prior experiences - I’m so worried that the way in which he is eliciting such strong negative feelings in me (mainly intolerably frustrating anger but also incredible pain underneath) isn’t therapeutic in a transferential way but because he actually IS treating me the same way as I used to be treated. Deliberate denial of wants, deliberate forbidding of expressing feelings, deliberate insistence on my having to ‘blame’ myself for what’s happening in the session and how I’m feeling, refusal to ask me questions about what I think and how I feel but giving me lectures instead... lots more small details that all added up to my having to question whether this is really in my best interests to go along with a therapy that is deliberately calculated to deny and negate all my perceived needs and wants - I can kind of see that it’s not a bad thing to have spontaneous feelings like that provoked in a session, but I fail utterly to see how it’s of any therapeutic value unless there’s a sense of fundmental concern, care and empathy on the T’s part. And so far I’ve not seen a cooee of empathy let alone anything resembling kindness, caring or sympathy. Feels like he is pushing me into some kind of emotional free fall without offering a lifeline to which I can cling.

Well it’s not ALL negative, which is why I’m so conflicted. I’m quite bowled over by how effective this kind of therapy seems to be at getting me in touch with truly spontaneous (and usually well controlled and very deeply hidden away) feelings - (not that that’s his aim, but he just seems to push every button I’ve got.) Considering my big need from all the Ts I’ve seen over the years is for someone to help me get in touch with what I feel, he’s not doing badly for only 6 sessions so far. And I can really really clearly see the value in ‘expressing’ (lol - in his view, ‘talking about’) what’s coming up for me and NOT having a T be there emotionally for me. Sessions with this guy have been unbelievably painful and I go away thinking man I can’t take this cold almost mechanical authoritarianism - yet at the same time I’ve never felt so real or so in touch with what’s really going on in me. I just have serious doubts that I can deal with it all on my own. He’s certainly not there to help me with it all - so in between sessions I really am having to deal with everything by myself. (I seriously doubt that he is available between sessions in ANY form of contact, and even if he were, he wouldn’t help me in any kind of emotionally caring way anyway.)

As I expected anger is the big feeling surfacing all the time, but in such a way as to make it really really frightening for me to experience it, and I’m so so scared that he’s just pushing me - in this totally uninvolved and uncaring way - to face all the bad things about me - without making it ok for me to BE that way. I don’t get the sense that he accepts me as I am at all.

I think I’ll be starting a thread on anger in therapy - I desperately need more info from others who have dealt or are dealing with it. Feels like I’m dropping into a black abyss here with no sense of safety or respite and that’s making me very very frightened.

Oh and as an aside, however do you guys get to LIKE your Ts? Right now I could almost hate this man, certainly don’t feel anything remotely resembling warm fuzzy feelings for him, can’t for the life of me imagine getting attached to him or even feeling remotely good in his presence. Gah!!!!

LL

Hello again Frog thought I’d reply in a separate post.

Oh the clock. The arbiter of life in therapy. Yeah I can actually see the damned thing, because it’s a BIG one fixed to the wall behind T and I can’t avoid seeing it. Each time I look at T I automatically see the clock though I try my hardest to ignore it. It really does impinge on me for a lot of the reasons you said it bothers you - and now it’s an even BIGGER issue because he refused pointblank to do anything about it. And I don’t think I was being unreasonable in asking for it to be covered up or turned away - was quite gobsmacked when he said no - every single other T that I’ve asked not to see the clock hasn’t even thought twice about turning it away from me. So why does this guy have to be the contrary one and act out HIS bloody control issues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t like that at all, makes me think he has a problem with flexibility, has to stick to what HE needs to happen in order to maintain control, and that makes me scared about future scenarios - rigidity in a T is not the best thing for healing. Ha ha Frog I even had images in my head of getting up and ripping the clock off the wall - when I said, ‘well maybe I will just get up and turn the clock away myself’ that freaked T out I could tell, he then started on a big lecture about not allowing ANYTHING in the room to be touched. I was made to feel like a silly little kid throwing a tantrum instead of someone with a reasonable request for something that would make therapy a little easier for me.

The way he responded made me feel like I mustn’t dare even move, let alone get up and wander around the room, looking at or touching things. Child controlled eh? Naughty child mustn’t go exploring, mustn’t handle things that don’t belong to you. GRRRRRRRR. I bet if I tried sitting on the floor as you described above, I’d get ‘told off’ or at best disapproved of. And I’m not willing to get into a stand off fight about it ie well sod you mate if you’re trying to control my very movements in this space, I’ll deliberately do something just to assert MY right to exist. Blah. (good word that )

But I’m glad you seem to be coming round to the view that the time boundary is helpful - it sounds like you’ve gone through a lot of negative things with therapy and are now at a point where you are getting lots of benefits from it. *Sigh* I’m still at the starting post.

Oh Frog if only I did come across to T in all the positive ways you described me (thank you!) - but all he’s seeing is a frothing at the mouth raging frustrated demanding defensive totally non-compliant and endlessly questioning his technique and competence bad patient. I’ve already had him on the defensive a couple of times and that scares me. Ha ha I had this plan on playing the good client for a while so he’d get to at least see SOME positives in me before he got hit with all the bad stuff, but no banana. Somehow I never managed the good stuff, just dumped all the bad straight away. And am still dumping it.

Frog it must be a really nice feeling knowing that your T can ‘get’ you without your having to endlessly try and explain it. It must be nice to be able to rely on his understanding you. And well done you for dropping the obsessional part of writing - that must have been pretty unpleasant feeling that you HAD to write every word down. That’s interesting too that he agreed to take on the authority of making sure you stopped the dialogue writing (ha ha I already know now that if I asked my new T to do something like that, he would automatically refuse.) So I guess your T knew how important it was to you and didn’t see your asking him to take on such a controlling role as negative. Good for you for being able to ‘use’ your T to help you.

Lol Frog going to be provocative here and say that maybe somewhere inside, you also are angry at your T but haven’t been able to feel it because he’s such a nice man and you love him so much. Dreams don’t lie (a bit like feelings I suppose) though they don’t necessarily tell the objective truth (all of which you know of course as you do dream work) - I’m sorry you had such an unsettling dream though - but it sounds important. Have you thought about it anymore, come to any conclusions about what it meant?

I LOVE working with dreams - but haven’t bothered recording any for ages. Thanks for the suggestion about pen and paper - I put some next to my bed and this morning almost managed to hold a few dream images in memory but by the time I woke up enough to reach for paper the images just vanished. It really is the sleeping pills they create too much of a groggy gap between dream fragments and proper waking so I lose all memory of the dream. Unless it’s a particularly powerful or frightening dream, then it can stay with me after I wake up. Annoying as I’d have liked to know what my dreams told me about this new guy. Although it usually takes ages for new figures to turn up recognizably in my dreams.

New T also hasn’t mentioned dreams at all so I don’t even know that he’s particularly interested in them. *Sigh* again, so much I expect of him that’s based only on what I’ve read or heard others say about therapy - I have no idea how much he fits the normal pattern.

Well that’s the update on yesterday’s session. Got one more on Thursday then the T is off on holiday so about three weeks before next session. You can bet that tomorrow’s session will be a disaster!

LL

Hey lamplighter-

quote:

Originally posted by Lamplighter:
I spent most of yesterday’s session in a state of powerless rage

During a session my T was describing how far of come, and his interpretation of our first couple months of sessions. He described it as a little bit of a power struggle. I wanted to control and manipulate him and held boundaries, but didn’t try to change me or rush the process. I think what you said about “powerless rage” was totally an accurate description of how I felt at the beginning of therapy. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t do what I wanted. He would just sit there and not do anything I told him to. I remember asking him to get rid of the toys in his room and he said no.


A few weeks ago I told my T the story of my 3 year old cousin. I was taking care of them for a few days and in the morning they both sat down to have some cereal. I poured them both a bowl of cereal and right when I gave the bowl to my 3 year old cousin, she whined, “I want allllll of it!” So I said to her, “When you are all done with that cereal, I will give you more.” But she was not happy with that answer. She started whining louder and louder, “Give me all of it!!!!” I told her that I will give her more cereal as soon as she eats all the cereal in her bowl. She was very mad and got down from the table to go pout on the couch. I still didn’t give in, and about 5 minutes later, my cousin decided to come back to the table on her own and eat the cereal that was in her bowl. Of course I praised her like crazy that she made the choice to come back to the table on her own. When I finished the story my T said, “So how does it feel to be a therapist.” I said, “What do you mean.” And then he explained, “She made a demand, you held appropriate boundaries, and then in the end she was able to make the choice for herself.”
I thought this whole story made a lot of sense, and it kinda put the therapeutic relationship into perspective for me. I didn’t say no to my cousin because I wanted her to suffer, I said no to her because I care about her, and I want her to be able to learn and grow, and those things are not going to come from me giving into her every demand.

quote:

And I certainly got the message that that room is NOT ‘my’ space but under his control entirely.

I’m just a little confused by this. I guess I’m missing something. I thought that what you wanted was a T who would start talking first, control the sessions, and show that he cares by asking you questions. So with those things that would equal a space that is not yours, but under his control. My T is always reminding me that this is my space because of the fact that I control the sessions, determine what we talk about, and he only follows my lead.

quote:

(I seriously doubt that he is available between sessions in ANY form of contact, and even if he were, he wouldn’t help me in any kind of emotionally caring way anyway.)

My T said he was unavailable between sessions for the first few months. Now I text him and call him whenever I need to. Maybe that’s just part of the benefits of sticking with a T and forming a relationship. Of course, your T could be different, that’s just my experience.

quote:

however do you guys get to LIKE your Ts? Right now I could almost hate this man, certainly don’t feel anything remotely resembling warm fuzzy feelings for him

Good question. I literally hated mine for the first few months. I don’t know exactly what made me start to like him (my T and I have talked about this), but we do have a few guesses. I guess just as the therapeutic relationship grows, and trust starts to be involved, you stop fighting the boundaries as much, and start to be able to work together. Sorry I don’t have any other way to explain this, it’s still a little confusing to me.

I hope this makes sense.
Mac

LL

I can see why youd be feeling upset about his behaviour over the clock. I just don't get it - it is HIS responsibility to keep to time, not yours...as long as he can see some timepiece then why must you? Surely he can give you a 5 minute warning or similar? I don't get the lecture either about not moving things...what's that about? You're hardly going to trash the place are you? I am really surprised..it seems to go against all I have read and experienced personally too, that the environment has to be correct before you can totally relax and feel safe. I have moved chairs, cushions etc because they unnerved me where they were...my T seems to see that as a positive thing - that I am gaining control of my environment rather than vice versa. He seems a little pedantic over this maybe, and making you feel like a child at the start is not helpful. Can you tell him how it makes you feel when he says/does those things, rather than just why you want them altered?

quote:

however do you guys get to LIKE your Ts? Right now I could almost hate this man, certainly don’t feel anything remotely resembling warm fuzzy feelings for him

Oh LL, how hard. When I started with my T Ithink I was a bit scared of her and scared of the whole therapy thing. I used to say very little and was very wary of her in case she behaved like others in my past....I had to learn to trust her. The fears were unfounded because she wasn't remotely scary and never did anything to betray my trust BUT nevertheless that's how it felt for ages. But I never disliked her, just a bit wary I suppose. Now years on, I know and like her. I don't know if I could sit in therapy with someone I didn't like, certainly wouldn't want to disclose much if that were the case. Everything inside me would tell me not to talk.

But looking at the evidence, it does seem that people here tended to say that they were wary or disliking of their Ts at first....maybe this might change as your relationship develops. Can you bear to wait and find out???

Hugs ((((LL)))))

starfish

Mac hi and thanks for your comments (very insightful and interesting they are too!)

Don’t want to rabbit on too much (edit: famous last words lol) just felt I needed to point out that this new T doesn’t start talking first nor does he ask questions (at all!) - but yeah he does control the sessions by endlessly talking AT me - the only time there’s a true silence is at the very beginning of session when is the ONE time I DO want him to talk! I don’t think I’ve had so many explanations of things since T of earlier this year.

The reason I said it wasn’t MY space but his, I was referring to the actual physical space of the room where it’s been made pretty clear to me that I mustn’t touch anything, or move anything, and I’m being pressured into lying on the couch and feel I have to fight to retain the right to sit how I choose (within limits.) Hm in fact remembering that bit of the session, I recall he started out saying that I could sit somewhere where I couldn’t see the clock ‘for instance, leaning back into the corner of the couch’ (at an angle to him and the room so I would have to crick my neck around the fireplace to look at him - ha ha but would still see the bloody clock) and then ‘or you could lie down on the couch that way you wouldn’t see the clock’… (wrong again, unless I spent all the time staring at the ceiling). I really don’t like the rigidity of these restrictions on my movements, makes me feel as if I have to ask permission for everything (and of course, the moment I ask for something I’ll get a deliberate ‘no’.)

I’m going on and on again sorry, it’s because I’m so so so angry and bewildered I really feel like a little kid who’s being ‘thwarted’ at every turn, and I have yet to see that that is in any way in my best interests.

Oh I like your story about your cousin, but can’t help feeling that actually she wasn’t given a true choice (whether to eat ALL the cereal or only some of it) she was effectively given a choice only whether to eat what you’d offered her or nothing at all. So it was all on your terms and she had to accept your restrictions. Though you made it so she didn’t lose face or feel bullied which I think is good. Ha ha see there I am immediately identifying with a child who wants and is denied - the outrage!!!!! (I’m half aware of what’s going on here, but it’s very very hard to be treated so blatantly like a child when I’ve spent my life trying to stand up for my needs and wants.)

I’m glad you now like your T - it is interesting how many people are saying that they initially didn’t particularly like their Ts. Maybe it’s all part of the process?

Starfish thanks to you too - it actually does make me feel a bit better knowing that not all people instantly like their Ts. It’s a bit worrying though too when I compare how flexible other people’s Ts seem to be compared to my new one - I’m really not sure I can handle so much rigidity and being made to feel that nothing about me matters, not even in a basic being comfortable in the physical space sense. It’s all so totally opposite to what I’ve experienced with other Ts I’ve seen. The way you describe your T is much more like what I’d have expected of this one.

UV Lol Lol Lol that’s a great way to put it - I don’t think he’s a sadistic prick - I do think though that he is pretty rigid in his views of how to do therapy and that’s what’s worrying me now. You could be right about setting up the frame though - it’s pretty obvious I’m not sitting there all meekly and gratefully hanging off his every word so I suppose he’s coming back at me from a pretty authoritarian perspective because he sees my spitting resentment and implied criticisms of his way of working as somehow needing to be squashed, controlled I don’t know - it certainly feels like a direct reaction to me rather than a ‘normal’ way of doing analytic therapy. Good for you UV for turning the clock away - that's what I like to hear! I assume your T wasn't bothered by your doing that? Or did you get a big discussion as to what was going on that made you 'act out' lol. I'm laughing at me, not you there, I've got a thing at the moment about the words 'acting out'.

It’s all so weird at the moment, I don’t feel good at all and for the first time since I’ve started looking again for a T, have become profoundly confused about what the hell is going on, what is therapy all about, what do I really want and need etc etc. I expect I shall be back tomorrow with even more confusion and rage.

Thanks again everybody for being so supportive and taking the time to reply - it has really helped me a LOT.

LL